CBC Really Needs Republic Of Doyle

Boy does CBC need Republic Of Doyle.
This has been the TV season when Canadian dram series edged toward extiction --on Canadian networks.
In one flash the return of Republic Of Doyle for its third season shows how important CBC is to telling Canadian stories with Canadian talent.
And Repubic Of Doyle has gotten better with each season.
Not that it ever was a dog but I noticed the polished cinematography of Malcolm Cross and the script packed with one liners from star Allan Hawco and co-creator Perry Chafe..
And for once CBC is banging the publicity drums to get people watching.
The guest appearance of Hawco's buddy Russell Crowe should be a big selling point in the ratings.
Crowe filmed his scenes last summer and everything about this episode exudes warmth.
Getting the buff Australian to do TV was a huge coup --he's currently preparing for the lead as Jean Valjean in a new movie version of Les Miserables.
He appeared only with three of his buddies from his Robin Hood epic: Alan Doyle, Scott Grimes and Kevin Durand.
Truth to tell his part is rather easy and he hardly hogs the TV screen. The story is all about Doyle trying to track down a killer and get gal pal Leslie reinstated in the police force.
Crowe seems to be the beefy head of a gang of extortionists who are out to snatch a mysterious briefcase filled --with what?
Sporting a as shaggy beard and clothing that looks second hand Crowe steals scenes with his slow deadpan delivery.
The biggest character on ROD is St. John's itself from the initial sweeping shots of the harbor and those rows of brightly painted houses.
In fact I though Canadian actor Daniel MacIvor has a better part which he expertly mines for twitchy laughs. I've liked McIvor's work since seeing him in that CBC gem Twitch City.
Stories seem a strange cross between the A Team and Rockford Files. It's a point of view that takes some getting used to but for once with a CBC drama I'm hooked.
The supporting cast remains strong: Sean McGinley as dad Malachy, Lynda Boyd as his fiancee Rose, Kristin Pellerin as Const. Leslie Bennett. Marthe Bernard as Tinny left for education abroad but Mark O'Brien as Des is now studying psychology at university..
Also scheduled for guesting duties is Reality TV star Shannon Tweed who is a proud born and bred Newfie. And I'd really like to see Gordon Pinsent back again.
Republic of Doyle is that rarity, a well made indigenous TV series that's a delight to watch.
And by the way this isn't the first CBC series to ever be made on The Rock. Anybody else out there remember Hatching, Matching And Dispatching?
THE REPUBLIC OF DOYLE RETURNS FOR ITS THIRD SEASON ON CBC-TV ON WED. JAN. 11 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ***.

Arctic Air Is CBC's Latest Regional TV Series

Regional TV --it's always been the buzz phrase when CBC fashioned dramatic TV series.
Getting out of its cramped Toronto studios and into the various regions has always been CBC's quest.
Hey, it worked wonderfully well for seven seasons and 91 episodes on CBC's Vancouver-based DaVinci's Inquest (1988-2005) didn't it?
But not so well at another series shot in Vancouver, Intelligence (2005-07) which only lasted two seasons.
Another CBC West coast series These Arms Of Mine (2000-01) faded even faster.
It didn't work in Nova Scotia for the short lived CBC venture Black Harbour (1996-99) which lasted three seasons or 39 episodes.
And am I the only one who remembers the one season notched by CBC's Edmonton drama Tom Stone (2002-07)
?And now comes another CBC regional venture Arctic Air clearly patterned after the History TV reality series Ice Pilots --and made by the same production company, Vancouver's Omni Films.
But CBC is hoping to snare that same armosphere that made its North Of 60 such a long running hit.
What emerges in the first episode is an old fashioned sort of adventure series with some side glances at modern life in the north.
Kevin McNulty co-stars as Mel, a gnarled old pilot whose rickety airline Arctic Air still flies with DC-3s that are almost coming apart at the seams.
Nobody wants to fly them so the latest recruit is an adventurous East Indian recruit (*)()() played by Stephen Lobo (Godiva's) complete with a convincing accent.
And who should wander in but one of the absentee co-owners, Bobby (Adam Beach), who has graduated into a top businessman who wants to show his partner the location for a diamond mine.
Then there's Mel's comely daughter Krista (Pascale Hutton) who happens to be the best pilot around. And. of course, she used to be one of Bobby's girlfriends in high school.
It was about then that I sat up and shouted "Whoa!"
The attempt to cast Beach as a suave ladykiller type just ain't gonna make it. I'm hoping it can be downplayed in future episode because the dude looks mighty uncomfortable.
Most of the first episode is very tentative. And that's to be expected until the series finds its legs.
So far it succeeds as mild adventure fare --a pregnant wife has to be airlifted by pilot Mel during turbulent weather --Mel also has heart problems and shouldn't be flying at all.
Although the series is shot on sets about a mile out of Vancouver it's supposed to the North West Territories.There are the standard sets up for the conversation intervals between the action scenes.
Beach did not appear all that at ease in his last TV series, Law And Order: SVU. Here he hopefully can grow into the part but on TV these days series must hit the air running with precious little time allowed for tinkering.
With many of its "regionals" CBC gave understandings the shows could last two seasons because CBC's promotion budget is low compared to the cutthroat American TV competition.
You'll stay watching at the beginning for the dazzling arial photography and the suspense of the plot.
Whether you stick with Arctic Air over the long haul of 10 episodes depends on the writers delivering tauter scripts and the actors becoming completely engaging in their parts. And that hasn't happened yet.
But in a TV season almost devoid of home grown hits I'm rooting for Arctic Air to succeed.
ARCTIC AIR PREMIERES ON CBC-TV ON TUESD. JAN. 10 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ***.

Good News: Californication Is Back

Californication is back for its fifth season starring David Duchovny as the wasted but talented script writer whose amatory adventures would try a man half his age.
Some of my friends dig this show. Some are repulsed.
There's a lot of nudity here and simulated sex scenes and many of these shots are of actors and actresses past their prime. So no ways is Californication soft core TV eroticism.
Yes, I laughed out loud during the first new episode because Duchovny's deadbeat delivery is supreme. Being a writer Hank always has the perfect line to explain any embarassing stuation.
Seeing his friend and agent Charlie going at it he remarks "Any naked friend of Charlie's is a naked friend of mine."
Remind me to say that when I happen upon a naked friend which I've never done as yet.
All sorts of words usually never heard on television including cable are bandied about. But after five seasons the shock factor has long disappeared.
Quite frankly when it comes to TV I think Mad Men sexier by far.
Too much sex is too much of a good/bad thing. That's why I started tuning out Nip/Tuck after the second year. Been there, seen that, I guess.
Californication was created for Showtime in 2007 all about a sexy writer named Hank Moody (get it) who has writer's block. At 28 minutes it's a rather long situation comedy.
As I watched I wondered if an "Airline Version" was being made at the same time.
That ruse was tried on The Sopranos and means the elimination of most swear words as well as most nudity. But if all that were snipped what would be left?
Creator Tom Kapinos agreed with critics a fresh approach was needed for the fifth season. I agree but it's not immediately apparent in the first new episode which I've previewed.
So the narrative takes place two years after Season 4. Madeleine Martin and Natascha McElhone are back as Hank's daughter and ex-girlfriend. But his ex-wife is now married to her professor. But that's all the plot I'll reveal here.
I find Californication has lots of male fans but not so many females. Hank's misogyny is part of his makeup. He hasn't so much grown wiser with the years but he's certainly grown older, sadder, he looks very tired and no wonder.
I keep watching for its malicious take on the entertainment industry. Duchovmy gives a dead on performance but it's hardly in the leading man mold of Scully.
Moody is self destructive and he knows this and can't do anything about it. Usually we wouldn't care about such a character. The brilliant writing makes us care.
Nothing much seems to happen in the first new episode. But there's a lot of catching up to do. I guess I'll stick with it to the bitter end. I'm still worried how Hank Moody will finally turn out, for better or worse.
CALIFORNICATION 5 PREMIERES ON THE MOVIE NETWORK ON MOND. JAN. 9. AT 10:30 P.M.
MY RATING: *** 1/2.

Citytv's Tough Choices: Must See TV

The virtual disappearance of TV news specials from Canadian TV is one of the most disheartening trends of the new television season.
Citytv's hour documentaries titled Tough Choices aim to buck that disheartening trend.
First up there's Gord Martineau who I've been covering ever since I became a TV critic for the Hamilton Spectator in 1970.
With Lloyd Robertson's retirement from daily reporting Martineau becomes Canadian TV's dean of anchors despite a still youthful appearance.
As he says in his introduction he brings to the table 40 years of experience and 20,000 newscasts --but whio's counting?
With Tough choices Martineau not only reports but co-writes the shows and this time out it's a most timely report on the pressures facing Canada's public sector unions.
It involves not only Ottawa civil servants but garbage collectors and firemen all of whom are tainted with the same right wing accusations that they're living high while the rest of us suffer through this economic downturn.
Martineau gets to personalize the issue by looking at the life style of one veteran Toronto fire fighter and how he carefully must marshall his economic resources.
And he shows us the historical context --the 2009 strike by Toronto garbage collectors undoubtedly turned the public against them and may have contributed to the subsequent election of Mayor Rob Ford.
We get to hear from a number of experts that public sector wages and pensions are just a bit too pricey these days --Ottawa employees can retire at 58 on comparatively high end pensions many in the private sector are denied.
But union officials rightly point to the protection given us by the police and fire fighters.
Martineau journeys to Stockton, California, to a city under siege facing bankruptcy where fire and police services are back to the staffing levels of 1950 which has meant a vast increase in crime and a response time from fire fighters that could endanger lives.
Ford campaigned for office on a proposal to "Stop The Gravy Train" but very little gravy has been found and all sorts of public services including TTC and library hours are being affected by his cut backs.
Unions are fighting back arguing they've fought for better benefits with the hope the private sector could also benefit down the road. But Martineau says almost 12 million Canadians are set to retire with only CPP benefits --their high taxes are making union benefits seem out of whack in these tough times.
Well shot and edited Labour Pains is ripped from the headlines. As I watched I remembered current newspaper stories stating the Harper government was planning a frontal assault on Ottawa civil servants.
Labour Pains was directed expertly by Karen Pinker who produced and wrote it with Martineau. Its success vaults Citytv to the front rank of Canadian networks in the race to make cutting edge documentaries.
TOUGH CHOICES: GROWING PAINS PREMIERES ON CITY SUND. JAN. 8 AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: *** 1/2

Global's The Firm Is New And Worth Watching

I've got a new term for you --"Hybrid TV".
You've heard of hybrid automobiles, heck, maybe you even own one.
But what about Hybrid TV --what the heck is that.
Check out Global's new series The Firm if you want to find out.
Global TV is bringing the John Grisham novel to TV seriesdom with support from NBC, Sony Pictures and Paramount.
Remember the smash 1993 movie with Tom Cruise? Well, that was a mere 19 years ago, a pretty long time for a TV sequel to come along.
In truth CBS had been dickering with the concept for a few years with Lukas Reiter listed as creator. When CBS finally passed Reiter shopped it to Global and NBC and it became a Hybrid with Global's participation.
So enthusiastic were the partners that 22 episodes were ordered, a rarity in today's crowded TV landscape. And novelist John Grisham was involved in the initial batch of stories --another Grisham novel The Client got badly mangled in the TV transition.
Filming started in Toronto in August with Entertainment One listed as the production company.
To qualify for Canadian content most of the cast and crew had to be Canada-based.
But American import Josh Lucas (Sweet Home Alabama) came in for the lead as U.S. lawyer Mitch McDeere and another talented American Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) co-stars as his chain smoking secretary Tammy Hemphill.
The Canadian contingent includes Callum Keith Rennie as Mitch's brother Ray and Molly Parker (Driftwood) as Mitch's ever loving wife Abby McDeere.
I spotted a lot of familiar Canadian faces among the supporting contingent. David Straiton (House) directed the pilot but multi-talented Helen Shaver is set to direct many later episodes. And among the writers there's Canadian Allyson Feltes who produced the Canadian legal show The Associates for CTV a few seasons back.
The TV series hops forward 10 years after the movie where Mitch and his wife have spent time hiding out under the U.S. Witness Protection plan for bringing down the mob-controlled law firm.
The opening scenes are taut as Mitch is shown escaping through Washington D.C. including a stint through the reflecting pool and away to anonymity.
In Mitch's return to law his practise is located in a deliberately small family firm with one secretary and a leg man. The entire family has endured unbelievable stress. When their 10-year-old daughter catches the family in a meeting in the kitchen she assumes they're going on the run again and breaks down sobbing.
The premiere episode is all confusion. There's the exciting chase followed by convoluted talk about whether Mitch should join a high priced law firm. There are flashbacks within flashbacks. I was uncertain for a bit just where the story was taking us.
After the chase the first two hours settles down to a fairly detailed description of a case of a young man who shot a taunting school mate in a rage. In its exploration of the leal points it came across as pleasantly old fashioned and without the usual gimmicks of today's legal shows.
Lucas is a fine actor who can play Mitch as a decent man without making him boring. Parker and Rennie are something of a team --other TV series they've co-starred in include Twitch City and Global's recent show Shattered. Parker seems determined not to play Abby as just another stay-at-home housewife. I mean what other series around would have the action stop and the wife explain the merits of the classic American novel Native Son to her husband?
Rennie's tough, threatening private eye seems a character who has stepped out of some old film noir thriller but that's OK too.
The Firm has enough of these authentic moments to make one want to revisit it several times before passing final judgment.
THE FIRM PREMIERES ON GLOBAL ON SUN. JAN. 8 AT 9 P.M. BEFORE MOVING TO THURSDAYS AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: ***.

Digging For Britain Is Smart TV

Has this year's downright awful crop of new TV shows been getting you down?
Sit tight --hope is on the way.
Season 2 of Digging For Britain arrives just in time.
This is TV for the Smart Set. All those craving moronic reality shows should look elsewhere.
Dr. Alice Roberts wanders far and wide as she visits sites around the tight little island where important archeological discoveries are being made.
In the first new hour, Britannia, she looks at digs where important new information about Roman Britain is being unearthed.
And it's pretty exciting stuff. At Folkestone she shows how the once flourishing Roman port offers fresh clues as to how the Romans first invaded Britain in 43 A.D.
The site of a once flourishing Roman port is being excavated and one huge structure currently being dug up was the vast palace of the commander of the fleet.
At another site graves of 97 baby skeletons are discovered --one expert thinks the whole structure must have been a Roman brothel because of the knife wounds still clearly visible on some of the tiny bones.
But DNA testing indicates something e;se --it could be a Roman birthing center where the midwives attempted interventions to save the lives of the mothers.
In Exter we see an excavation of a small Roman town whose discovery turns history upside down --Roman civilization supposedly never reached Exeter. But the pottery examples show Roman cults flourishing here. Dozens of Roman coins show commerce flourished.
There's an amphitheater at Carleen. And the biggest find is a warehouse filled with art objects --the historian likens it to a modern storage locker--it shows the prsence of Roman culture long after the Romans supposedly abandoned England.
One factory system at Bare Regis shows a tanning site --proving some Roman soldiers chose not to return home but instead turned from soldiering to trade.
Made by BBC (of course) Digging For History challenges us at every turn. It also assumes a fair bit of knowledge and interest. Whereas Reality TV panders to the lowest common denominator, Smart TV like Digging For Britain challenges us at every turn.
Subsequent programs look at sites of Viking colonization, the Bronze Age Britain, and Stone Age communities in the Channel islands.
DIGGING FOR BRITAIN RETURNS TO DISCOVERY WORLD HD ON THUSD. JAN. 5 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.
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Meg Tilly Back Acting On Bomb Girls

It was a real treat chatting up elusive actress Meg Tilly who was phoning from her home on Vancouver Island.
I hadn't seen her since she was in Toronto in 1993 as a guest star in the series Road To Avonlea.
She retired shortly after that to raise her three children and is only now returning to acting in Global TV's new six-part series Bomb Girls. In the intervening years she's become a widely praised novelist.
"I said I'd audition to this as a favor to my agent," she laughs. "To humor him I took the ferry with my husband to Vancouver and we ate junk food and had a day of it.
"And I thought, sure, I'll audition but I wasn't looking for work. It's just that I wanted to keep my agent who doesn't get much money representing me."
Tilly tentatively tried acting again in the fall in a Victoria production of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Where she garnered great reviews.
"I always told my husband if I do go back it has to be for the challenge. And Martha was as challenging as it gets. I first had to memorize that huge play. Could I do it? And there was the physical effort --on matinee days I just stopped speaking except on stage to save my voice."
Last year Tilly also did three cameos in the B.C.-made TV series Caprica, a spin-off of Battlestar Galactica so she could hang out with her old pal Eric Stoltz. They had worked together in the movie Sleep With Me (1994).
"For the Bomb Girls audition I listened to what producer Adrienne Mitchell was saying. She sold me on it. I loved the first script. I immediately hooked onto the part of Laura. I sort of understood her plight as the matron of a munitions factory in Toronto during World War II. I wanted the part. They wanted me.
"I came out of the audition and told my husband " You won't believe this but I think I'll do it. And he looked really startled."
What clinched the deal for Tilly was the promise that this would be a resolutely Canadian production with great attention to period detail.
"When I walked on the munitions factory set ain the Distillery District on the first day I thought oh no it's not ready. This was Sunday and we started on Wednesday. But they made it --the crews worked around the clock. And everything is perfect --the plant, the way the girls dressed, the hair, makeup. It's a very expensive production because the Toronto of the Forties no longer exists."
Tilly shines as the dour Lorna who is plopped from the assembly line to become matron for over a hundred girls assembling bombs for the Allied war effort.
"We gradually learn Lorna's back story and why she's like that," explains Tilly. " You'll understand her better, don't worry. Her husband (played by Peter Outerbridge) was invalided in the Great War and still limps around. She's aware the girls' lives are on the line in this dangerous assignment and indeed one becomes seriously injured early in the story."
And Lorna shows her own prejudice by ranting against an Italian-born young man she views as the enemy.
The other girls are a motley bunch including rich girl Gladys (Jodi Balfour) who the other girls suspect is just slumming around.
And there's Kate (Charlotte Hegele) who uses the job to escape from the fundamentalist preaching of her devout father.
And Vera (Anastasia Phillips) is the saucy one who comes quickly to no good.
"We block shot it," Tilly says meaning all scenes set in the factory for a few episodes would be shot before moving on to the next venue. "The writers made t work, it just flows and we had three expert directors in Ken Girotti, Adrienne Mitchell and Anne Wheeler. I tried to memorize as far ahead as possible because I wanted to get her character. It was a stretch but I like hard work.""
Tilly isn't at all certain how Canadians will take to a completely Canadian TV series, one about an aspect of our history that's almost unknown.
"The women had to grow up fast. And then at war's end the lost their jobs to the men returning from battle. And many wound up in the Fifties out in the suburbs. It's such a sad story in some ways."
She's committed for another season if the show gets picked up. And she continues writing fiction.
"But next I'll be acting again in Toronto at Taragon Theater in a Michael Tremblay play."
BOMB GIRLS PREMIERES ON GLOBAL TV ON WED. JAN. 4 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: *** 1/2.