House Of Saud This Week's Must-See TV

The brilliant new BBC-TV documentary series House Of Saud answers each and every question you may ever have had about that troubled Middle East kingdom.
You can catch the first hour Tuesday at 9 on TVOntario. Next Tuesday there's the second hour with the finale on Tuesday April 15. Got that?
It is an astonishing project and one that is compulsively viewable.
And it all starts not in Saudi Arabia but in a small, isolated village in Bosnia --we can see torn flags of jihadists-and we come to understand the impact of the Saudi wealth and political ambition.
For the rebels in Bosnia were funded by Saudi money.
And 17 of the 19 perpetrators of 8/11 were Saudis.
And the caliphate in Syria was nourished by Saudi support.
So we can see the importance of director Michael Rudin's three-hour masterpiece which has no dull spots at all.
And, remarkably,  Rudin was refused permission to film inside the kingdom --all the people he interviews lived elsewhere.
And the scissors and pastiche recreation of events is so well done I can't think of any advantage of actually going to Mecca.
Rudin's film explains brilliantly the close contact between the Saudi family and supporters of the conservative Islamic traditions known as "Wahhabism".
The newsreel clips show U.S. Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump all doing due diligence in reinforcing ties to the kingdom --the ties seem to be fraying badly especially in Syria.
Rgere are great shots of arms being unloaded in the dark in Jordan to be transported across the border to rebel groups in Syria.
Episode Three is, I think, the best of all, an absorbing portrait of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
We've already seen how his crackdowns on corruption have even affected family members.
Or are these measures merely a way of extending his power and eliminating potential.
This hour looks at the excesses of the royal family particularly in London.
His social reforms include allowing women for the first time to drive cars.
But the number of state executions of political dissidents is way up.
And the Saudis are accused of using all the modern software techniques to trap potenrtial opponents --half the country's Twitter accounts are controlled in some by by the state sewcutity agency.
Some British critics have charged this series whiewashed the royal family.
I felt differently --there is the charge the Saudis saw weaknesses in the Syrian regime and tried to exploit that --Syria's regime  is allied with the Saudi enemy Iran and both side have been pumping arms into the conflict.
Ithink the term is "nuanced". Bin Salman can only go so far and his passion for French chateaux and the better things in life might mean he covets the wealth of his relatives.
With oil prices slipping the kingdom may be in for tough days ahead and the younger generations seem thirsty for major changes the royal family may not be able to grant.
All in all here is one of the best documentaries of the TV year and certainly must-see TV.
THE HOUSE OF SAUD'S NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE IS ON TVONTARIO TUESDAY MAY 1 AT 9 P.M. FOLLOWED BY EPISODES ON MAY 8 AND MAY 15.
MY RATING: ****.

Bill Cosby On Trial

I'm not sure how many times I interviewed Bill Cosbu.
Remember in the 1980s he was riding high as America's biggest and best TV dad.
I was certainly around when a nervous Cosby net the TV critics in Los Angeles for the first time as star of The Cosby Show.
The jokes that day were all about parenthood and how he was going to play a middle class doctor  Cliff Huxtable who just happened to be black.
He certainly seemed sweet that day and in top form in repartee. I remember he kept kidding Ann Hodges from the Houston paper who was sitting next to me  for her thick Texan brawl.
But nobody knew if he could actually bring it off.
His last series was a NBC variety series and it had flopped big time.
That day Cosby said he was going to shoot the series in New York which was one difference. He'd hand picked his cast including Phylicia Rashad and he wanted genuine family problems to be encountered.
The rest is history.
The Cosby Show saved NBC from a downward spiral in the ratings.
It made Cosby very big in TV circles and he soon spun off another series A Different World.
He'd created the show with the best of talent including Canadian writer Earl Pomerantz.
Attending the tapings were wonderful to behold --so smoothy created and filled with genuine talent.
Cos got honorary degrees all over the place and even finished a PhD on his own.
When I interviewed Robert Culp during the same press tour Culp was filled with praise his I Spy co-star telling me " Bill Cosby has it all."
And now?
Well, Cosby has been ruined --any idea of a comeback for the disgraced 80-year old comic seems totally impossible.
And here's the question people ask me: "What happened?"
One clue, I think. came with the roadside murder of his beloved son Ennis Crosby.
Ennis was shot in the head by an 18-year old in a failed robbery attempt --.
It was in the early hours of January 16,1997, that young Cosby pulled off California;s Interstate 405 and while attempting to fix a tire was shot in the head.
The outpuring of support from friends was massive but I believe Cosby was never the same again.
This was his tipping point.
It, of course, does not excuse his outrageous behavior in the least.
And several people have asked why Cosby would drug these women when he coul;d have picxked up paid escorts anytime.
In the same time frame Tom Brokaw of NBC has been accused of inappropriate behavior but many of the women he worked with at the network have come to his defence.
And TVO's Styeve Paikin has been cleared asfter accusations of inappropriate behavior.
We live in a New World Order but I'm still wondering why Cosby did all this and did he think with his huge pop status he was above the law?
a

How To Canadiamize Canadian TV

So there I was at Toronto's Varsity cinema watching the briliant new American movie Chappaquiddick and marveling at how U.S. movie makers dramatize the best and worst moments in their political history.
I felt the same way watching the brilliant The Post with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep.
And then the Brits got in the act with Darkest Hour and Gary Oldman's Oscared turn as Winston Churchill.
It was Prime Minister Mackenzie King who said Canada has too much geography and not enough history.
In terms on movies and TV King was right.
I tried to think of Canadian contributions.
And the only recent  one I could come up with was CBC-TV's The Road To Confederation which ran a few seasons back.
The CBC brass hated it and without proper promotion it died in the ratings.
And that was the end of Canadian history--at least for now.
Way, way back, of course, there was Bill Hutt as Sir John A. Macdonald in the CBC TV version of Pierre Berton's The National Dream
And it was followed by miniseries on Laurier and Riel.
One veteran Canadian TV producer tells me that of he can't presell a TV property to the lush U.S. market then he's not going to bother at all.
Recently, I checked the local video store and asked what was the most requested CANADian properties not yet seen on DVD.
"This week I've had enquiries about Beachcombers, the CTV series ENG, and Front Page Challenge," she told me.
:I did a bit of investigating and was told it would cost too much to buy the DVD rights to these shows sop they lie in the vaults."
Well, I've got an idea: start up a Canadian TV blog for all these shows.
It would involve opening up the CBC TV vaults in Mississauga but the money made could be distributed among the talent and the actual owners of the rights.
Think of it! The only time Dame Edith Evans did The Importance Of Being Earnest for TV it was for CBC in Toronto.
Mary Pickford's only TV appearance was back in her hometown in 1966 as the myastery guest on Flashback.
What about Sean Connery as Macbeth --this one has been revived but once and co-stars Zoe Caldwell as Lady Macbeth.
That's it --a Canadian version of Netflix --I can see it now.
***************
A reader asks what popular TV shows I secretly binge watch.
Well, one is Bones which I'd never watched and which runs on GUSTO all over the dial.
It's funny for a mystery, well cast and compulsively viewable.
Another is CSI which fills up the holes in the schedule of E!
Why? Because it strangely counts as Canadian content --since Toronto based Alliance Alliance funded it.
Another is Love It Or List It --the only Canadian show I can think of that spawned both U.S. and U.K. versions.
Escape To The Country is another one --why no Canadian version of this British perennial?

The Great Debate Continues

So here I am at Sunday Brunch on the Danforth with three of my very best sources in the Canadian TV business: a veteran actress, a reliable publicist and one of the most prolific TV producers in the business.
ME: I believe we're witnessing the dismantling of the Canadian TV business.
PRODUCER: Oh, you're so right. Ratings are in decline as everyone stampedes to Netflix which has no Canadian content requirements. That means there are incentives for local broadcasters to drop their requirements as well. So both Rogers and Shaw have shuttered their local community channels. And I'm hearing they want the CRTC to drop all Canadian content requirements for next season.
ACTRESS: The irony is is we're in a bit of a boomlet for Canadian TV dramas. I thought Frances Drake was very watchable and I also like CTV's midseason series Cardinal.  There's always Murdoch Mysteries. Despite all the impediments quality Canadian dramas still appear. But I say "More please!"
'PUBLICIST: One problem is the decline of print outlets to advertise our wares. TV critic Bill Harris of The Toronto Sun was eased into retirement --but for years he was forbidden to write up quality Canadian documentaries.
ACTRESS: There's a lot of work here --many American TV series shoot here as well as U.S. movies and they always treat us well.
ME: What's the biggest failure of Canadian TV right now?
ACTRESS: The failure of never having afternoon Canadian soaps. I see you're laughing but it is a great training ground for younger talent.  We did have Riverdale for a few years but it should have run daily --that was needed to pick up viewers. But it's far cheaper for Canadian networks to buy U.S. soaps at dirt cheap prices.
ME: So far I'm not at all a fan of the new, revamped CBC National news.
PRODUCER: It's a disaster. A bunch of very nice people sitting around chatting. That went out with the advent of CNN which uses panels of critics barking at each other. But CBC doesn't want to provoke controversy so this soft sell approach is used. And ratings have plunged.
PUBLICIST: I'm so old I remember when CBC-TV's dictionary definition of a hit was 1.5 million viewers. Some nights The National is down to under 300,000. For the whole nation!
ME: Did you know at one time CBC wanted to cancel the venerable series The Nature Of Things--on its 50th anniversary--but at the last moment the Corp thought again and reversed that. And NOT is one of the diamonds of the CBC's current shaky weekly programming .
ACTRESS: I get roles in big U.S. movies shot here but I'm always in the background--and I'm always asked why I never went to Hollywood. Well, I did several times, had a few gigs and it gave me an instant cachet with Canadian producers once I came home. Yes, it's very colonial but I got work here because I'd worked there.
PRODUCER:I notice in Britain there are a million disconnects every year as people ditch the TV set tax they pay there and stampede to Netflix and I can see that tipping point starting here today as more viewers just click out Canadian TV and turn to Netflix which has no Canadian shows most of the time.
BAWDEN: I was surprised talking to a Grade 6 class across the street that although they appeared ultra bright they had little knowledge of Canadian history. This year the Brits have given us Darkest Hour and Dunkirk. No such movies exist for Canadian kids to digest.
ACTRESS: I recently suggested CBC revive Front Page Challenge with modern personalities and I was laughed at. But look at the History Channel! Where are the Canadian stories?
ME: People used to ask me if any Canadian TV series spawned foreign shows. And I'd say The Plouffes actually pawned the short lived Viva Valdez on U.S. TV. But now there's an American version of Love It Or Leave It and now there's a U.S. version as well. And the Canadian HGTV series Property Virgins also moved to the U.S.
PRODUCER: Being so close to the U.S. has its disadvantages. My dad bought one of the first TV sets in 1950 in Etobicoke and the antenna was tuned to the Buffalo stations as CBC didn't even some on until 1952. We in Canada lost the TV wars even before we had TV.
ME: When I did a story on Juliette she sent me a stuffed white rat she named :Jim:"--she hated the story. But CBC decided she was getting too big and they had a no-stars policy so they cancelled her for a folksinger.
ME: But Margaret Atwood is the new great nobelist getting TV exposure.
PRODUCER: And more power to her. There have been two TV versions of Jalna --both bombs. I'd like to see more Atwood but also Mazo de la Roche!
ACTRESS: Now that we've solved what ails with Canadian TV let's order desert!

The Science Of Magic: Must See TV

As soon as I spotted the credits for The Nature Of Things latest documentary The Science Of Magic I knew I had to order a screener.
Because Donna and Daniel Zuckerbrot have produced some pretty magical TV hours from Dai Vernon: The Spirit Of Magic to The Houdini Code.
And I was right --today's TV hour only lasts 42 minutes --the rest gets reserved for commercials--but in that very tinetime frame they've covered many bases regarding modern magicians and their craft.
"The challenge was getting everything in without seeming to be rushed," David Zuckerbrot is telling me on the phone.
The thesis is that magic has become the latest sounding board for investigative scientists in fields of cognition and neurobiology.
We get a tour with one of Canada's master magicians, Julie Eng, as she visit McGill University's Jay
 Olsen who uses magic in experimental psychologyu.
In one bizarre segment patients are taken through hospital caverns and into a non functioning MIR machine where they experience all sorts of tingling --unusual because it all comes from suggestion as the machine no longer works.
UBC professor Ronald Rensink shows us experiments in"change blindness" --how a small distraction can "blind" a driver to an oncoming speeding train.
"Yes, we did a lot of traveling" is how Zuckerbrot describes it --next stop is London England for a meeting of the Science and Magic Association where the magician obligingly  distracts the eye movements of his audience.
Julie Eng remains a star magician as far as I'm concerned --her father ran a magic shiop in Victoria and she directs the society Magicana which is dedicated to the study of magic as a performing art.
I was most impressed when people on the street  were influenced to chose the card the magician wanted --we watch the show to see how.
We're shown that our eyes don't see everything --usually we can only focus on one object at the same time.
Resnick says "Our intelligent brain creates our own version of reality." To me that is the essence of magic.
And The Zuckerbrots are such master film makers (for Reel Time Images) that while they do show trickery there are also genuine moments of contemplation. This was a learning experience for me and I felt almost like a participant.
What I realized is that magic can help us in our lives.
Sure, some of the tricks I've been watching since I used to visit the Magic Room at Eaton's downtown Toronto department store in the 1950s.
And I wondered if the Zuckerbrots used magic in being able to cram so many ideas and venues into their hour --was there magic involved or was it simply seamless editing?
And, finally, The Science Of Magic truly stands as the pilot for a possible short form CBC mini-series on magic --that's what I'm proposing. So how about it CBC?
And in a year of declining ratings for so many favorite Canadian TV series the truly ageless Nature Of Things stands almost alone for staying completely  true to its original mandate of challenging us and never pandering.
THE SCIENCE OF MAGIC PREMIERES ON CBC-TV'S THE NATURE OF THINGS SUNDAY MARCH 18 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.

This Is The Perfect Season For Ageless Gardens

Here I am locked in winter with the snowploughs outside and the howling wind  shaking the windows.
I don't mind at all --the power has even been off for several frigid hours.
When everything clicked back on I clicked my DVD to play the three first episodes of the new documentary series Ageless Gardens and this one is a real winner.
You can catch the premiere on Vision TV Monday night at 9.m.
The press release tells us "It is commonly known that gardening is a good for us."
So is the act of watching gardening TV series.
I've virtually given up on seeing anything relating to gardening on the badly titled HGTV.
So I'm turning to Ancient Gardens directed by veteran Ian Toews for Vision TV (or is it Zoomer TV, I'm not certain).
I watched the first three episodes in one go and was ready for more.
In fact, I,think I'll re-watch all three during the next snow storm predicted any day from now.
The three I saw all have imaginative titles: Healing Plants, Therapeutic Gardens, The Wild Garden.
I'm on the cusp of Baby Boomdom and now contemplating the serenities of old agedom.
And my current Toronto garden is a mess although one bush imported with my grandparents from Yorkshire in 1912 still blooms steadily every year.
Visually, this is the most gorgeous series of the new TV season. But it's more than pretty pictures but a rapture about how gardening offers therapeutic factors in health and well being as we age.
In the first half hour gardening doyenne Marjorie Harris shows how important gardening is to one's mental fitness --she shows how she lives off her huge garden simply by looking out her house's gigantic picture window.
We visit with an indigenous medicine woman who knows how nature's herbs can be harvested to help with various ailments.
There's also a visit with a sculptor who has been at the gardening business for 70 years.
And I wish I'd taken down the ingredients for a nature baked cookie guaranteed to solve insomnia.
I found the second episode (premiering Feb. 19) to be even more important.
Therapeutic Gardens takes us to B.C. hospitals where aged patients are encouraged to keep small gardens in and around where they live.
The hospital garden helps them relax and think of the act of producing new plants rather than worrying about their declining energy levels.
The 93-year old retired nurse who uses her garden to combat stress -this is a wonderful portrait.
But I think I liked Episode 3 The Wild Garden best of all.
We follow a restaurant chef and friend who forage for wild mushrooms and find a staggering number of different varieties.
Sisters-in-law look for special plants for the herbal teas they can make.
There's even a champion gardener who rescues wild plants needed to sustain wildlife.
Of course I immediately wanted to toddle off to my back yard and start gardening but the snow drifts art my door just wouldn't go away.
I felt better just watching these three episodes. Think how I'd feel if actually gardening at bit.
Veteran Ian Toews produced  and directed and shot it with his usual care- -he's made a model of a series that moves briskly and is packed with information.
AGELESS GARDENS PREMIERES ON VISION TV MONDAY FEBRUARY 12 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.




.

No Stone Unturned: A Brilliant Documentary

In the brilliant new documentary No Stone Unturned ace director Alex Gibney tells us he stumbled into this true story while making another film about the World Cup soccer matches in 1994.
The details are precise: on June 18, 1994, in a very small pub in Northern Ireland a group of men were watching the match on the telly when two men came in the front door and shot to death six innocent people.
What Carney has done is not only recreate that event with all its brutality but ruminate on the massacre and why it remains unsolved to this day although the British government believes it knows the identities of the killers.
You can catch this four star production in its North American premiere on TVONTARIO Saturday night at 9.
I couldn't stop watching because Gibney is telling a true story and unraveling layers and layers of concealment.
The killings happened more than 24 years ago but as eye witnesses relate each and every incident the incident seems as vivid as yesterday.
The six victims of the Loughinisland massacre were ordinary folk and simply enjoying a night out when the masked killers sprayed the pub from a Czech-made automatic weapon.
We get what are victim statements from the relatives who calmly relate the state of the country --a civil war was ongoing between militant Catholics and Protestants.
And police had a clear idea who were the killers almost from the outset.
But evidence was either deliberately mislaid or destroyed and no one has ever been charged.
Gibney sets the scene brilliantly giving us a detailed dissection of the state of race relations between the two warring factions.
The Troubles had been bubbling forth for decades and over 3,000 people had been killed. The World Cup might have been a unifying moment after so much bloodshed.
In a strange way Gibney's film is beautiful: the stark images of the green countryside are intersperced with footage of the riots and the random killings.
We see even young children play acting with their toy machine guns and bloody faced spectators being led away by police after senseless bombings.
Gibney sets the scene that fateful night --June 128 1994 as Ireland played Italy at the World Cup and he takes us inside the Heights Bar, a very obscure pub in this County Down village as patrons watched the game live from New Jersey.
Gibney brilliantly mixes archival footage with remembrances of survivors and relatives of the slain pub members --the oldest was a darling old man of 87.
Many have been emotionally scarred for life. But just as shocking is the investigative work showing the British government pretty soon knew the identities of the killers but never acted because of polkitical considerations.
Gbney's reasons for this stonewalling can't be revealed here --you'll understand by watching this densely textured profile of a village that has never quite been the same decades after that fateful night.
NO STONE UNTURNED HAS ITS NORTH AMERICAN TV PREMIERE SATURDAY FEBUARY 10 ON TVO AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.