CBC's Jack: Unabashedly CanadianJoe;

Sunday night on CBC comes a sturdy new biopic Jack and it's highly unusual.
It's a Canadian TV movie made by Canadians for Canadians with no pandering to assure international sales.
Jack is CBC-TV's unabashed love letter to the late great Jack Layton. It premieres on CBC Sunday night at 8.
"I'm not even ordering up an international print for possible sales," chuckles executive producer Lazlo Barna.
Last season Barna's CBC TV movie of Don Cherry sold in just one international market.
"It sold in Finland," Barna declares. And he sincerely doubts even Finland TV will not be interested in the saga of Canada's first socialist Leader of the Opposition.
Shot In Winnipeg "purely for costs" the once over lightly look at the politician shows what a good and decent man he always was. But missing is any sort of dramatic conflict until his final fight against cancer. That's because and so rare among politicians Layton was respected and even admired by all sides.
Rick Roberts gives an in depth portrayal as Layton.  Roberts looks the part and eerily captures the essence of the man.
The starry Canadian cast includes Sook-Yin Lee as devoted wife Olivia Chow,Wendy Crewson as chief of staff Anne McGrath, Erin Karpluk as a rival Conservative operative, Zachary Bennett as NDP National Director Brad Lavigne, Joel Keller as Karl Belanger, Victoria Snow as Layton's sister and Diana Ha as Chow's mother.
Says Barna "Crewson asked me to be in it, she believed in it. And we got the great cast needed to make it."
It seems CBC has a real love affair with politicians of the left.
Over the years CBC movies have tackled the lives and achievements of Laurier, Mackenzie King, Tommy Douglas and Mackenzie King.
Hey, what about the right?
By contrast a proposed multiple episode look at Sir John A. Macdonald got cancelled last year after only one episode.
And Sir Robert Borden, John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney? So far CBC has resisted dramatizing their lives.
Barna has always veered to Canadian subjects in his long and honorable Canadian TV producing career. The last time I interviewed him in person was for the fine 2008 TV biography of Celine Dion which was shot entirely in Hamilton with Hamilton Place substituting as a Las Vegas night club.
Among his series success: Blue Murder (2001-04) and Da Vinci's Inquest (1998-2005) which ran 91 episodes.
These days Canadian shows are cynically being made made for a quick sale to the U.S. market which means not mentioning the country of origin and using Canadian stars known to the American market.
Says Barna: "I call this the summer rep period for Canadian TV. For the price of a pilot an American network gets a series they can show in the summer. But that does not interest me."
With Jack Lazlo is back to telling the Canadian stories he prefers.
The screenplay by Andrew Wreggitt skillfully unfurls Layton's life during the tumultuous 2011 campaign that saw the NDP become the number two national party for the first time.
Director Jeff Woolnough has fashioned an interesting juxtaposition of actual news footage intermingled with dramatized episodes as Layton faces increasingly difficult health issues.
It's been less than two years since Layton's death which took place at the height of his political triumph.
"That's the theme," Barna says. "At the apex he certainly didn't deserve it. But he was plucky. He fought on. No self pity which is great."
Rick Roberts scores heavily as Layton and achieves an eerie physical resemblance he says came about by getting his head shaved. "I studied the shots of him, how he walked and spoke." And Roberts lives in Layton's old riding of Broadview-Greenwood which must have been some help.
"Says Roberts: "He was the optimist. Always strumming the guitar. Guitars were always right there. I mean he broke the Liberal stronghold and he broke the BQ in Quebec. But he always thought he could do it. I wanted to capture that energy, that ability to convince voters."
I've been covering Roberts since he co-starred on Global's Traders. Then came a year stint in L.A. making the CBS drama series L.A. Doctors (1998-99) but Roberts moved right back to a Canadian sitcom (An American In Canada) that should have lasted longer. In 2011 he played Mayor Clarke on Republic of Doyle.
Roberts says he's been mulling over a life of Mackenzie King either on stage or TV.
The fact Jack was made so soon after Layton's death makes the movie a bit uncritical.
But it does show the inner workings of Canadian politics.
And it demonstrates how Layton never faltered in the message he so believed in. And then four months after his greatest success he was dead.
JACK PREMIERES ON CBC-TV SUNDAY MARCH 10 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

The Next Step Is TV's New Fame

I hesitated about plopping in the DVD preview of the new Canadian series The Next Step.
After all the series which debuts Friday night at 7 on Family Channel is specifically designed for teenagers and seems on first glance to be another reality show.
But I started watching. And watching. And I couldn't stop until I'd previewed the first three shows which are very well made indeed.
The Next Step profiles 11 extremely talented teenagers aged 14 to 16 who get together after school as they prime themselves to win the regional dance festival.
The structure is very much in the reality mode. We see them come together, rehearse, form cliques, bicker and plot against each other.
But somewhere along the way they bond as a team and begin the arduous journey to (hopefully) become champs.
First up we watch the winnowing process that separates the real champions from the also rans who are regulated ignominiously to the B team.
The Next Step is a major step by Family Channel to corral the attention of younger teenagers and even pre teens.
But if you are expecting the crudities of those Kardashian shows, well, forget it.
These kids are awfully young. And they're fully motivated. They don't swear or make out or smoke or do drugs.
They can't. Every episode they must dance all out in routines that had me aching just watching from my armchair.
They're also not a bunch of goody goodies either. Highly motivated, some of them will do almost anything to succeed.
I kept thinking of the movie and TV series Fame as the best example of what a dancing and singing story can become.
And I'm fully expecting The Next Step to carefully evolve into must-see TV --provided one is under 18 years.
To further complicate things these youngsters appear to be playing themselves even though they all are dancer first and few have any prior acting experience. But the show is fictional --they sport other names and there are cliff hangers at the end of each episode (followed by that inevitable The Next Step Aftershow which will be on line).
To learn more about the show I talked to two of the break out stars Victoria Baldesarra who plays Michelle and Trevor Tordjman who is James.
Both of them had to audition for the show and at the first rehearsals over 200 kids were present.
"They shot a pilot," Trevor told me. And then there were more auditions and rehearsals which is very unusual for a new Canadian series. Usually everything shot has to be used because of costs.
Victoria tells me she heard about the show from her dance teacher who urged her to try out. The competition was tough because there were many talented girls present. But only 11 finalists were chosen --seven girls and four guys.
So now after the first season was shot (last summer) do they think of themselves as actors or dancers?
"I'm a dancer but I'm playing a role," Trevor insists. "I've only acted a little bit before this."
"I think I'm basically playing myself," says Victoria. "We shoot everything out of order. It's called block shooting and we'd do four episodes a week. We did everything out of order."
Trevor says they are given situations to play off but not much dialogue. "I can relate to my character so it wasn't tough to do."
In the first block Victoria plays the new girl in the group and she's the nice one, too. "I'm a humble person." she says with a laugh.
Every story has to have a "bitch" and this plumb assignment goes to Alexandra Beaton as the domineering Emily who creates quite an impression with her acting skills.
The other dancers include Brittany Raymond (as Riley), Isaac Lupien (Eldon), Samantha Grecchi (Stephanie), Tamina Pollack-Paris (Tiffany), Jennifer Pappas (Chloe), Brennan Clost (Daniel), Lamar Johnson (West),  Jordan Clark (Giselle) and as coaches Bree Wasylenko (Kate)  and Shamier Anderson (Chris).
Technical details are well executed, each episode tells a story but the dancing is what will keep you watching.  Made by Temple Street Productions by executive producers Frank van Keeken (Billable Hours), Ivan Schneeberg and David Fortier (Being Erica), the show has already been sold to BBC Worldwide for syndication.
So what's next for these talented teens?
"I kind of found a passion for acting," Trevor says. He's 17 and has a bright future ahead, he literally jumps out of this ensemble.
Victoria, 14, insists "Im the baby of this group." But she's already a real beauty as well as a fine dancer
"We have contracts to do a second season," Victoria says
It would be shot this summer if the show takes off as expected.  How could The Next Step not take its next step after all this?
Episodes 1 through 5 run Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. March 11 to 15 to ensnare all those kids home for March break.
And then there's The Next Step Aftershow online at Family.ca/thenext step. Got all that?
THE NEXT STEP PREMIERES ON FAMILY CHANNEL FRIDAY MARCH 8 AT 7 P.M
MY RATING: ***1/2.

Homeland Comes To Bravo

I usually don't write about reruns.
But Homeland is premiering on Bravo Wednesday night at 10 and for most Canadians this will be the first look at the best U.S. TV show of the past few years.
So this is a new show as far as I'm concerned --several friends have confided they just don't currently have the funds to buy into Super Channel which has Homeland's first run.
I've seen other TV series with somewhat the same plot --think 24 which boasts the same creators in producer Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa.
So I was apprehensive about watching this one until I watched the entire season one in advance thanks to DVDs loaned by Bravo.
And I'm hooked.
Thrillers are one of the staples of TV. And this one could have gone any number of ways.
The heroine is Carrie Mathison who is already a bit crazy at the beginning of the saga and gets progressively more unbalanced as the plot zithers along.
Played brilliantly, compulsively by Claire Danes, she is a dedicated CIA analyst. She even uses the same antidepressants her father takes for his manic depressive state
What I like is that Danes never overdoes the desperation, rher she builds on it scene after scene. I haven't seen much of her since she so captivated audiences in the series My So Called Life.
But as an adult she has grown and stretched into a difficult part.
Equally challenges is the British actor Damien Lewis who I liked a lot in the short lived series Life. He plays a recently released prisoner who has suffered eight years of psychological torture. In some ways his story arc takes up where The Manchurian Candidate left off.
Equally brilliant is the man who in effect plays her caretaker at the agency --Mandy Patinkin is back in another series just as troubling as his last (Criminal Minds).
The imminent threats are as potent as in 24 but because this is cable story lines fairly lumber along. This makes for meaty characterization, In some ways the slow pace is lulling as we get to know Carrie and how she always feel betrayed by her own personal failings.
Anyhow I now feel Homeland is the best U.S. series currently running. That's right, I've shed my Mad Men allegiance and that was pretty hard.
So watch and tell me what you think.
HOMELAND STARTS ON BRAVO WEDNESDAY MARCH 6 AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: ****

I Remember Jeannine Locke

CBC producer Jeannine Locke was a real pepper pot.
I remember in 1977 I was sitting in a CBC screening room with her as we watched her latest TV production: The Family Prince, a look at Prince Charles.
At the end the young prince turns to Jeanine off camera and asks "Was that good enough?"
And Locke then explained she was taking that line out because she didn't want Charles to think she was taking advantage of his  camera innocence.
I thought it was a line that humanized Charles but she would not budge.
She never would bend, you see.
A talented writer, Locke died last week, aged 87, still feisty and argumentative to the end.
The last time I bunped into her she took me to Timothy's coffee shop in Toronto's Manulife Center and calmly dissected all the current ailments of her beloved CBC.
"Public Television is worth preserving, worth fighting for," she maintained --it was a line of hers I had often heard.
Born in Saskatchewan she jumped into the newspaper world finally winding up at the Toronto Star for a decade before jumping again in 1969 to CBC.
By 1980 she was specializing in docudramas including the three parter You've Come Along way Katie with Lally Cadeau .
I tried to get on the set of every Locke TV movie because she always gave great copy.
She usually wrote the scripts and was on set every minute to aid, assist  and occasionally harass the director.
I remember particularly the force of Chautauqua Girl (1983) because after privately previewing it CBC President Pierre Juneau predicted it would fail with viewers.
Enraged, Locke forced him to sit beside her at a special press screening and had the last laugh when Chautauqua Girl won its time slot and launched the career of young director Rob Iscove.
Also highly praised and highly rated were such Locke TV movies as The Other Kingdom (1984) with Gordon Clapp and Terence Kelly and The Private Capital (1989), a four hour look at life and love in Ottawa in Laurier era with Marha Kelly, Clapp and Michael Riley.
Her final CBC effort, The Greening Of Ian Elliott (1992) starred Carol Sinclair and Helen Carscallen. and was a highly unusual drama with an ecology theme.
Locke left CBC because she feared the private broadcaster was only attempting highly commercialized fare.
She had quite a dust up with CBC's Yvan Fecan but in the long run her fears were justified --there's nothing on the CBC schedule these days to compare with any of those well remembered Locke TV movies.

Is History's Bible Remake Really Cool?

"How cool was that?"

Survivor and Apprentice producer Mark Burnett says that was his reaction as a kid when he first saw Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments on TV.
Specifically he was referring to De Mille's parting of the Red Sea which star Charlton Heston once explained to me was done using great blocks of jello which were then blown up to super size.
So now in the latest TV version of The Bible Burnett gets to part the Red Sea, fill Noah's Arc with thousands of furry friends, plop Daniel in the lions' den and even send Jesus to the crucifixion.
And it's all with a brand of special effects that were not available to past marauders of The Bible.
The results are on display starting Sunday March 3 at 8 p.m. on History.
Co-producer is Burnett's wife, Irish actress Roma Downey who toiled on TV in the hit series Touched By An Angel which for its long run remarkably avoided mentioning the "J" word.
And this TV saga from Burnett and Downey is similarly straddling the fence.
Out is the majestic syntax of the King James version of the Bible.
In its place is the dull (almost prosaic) translation called the New International Version which is favored by evangelical Christians.
Now this isn't the first time TV has attempted such a mammoth undertaking.
Starting in 1994 A&E undertook a four year project called Mysteries Of The Bible with Richard Kiley as narrator and Jean Simmons reading select passages.
Filming was undertaken at the actual sites and as packaged by David Wolper the entire opus ran for years with guest appearances from leading archeologists and even evangelist Jerry Falwell.
Let's just call this latest remake "The Compact Edition" and leave it at that.
In just 10 hours the story fairly whistles by as narrator  Keith David solemnly intones what we are seeing until I longed to tell him to shut up.
The actors are largely unknown but some of them do very well --like Jake Canuso  who is well cast as Daniel although in one of my favorite stories, Daniel in the lions' den, the screeching cats clearly have been printed in and never come into direct eye contact with the hero.
Also in the rto hours I saw Peter Guinness made something of Nebuchadnezzer and Greg Hicks was a solemn Pontius Pilate.
The narrative hops and skips at such a frenzy that one moment we're with Daniel and then plop 500 years have passed and Jesus is born to an extremely youthful and bewildered Joseph and his teen bride Mary.
A few set pieces later and Jesus is all grown up, gets baptized by John and then encounters Satan and a snake in the desert. This Jesus, Diogo Morgado, is perhaps too handsome but his interpretation is all sincerity.
In other words everything is at a fast clip which is the way they do things on reality TV.
The special effects which I've seen only in the fifth and final two-hour installment are, however, special. The siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is a miracle of CGI and concludes with the spectacle of hundreds of flaming arrows zinging through the night sky to set the city on flame.
There's a lot of violence shown here but very little sex.
For that sort of thing you'll have to rent the DVD of Samson And Delilah produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille who certainly knew how to present that kind of thing.
Production details are often lavish but some key scenes are presented in a strangely pestrian fashion.
Made for $20 million but looking twice as expensive,  TV's latest  Bible remake packs in too much --telling everything from Genesis to the Resurrection in just 10 hours always was a near impossibility.
But it covers most of the major stories albeit in a too hurried fashion.
What is missing is much of the majesty and greatness of the text along the way.
THE BIBLE PREMIERES ON HISTORY SUNDAY MARCH 3 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

The Vikings Are Coming!

I had trouble settling into the new miniseries The Vikings but the problem was entirely my fault.
Visions of a Monthy Python skit danced in my head and  later I wondered if this was going to be the Norse version of Spartacus.
It's the first scripted original drama series to run on the U.S. History channel and Canada's History.
And the credentials are impeccable. A joint Canada/Ireland co-production, it boasts the respected Canadian executive producer Sheila Hockin (QAF, The Tudors).
The much anticipated premiere is on History Sunday March 3 at 10 p.m.
Vikings was created and written by Michael Hirst (The Tudors) and he's joined as executive producer by Morgan O'Sullivan (The Tudors), and John Weber (The Borgias).
The Canadian director is Ken Girotti (Bomb Girls) who joins Johan Renck (The Walking Dead) who directs the first three hours.
Both History channels are hoping Vikings becomes the next Game Of Thrones with its strong emphasis on action --if it succeeds it will attract the same young males who crave GOT.
Vikings takes us back to 739 A.D.
Ragnar (Travis Fimmel) is a young Viking farmer and farmer who yearly joins hunting parties that ravage the eastern Baltic sea nations. But he has heard there are wealthier countries to the west, countries which local chieftain Earl Haraldson (Gabe Byrne)  imagines to be dangerous, uncharted territory.
So Ragnar joins the local boat builder Floki (Gustav Skarsgard) to build a new ship capable of sailing on the northern Atlantic.
Mostly shot in Ireland and featuring wondrous CGI shots of great ship sailing the open seas, Vikings has a huge $40 million budget although the lack of star names may hurt a bit in North America.
Canadian actress Katheryn Winnick scores as Ragnar's wife who is described as a "shield maiden". Another Canadian, Jessalyn Gilsig, plays Earl's saucy wife.
Technically the eight-hour series soars with magnificent coastal scenery and a series of bloody, pitched battles every time the story threatens to lag.
Obviously History has restrained Hirst's usual penchant for nudity. At times Vikings plays like a family saga as Ragnar and his wife quarrel over the children and his long absences from home.
And as with all these sagas the accents frequently clash. But Hirst gets some drama about the plight of the Vikings as they first encountered the Christian inhabitants of Great Britain --one young monk Athelstan (played by George Blagden) is taken into slavery and gradually, insidiously tries to convert his heathen masters.
Hirst gets it right when dealing with the big issues like the awakening of the Vikings as they meet people of more advanced cultures.
To attract young males there are bloody battles particularly the one that opens the series --the battlefield is strewn with corpses as hundreds of ravens screech in the sky (a nice CGI touch).
But there's also humor --the young monk tries to explain celibacy to the lusty Vikings and grows morose when his shaved head begins sprouting hair.
Fimmel once bombed out as TV's Tarzan but a decade later has the presence to carry this story and makes a good team with Skarsgard (brother of Alexander from True Blood).
Vikings doesn't quite pack all the punch of Game Of Thrones but comes a very close second which is saying a lot.
VIKINGS PREMIERES ON HISTORY SUNDAY MARCH 3 AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

Red Widow Is An Intriguing New Thriller

This is the midseason of the midseason, that odd time when the U.S. networks unveil series they're just not that sure about.
Last week CBS started it all with the new cop show Golden Boy.
Sunday  March 3 at 9 p.m. comes  ABC's Red Widow on CTV Two.
A lot of money was spent on the pilot which I've just seen. Cinematically this one is an outstanding combination of thrills and revelations all set in the San Francisco area.
It's based on a Dutch TV series called Penoza and was written for American TV by Melissa Rosenberg who scripted the Twilight movies as well as the TV success Dexter.
When you watch you'll certainly think of the series Missing with Ashley Judd because it features an equally strong heroine in Radha Mitchell. She has an intensity that makes you want to stay with the plot despite standard opening bumps ad twists.
Directed compellingly by Mark Pellington the opening hour takes us into the seemingly secure world of a Bay area housewife who one the surface seems to have everything.
As Marta Walraven, she lives in a grand glass house in upscale Marin County and has three photogenic children and a strong marriage.
But wait a minute. Her husband (Anson Mount) is a fisherman. How can he afford to keep the family going with such a lavish lifestyle.
And her father  (Rade Serbedzija) has had some kind of connection with the mob the rest of the family has mostly ignored.
It's all told from the female perspective which is still unusual on mainstream TV.
And some very compelling character stars pop up to hold the wobbling narrative in place.
Let's see, there's gangland don Nicholae Schiller (Goran Visnjic)i as a Russian mobster.
Her late husband's partner Mike (Lee Tergesen) wanted to make some fast cash. Is he involved?
Marta seems surprised that her nine-year old is suspended from his elementary school after confronting a bully with a gun borrowed from his father.
Obviously there are echoes of The Sopranos in the plot. But it might also remind you of Revenge.
Mitchell is good enough to switch from innocent housewife to vigilante without it all  seeming absurd . Her character is determined to find out who killed her husband even if it involves working with the Russian mob.
The first hour whistles by there's so much story. ABC is saying to stick with the second episode which immediately follows.
At eight hours in total this is a limited series ABC hopes will grow to become a fixture next season.
It really all depends on Mitchell's acting ability to keep us watching subsequent installments.
RED WIDOW PREMIERES ON CTV TWO SUNDAY MARCH 3 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ***.