Erica Durance Returns In Saving Hope

Erica Durance says there was a split second when she wondered if she could move to Toronto to star in the new CTV medical drama Saving Hope.
"My son's in Grade 8 and I couldn't move him. So the family stayed put and I move for the seven months it takes to film a season. It was a tough decision. But I'm back in Vancouver as often as possible."
The other day one web site voted Durance "the best ever" Lois Lane by virtue of her outstanding job on seven seasons of TV's  Smallville.
"I'll take that compliment and run with it," she jokes. "But it's nice to be recognized that way."
Tuesday night on CTV Durance returns in the second season opener of Saving Hope which finds her character  Dr. Alex Reid and her surgeon beau Dr.  Charlie  Harris (Michael Shanks) caught in a shootout at a transit-subway station platform.
Talk about unlucky!
Last season found Charlie in a prolonged coma after sustaining major injuries in a car wreck.
He also began experiencing an out of body experience where he would chat up fellow patients with life threatening injuries.
To this observer  the appearance of such "ghosts" was a really radical way to make Saving Hope a different type of drama and Durance says viewers are divided on the issue.
And in the first new episode Charlie continues to see these apparitions --he must confront the spirit of a father-to-be who is slipping away after being caught in the crossfire of the airport shooting.
Durance says she's hearing conflicting testimony from fans of the show.
Her advice? "Just go with it. It's there but not always a big part of every story."
Durance's character Alex also has her own issues. Early on in the new season she viciously slaps a young girl who keeps insisting she wants to die.
Alex has learned the hard way how precious life really is.
As a vote of confidence CTV is upping the number of episodes of Saving Hope this year from 13 to 18 new hours.
Although the first season thrived on CTV the numbers on NBC were not strong enough to warrant an order for another season.
"It's a cultural thing, I'm sure," Durance says. NBC is a network that favors male oriented shows while Saving Hope is definitely in the category of attracting younger female viewers.
"I think with 18 hours we can explore relationships much deeper. And we're not fixated on making that American sale. I'm sure it will happen --there are many more options out there these days."
I noticed at the top of the first hour which I've previewed that Wendy Crewson's name has disappeared from the credits --she played chief surgeon Dr. Dana Kinney.
In fact in the last episode of the first season Kinney was told by hunky doctor Joel Goran (Daniel Gillies) that he was taking over her job.
Reports Durance: "Wendy is back in Season 2 and we feel lucky to have her be part of the show. Her character will pop up several times --I'm just doing an episode with her this week.
And in other casting news Erin Karpluk of Being Erica will have a recurring role as a single mom who survives a tricky operation (a bullet is lodged near her heart).
At 35 Durance has already survived seven seasons on Smallville. She says "For whatever reason there just isn't that much production in B.C. right now."
She's also onboard as a producer for Season Two, a job that lets her sit in on editing and script meetings --it's a move that should make for a more rounded career in the future.
CTV also has a companion weblet series called Last Call finding the doctors chattering on about personal issues. Check it all out at CTV.ca/SavingHope.
SAVING HOPE'S SECOND SEASON PREMIERES ON CTV TUESDAY JUNE 25 AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

Welcome Back Nerve Center!

One of my favorite prestige Canadian TV series Nerve Center is back for a highly anticipated third season.
Two new hour episodes are being scheduled by Discovery Canada back to back on wednesday June 26 starting at 8 p.m.
First up it's the launch of Toronto's brand new Four Seasons hotel which does indeed include a fair measure of thrills as the hotel braces for its first ever guests.
But I far more enjoyed the second hour which examines all the intricacies involved in last year's grey Cup finale telecast from the Rogers Center.
Four more episodes are coming up as we learn the inner workings of Legal Sea Foods, Cedar Park Amusement, Barrett Jackson Collector Car Auction and Monster Jam will all be on later in the summer.
I know there might be a certain amount of cynicism involved in watching the Four Seasons hotel open its doors.
I somehow doubt I'll ever have the coin needed for a luxury room going at $1,500 a night.
But the background is fascinating: I liked the new machine the laundry staff have to automatically fold towels.
Or there's a visit with the new master chef who must get the staff up to scratch as he plans for the hotel's first wedding and must solve the traffic jam of waiters who must serve all the guests.
And right then the new air conditioning system goes on the blitz and all concernedat the wedding party  begin sweating profusely --how it is all solved is part of the story,.
I liked the sights of hotel general manager Dimitrios Zarikos clocking the new 15-minute room service menu --the waiter gets the order delivered in 14 minutes with seconds to spare.
And what about the incoming guest who left her coat in a taxi?
Turns out the hotel has 300 surveillance cameras and one of them clearly shows the taxi pulling up including the taxi number at the side.
Showing how a live telecast goes off is always good for a feature. One of my first stories as TV critic was to cover the behind-the-scenes personnel responsible for Hockey Night In Canada.
Nerve Center focuses on the 100th annual Grey Cup and the coordination efforts are truly mammoth.
It takes 200 veteran technicians six days to unfurl the equipment and begin the countdown.
We get to understand how the sound technician can pull off a miracle, how that floating camera high up captures shots never seen on an NHL game and all the tension inside the broadcasting center during the actual game.
I found this one to be just about the best episode ever. But how will foreign viewers feel about such an intrinsically Canadian story?
So welcome back Nerve center with special thanks to executive producer Kathryn Oughtred and story producer Leslie Cote of  Exploration Productions Inc.
NERVE CENTER: SEASON 3 PREMIERES ON DISCOVERY CANADA ON WEDNESDAY JUNE 26 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

Ryan Belleville Is Simply Seeking Satisfaction

I first met Ryan Belleville in a sleazy sex store located in a down and out strip mall in the wilds of Etobicoke.
No, it isn't what you're thinking at all!
That was two summers ago and Ryan andhis producer brother Jason Belleville were making a tiny perfect  TV comedy series for Showcase called Almost Heroes.
The comedy talent behind and in front of the cameras included Dan Redican, Colin Mochrie, Lauren Ash and the result was as funny as all get out.
In fact Redican warned me that day that the whole thing might be too funny --there were precious few moments of down time for the TV audience to collectively catch their breath.
"I learned from it," says Belleville who is on the phone promoting his next series, a far more sedate sitcom called Satisfaction which debuts on CTV Monday June 24 at 8 p.m. and runs for 13 weeks.
"This time I'm dealing with a recognizable situation --three people in their late twenties are living together and trying to make it in the world out there.
"They genuinely like each other, two of them are going steady. I play the odd guy out, the one who's not quite as mature as the others."

At the recent CTV Upfronts Montreal-born creator Tim McAuliffe said his new series Satisfaction mirrored a time in his life when he was part of an apartment threesome. McAuliffe says the couple he knew subsequently married and then divorced.
"Tim wanted to go back to a very simple situation," Belleville is explaining. "He was the show runner on This Hour Has 22 Minutes and he worked on Jimmy Fallon and The Office. He knows what works and the first rule is audiences have got to like the characters or they won't tune in every week."
When I say the pilot reminded me a bit of early Seinfeld Belleville says "That's a compliment. If you watch early episodes of Seinfeld you'll see them still trying to decide what kind of show they should be doing. We're experimenting the same way."
In other words the search for the next great Canadian TV sitcom is underway.
After the enormous success of Corner Gas there was a brief burst of rurality --subsequent shows like Little Mosque were situated in rustic settings that hardly mirrored the Canada of today.
Then came such semi-hits as Dan For Mayor,  Hiccups, Men With Brooms.
And now there's Satisfaction which plays as a room com stocked with crazies who inhabit the same downtown Toronto apartment block.
"I think the simple premise is our strength," Belleville says with a laugh. "These people are together because they're friends. They simply want to hang out."
Belleville reports he's currently filming episode 11 and Jason Priestley is set to direct two episodes.
"We had Jessica Pare  (Mad Men)fly in to do an episode so we're getting big names. And I have this feeling we're coming together better every week."
The TV landscape is littered with stand up comics who couldn't quite make the jump to sitcom fare. But Belleville says such gifted comics as Ray Romano have made it seem easy.
"I have to play the character. I'm not playing myself. The humor comes out of the situations.
"Everything on Satisfaction is deliberately specific. It takes place in Toronto but it could be any large North American humor. There's are Canadian references, pop culture moments. It's very grounded but Lionsgate has already picked up syndication rights so anyone can watch it and enjoy it."
The story follows Jason (Luke MacFarlane from Brothers & Sisters) and his girlfriend Maggie (Leah Renee from The Playboy Club) and Belleville's character Mark Movenpick.
There's certainly more than a passing resemblance to Friends. Jason and Mark have been buddies forever and Maggie thinks Jason doesn't consider her an intellectual equal (he's a PhD candidate in plant genetic engineering).
Asked to sum up Satisfaction Belleville says "It's a funny show about an extended family. We have 13 weeks to get viewers interested enough to want to see more of us."
SATISFACTION PREMIERES ON CTV ON MONDAY JUNE 24 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ***.

Finally Mad Men Delivered!

Mad Men is the series I used to watch avidly for season after season.
This year I found any reason not to watch. The show had become just another TV soap opera as far as I was concerned.
And Sunday night I hesitated again because I was in the midst of watching a superior Inspector Lewis on PBS's Mystery.
But my obligations as a TV critic finally kicked in and I'm glad I turned because MM finally delivered.
MM's Sixth Season was so very familiar. Maybe because I remember 1968 so well but I found the take on that period to be so so.
And let's face it everyone ages even Don Draper, even Peggy, even Pete Campbell with his receding hairline.
And 1968? It's the year the American people chucked out ole Southern Liberal Lyndon Johnson for the cynical conservatism of retread Richard Nixon.
And frankly after so many episodes what was left for MM to shock us with?
Don has had many liasons besides being married twice. Pete has had even more as his life has disintegrated into farce.
In fact Pete had a terrible season Six which culminated in the news his mom had been tossed overboard on a pleasure cruise and may even have married her male care provider just before "the accident".
And wasn't it mom Campbell who used the line he was as sour as a little boy as  he is as a man?
The most talked about new character Bob Benson (played by James Wolk) was supposed to be some kind of government agent according to the fan sites.
But he turned out to be an accomplice for Pete. Whether Bob comes back for another season is problematic --Wolk has already signed for the new Robin Williams sitcom.
Other surprises: Ted (Kevin Rahm) wooed and won Peggy then his nice guy image surfaced and he gave it all up for love of his family --and coaxed Don into giving up a coveted job in California for him.
And Don? He had to confront his alcoholism and the idea he may have damaged his daughter who caught him with the next door neighbor.
But my favorite new character is Jim Cutler as sarcastically played by Harry Hamlin from L.A. Law --remember?
As the Sixties spin out of control the series gets darker and darker. Crime is everywhere and this gang have lived through three major assassinations and the start of the Nixon years.
That means next season, the seventh and last, must sum up a hell of a lot of lives in just 13 episodes.

Steven King's Under The Dome Worth Catching

CBS goes way off its usual summer fare of reruns with the premiere of the Steven King mini-series Under The Dome.
The first episode  (of 13) which is a must see premieres on Global (and CBS) Monday night at 10.
I'm used to the spectacular way King revs up a story line and this one is really spooky.
It starts deep in an American forest near dawn as a young man is glimpsed burying a man's corpse --presumably the man is the killer but in "Kingland" nothing is ever certain.
The mab's name we subsequently learn is "Barbie" and Mitch Vogel of Bates Motel compelling plays the lead.
But is it "Barbie" as in Klaus Barbie or Barbie the doll or what?
And then in the next scene a gigantic see through wall plops down from the sky sealing in the various denizens of the small New England hamlet of Chester's Mill.
They cannot get out and people on the other side cannot get in. They can't even hear each other talking.
The dome simply plops down cutting a cow in two and demolishing a forest and even bisecting farm houses. It's invisible but hot like a poker to the human touch.
Turns out the town councillor has been ordering tons of propane fuel to de deposited deep in the forest. But why?
The way the dome affects various members of the community forms the creepy and deeply disturbing line of the first hour.
King stories always start this way. As long as the author doesn't have to explain away the premise I'll be watching.
There are hints of some kind of vast government conspiracy which is par for the course in American horror stories.
One candy striper at the local hospital even figures the towns folk are like the goldfish she used to keep in a bowl. And then one day the big gold fish ate the smaller one.
Other familiar faces include Dean Norris as the used car salesman turned town councillor Jim Rennie.
Then there's Natalie Martinez (CSI: New York) as Deputy cop Linda, Britt Robertson (The Secret Circle) as candy stripper Angie McAlister, Alexander Koch (The Ghosts)  as her teen lover named "Junior", Canadian Rachelle Lefebre (A Gifted Man)as newspaper editor Julia Shumway.
So far everything worked for me. Special effects were nicely done but tended not to dominate the story. The cast seemed duly confused and chilled out, the same way I was feeling.
With the premise in place there has got to be some kind of let down with time.
It's also no coincidence executive producer Brian K. Vaughan and director Jack Bender both hail from Lost. Because the set up does remind me of Lost in its slow, deliberate unearthing of quirky details.
Be aware author King approved a different ending for the TV series over the 2009 book. So go ahead and read the novel but that mwon't help you solve the ending.
The serial also gets a boost from the ongoing real life flap over the U.S. federal government's telephone surveillance of average U.S. Citizens. Nobody trusts the government these days anyhow.
When the ordinary folk peer through the barricades all they can see are U.S. army soldiers who are there for what?
CBS hints if the story scores with viewers there could be a second season.
UNDER THE DOME PREMIERES ON GLOBAL AND CBS MONDAY JUNE 24 AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.

I Remember James Gandolfini

I'm trying to remember the first time I noticed the great character actor James Gandolfini who has died in Italy, aged just 51 years.
I certainly do remember him as Juror Number 6 in the 1997 TV movie remake of 12 Angry Men where he stood his ground against Hume Cronyn, Jack Lemmon, George C. scott and William Petersen.
In the same year he was in Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil unbilled as a waiter or so says IMDN. And I certainly don't remember him there.
But two years later there he was starring in The Sopranos and giving the performance of his life as Tony Soprano.
He was as good as an actor can get but in one mass interview session I attended he said he was afraid of getting typecast as an actor.
It was as if everything he had ever done was forgotten and now he was this great TV star and he rather resented the loss of that anonymity.
His greatest thrill on the set, he said, was acting opposite the great character star Nancy Marchand who played his mother. She was dying even as we spoke but not before she'd fufilled her contractual obligations for the season.
I spent years in Hamilton and thought The Sopranos could just as easily have been set there because both Hamilton and New Jersey had storied gangland pasts.
In the TV universe it's one character that makes a star and some actors never get away from it.
In person Gandolfini was feisty. I liked it when shock radio guy Glenn Beck complained Gandolfini had been rude to him in a New York city nitery.
I'm glad Gandolfini got such attention and awards for The Sopranos.
But I was expecting two more decades of film and TV achievements ahead.
Jim Arness was forever tagged as Marshall Dillon on Gunsmoke.
Jim Garner despite the multiplicity of parts was always Jim Rockford of The Rockford Files. Larry Hagman was always Dallas' J.R. Ewing.
Some huge TV stars from Dick Chamberlain to Mary Tyler Moore to Dick Van Dyke never quite shed their TV pasts to make it big in movies.
But Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood did so go figure.
We'll never know how Gandolfini would have fared. He had been searching for that big movie cross over role.
I know when I heard of his death I was not that surprised. I'd heard stories about his drinking problems. He looked much older than his 51 years.
He was always corpulent, wheezing, that's what made him such a fine character star.
I'll always wish he had simply taken better care of himself.

Happy Birthday CHCH-TV!

OK, so I'm a few weeks late.
But it's time to say a sincere Happy Birthday to Hamilton's feisty independent station CHCH-TV which officially came on the air on June 7, 1954.
Ah yes, I remember it well.
My parents had just acquired our first TV set and we had two American channels to chose from: WGR-TV (NBC) and WBEN-TV (CBS) both from Buffalo.
And there was Toronto's CBC affiliate CBLT-TV which was then located on Channel 9.
And that was it until CHCH came onboard doubling the number of Canadian stations we could watch.
At that time and until 1961 CHCH was a CBC affiliate because the law dictated only the CBC could run TV stations.
However. from the beginning it was a very loose affiliate and over the years CHCH ran more and more of its own selected programs. In 1961 it officially divested itself of any CBC affiliation.
Back in those early days the driving force was founding father Ken Soble who died suddenly and tragically aged 55 in 1966.
Soble got into the radio business when he was only 16 and four years later he created and produced Canada's first live amateur show called The Ken Soble Amateur Hour which was carried over an ad hoc network of Montreal and Southern Ontario radio stations.
In 1936 he assumed management of Hamilton's CHML radio station and eight years later outbid Roy Thomson for complete ownership of the station.
I well remember in the early Fifties tuning in to CHM: for the live show Main Street Jamboree which highlighted the talents of such up and coming western music stars as Tommy Hunter and Gordie Tapp.
In 1971 at the tender age of 25 I was named TV critic of The Hamilton Spectator replacing the great Jack Miller who went on to The Toronto Star.
And this is where the story gets personal.
As part of my job I had to cover every show running on CHCH.
I originally roomed at the Royal Connaught hotel right across the street from The Spec and on my first night in the dining room struck up a conversation with the first lady of CHCH, Jane Gray.
She was almost blind by then but still starring in the afternoon craft show and she'd been a mainstay at the studio since Day One.
At the station I chatted up the chief anchor Norm Marshall. CHCH was so tiny a station he did the live newscast with the aid of an automatic TV camera that he could manipulate from controls hidden under his desk.
That's right no camera operators were present.
I also met early on the station's chief announcer Bill Lawrence who was then taping a new children's show where he'd read favorite stories to the tots.
Lawrence, of course, was the host of the evergreen Tiny Talent Time which ran live on Sunday afternoons and showcased singing and dancing tots and garnered a huge audience --far larger than most prime time shows.
Lawrence later became a friend and said that yes there were kids who'd blubber on air and more than one moist accident resulted on air.
Very early on I remember covering a live taping of the pilot for a new game show that would star Shelley Berman and feature Rita Moreno as one of the guest panelists.
I thought it was awful and so did prospective advertisers --the series never emerged.
One show that was already up and running was the daily charades show Party Game featuring the talents of Jack Duffy, Billy Van, Dinah Christie and guests plus a host who originally was Al Boliska and later Bill Walker.
One day I sauntered over and interviewed William Shatner who was the guest. "Why Party Game?"
I asked him
"I have to keep up my alimony payments," he snapped.
In 1971 I ventured on the set of the Hilarious House Of Frightenstein starring Vincent Price with Billy Van playing most of the other characters.
Price joked the series was so low budget "I'm sleeping in the guest room at the producer's home."
The producer was the versatile "Randy Dandy" Markowicz who also made Party Game.
He saved the tapes of HHOF which are now selling like hot cakes in a boxed DVD set.
But every year Markowicz would order all episodes of PG wiped so they could be used again for the next season. Unknown to him Van's wife took five episodes and these are the only extant copies I'm aware of.
I was also on the set of Ein Prosit --taped at the German cultural club. "You vill have fun!" shouted the menacing MC.
And I also covered live CHCH coverage of the junior hockey games from the old Barton Street arena. Walking on the rickety catwalk scared me because of the presence of portly color commentator Joe Watkins who weighed in at over 350 pounds.
I can still hear those catwalk boards creaking away as Joe led the way to the announcing booth.
I remember being on the set of another CHCH local success: the hour long variety series The Palace taped at Hamilton Place.
The night I watched a taping the great Ethel Merman ran out onto the stage --and she kept running. In fact she fell into the orchestra pit and had to be taken to the Emerg. But not before receiving a standing ovation.
Another big CHCH Cancom success was Piere Berton's daily half hour interview show which he made for CHCH and stations across the country. Berton told me when he was on the road he'd record up to 10 interviews in one day.
Years later he phoned Screen Gems to arrange a retrospective and was enraged all the early tapes had been wiped. Exclusives with the likes of Vivien Leigh were gone forever.
But the reason for CBCH's big success in its first 25 years was simply due to one guy --Sam Jebscher.
In the Forties Sam had managed both the Palace and Capitol movie theaters in downtown Hamilton and later he also managed the Barton street Arena.
Soble hired him because of his knowledge of the movie business and Sam  delivered big time.
After CHCH became completely independent Sam was able to land great movie after great movie. CHCH became the home of world wide movie premieres on TV.
Such biggies as Gone with the Wind, Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, The Poseidon Adventure,  Dr. Zhivago and literally thousands more debuted on CHCH. How about that!
As long as CHCH remained a movie station it was on top ratings wise.
Then the station made a bad movie starting in 1982 to buy up all the Lorimar series (save Dallas) for big bucks. Many of these shows failed and so did CHCH's ascendancy as the movie station.
In 1980 I left the Spectator for The Toronto star.
Hamilton's CHCH was no longer "my" station --I still visited but it wasn't the same.
I 'd watch in anguish as the a station underwent a number of format changes and name changes.
These days everything old is new again --CHCH is back showing movies around the clock.
Long may it prosper!
As CHCH starts its 60th year of broadcasting what else can I say except Best Wishes for the next 60 years.