Smith works a double as Rookie Blue returns

Was out on the Toronto set of Rookie Blue several months ago and had a nice chat with Gregory Smith. The Toronto-born actor yakked about juggling acting with a directing assignment on the hit Global/ABC series, which returns for a fourth season Thursday night at 9 p.m.
This marks two years in a row Smith has snuck behind the camera on Blue. Look for his name in the director's credit on episode 11 this season.
Smith, 29, says his interest in directing sort of grew from being a camera bug. "When I'm not acting, I find ways to express myself with photography," he says. "I've traveled all over the world taking pictures and trying to tell a full story in a single image." Directing, he says, was a way to bring together "my two kinds of passions, right?"
Smith says he's constantly amazed at how passionate fans are about the series. "It's exceeded all of our wildest expectations, you know, and every year it seems like the scripts get better and the fans get more and more into it."
Especially last season, when Det. Jerry Barber (Noam Jenkins) was killed in the line of duty. "The reaction from people on the street, like I almost couldn't show my face in public for a couple of weeks," says Smith. "I would ride my bike through downtown, at 2 o'clock in the morning, people would be yelling at me and chasing me - 'Why did you let them kill Jerry?'"
Read the rest of my Canadian Press feature on Smith here.

Stewart's gone, but the CBC party goes on

Interim CBC EVP Neil "Roger" McEneaney

What was missing from CBC's 2013-14 fall launch party Wednesday was as telling as what was on display.
The most obvious missing piece was Kristine Stewart. This party was planned around the EVP and showcases her schedule. When she bolted to Twitter three weeks ago, she left the party without a hostess.
Still, the show must go on, and the media half of the event was impressive given the continuing austerity measures facing the public broadcaster.CBC's media strategy of creating event buzz to distract from schedule blandness is still firmly in place.
There were no roller skating hockey players or rock bands playing to stars and critics on scaffolding as at recent launches. Instead,  folks were herded into elevators up to the 10th floor studios and funneled into a large, dark studio space. All was black, except for giant screens on the walls and a simple but cool white podium with CBC's red logo on it.
Peter Mansbridge made a few, short, opening remarks. Up next came new interim executive vice president Neil McEneaney. He nervously welcomed the gathering and then got the hell off the stage.

Poorly dressed scribe awards Hawco a 2001 Sebring

A financial guy, McEneaney lacks Stewart's cool program diva vibe. As I mention in an article today for The Canadian Press, with his well-groomed white hair matching his starched white shirt, he does come across as a sober Roger Sterling.
An electric sizzle reel was shown on three of the four walls of the large sound stage. The surround sound and visuals reminded a few of us older cats of those landmark, 360-degree Expo '67 films. That notion followed us into the next stage in the presentation as the assembled wound our way through tented tunnels and into huge gallery spaces where giant posters of CBC radio and TV personalities looked down from above. A winding red carpet led past a photo op space, where Republic of Doyle star Allan Hawco and I interrupted our chat long enough to do the old "just won a car" picture bit. Another space was packed with sports memorabilia and audio visual displays reminding all that CBC has the Sochi Winter Olympic Games next February.

Cherry's jacket was at the CBC launch, but no Grapes

Impressive, but Stewart wasn't the only one missing from the launch. Arguably CBC's biggest stars, Rick Mercer and Don Cherry, did not attend the press half of the launch either. I asked McEneaney point blank about Grapes future with the network and all he offered was the fact Cherry's contract is extended year-by-year. Then again, with the NHL/CBC deal for Hockey Night in Canada elapsing at the end of the upcoming season, McEneaney probably has more on  his mind than just keeping Coach's Corner.
CBC also missed a timely promotional opportunity, I felt. With a show called Cracked on their schedule, they could have had Rob Ford or at least a Ford impersonator at the event, clutching a crack pipe with a CBC logo on it. Hey, Fox would have done it.

I spoke with new Cracked co-star Brooke Nevin at the "white couch" portion of the press day. The series is returning but has just an eight episode order, which is sort of like asking the Leafs to win a playoff series with just four players. Nevin, a a Toronto-native who's bit of a Jennifer Lawrence look-a-like, was cast after hundreds auditioned in four different cities according to executive producer Peter Raymont. She'll play Det. Black's (David Sutcliffe) new shrink. Look for the crime drama to tilt a little lighter.

One of the large displays along the red carpet

McEneaney chuckled when I suggested my big idea to grow viewers at CBC--give the Leafs $10 million. Let them go out and sign a great defenceman. If they had one this spring, they'd still be in the playoffs, and those five million-plus audiences would still be following Round Two of the playoffs, instead of the 1.6 million who checked Monday's Detroit-Chicago game.

I also spoke with Ron James at the launch. His weekly comedy series is back for a fifth season, but his annual New Year's Eve showcase had been shelved. Air Farce and, this year, Mr. D star Gerry Dee, will usher in CBC's New Year.

Kurt Browning told me he's pumped about co-hosting a fourth season of Battle of the Blades, which will be returning to the MasterCard Centre. There'll be eight pairs but no casting news as yet. The series will air on Sundays, with results folded into the one night. Tom Harrington says Marketplace will be back with another full 20 episode order in the fall. Pulling a million-a-week on a Friday night tends to get rewarded at CBC. Murdoch Mysteries ace Yannick Bisson was also at the launch, deep in preparation as he's about to direct the first episode of the upcoming season.

CBC quietly dropped that supper hour helping of Lang & O'Leary, instead stripping the Best of Rick Mercer Report five nights a week at 6:30 p.m.

Some new "factual entertainment" shows have been ordered; more on that in a future post.

Not on Wednesday's tour: Wayne & Shuster's 10th
floor Comedy Wall of Fame. Those were the days

Pickler takes DWTS's Mirror Ball Trophy

Head over to TheStar.ca for my take on Tuesday night's 16th season finale of Dancing with the Stars. It was a close, entertaining contest, and ended up being a pick-em between country singer Kellie Pickler and Disney girl Zendaya. For Pickler's pro partner, Derek Hough, it was his fourth Mirror Ball trophy, a record.

The news that ABC plans to cut DWTS down to one two-hour show a week should be welcomed by viewers tired of sitting through 59 minutes of filler to get to the next day results. Kudos to CBC's Battle of the Blades for adopting the same once-a-week format when that reality show returns for a fourth season on Sundays in the fall.

Ford, Toronto's gift to the late night talk shows

Torontonians have known ever since they elected him that their mayor was a cartoon character. This week, Hizzonner Rob Ford made the funny pages in America, getting lampooned on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as well as Tuesday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
The funniest thing about the Kimmel bit, above, is that the guy playing Ford looks more like W.C. Fields. The sketch also shows the difference in libel laws in the two countries. It's doubtful 22 Minutes could get away with identifying an actor as "Rob Ford Mayor-Toronto" and then show him behaving like Charlie Sheen post-Two and a Half Men. Kimmel gets away with it by waving the Ford impersonator off as "a reasonable facsimile."
In Canada, you can't mock with the same level of impunity. Here you've got former Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke filing a lawsuit, not against comedians, but people leaving snark on the Internet. Burke's beef is that commentators and bloggers have also spread rumours he feels are libelous.
Leave it to a politician, however, to see Burke's actions as a way of shutting down the great unwashed. Following several published reports citing Brampton, Ont. politicians as among Canada's highest paid, long-time councillor Gael Miles apparently was stung by comments left by Brampton citizens at The Brampton Guardian and Toronto Star web sites.
"We should know if we would be pursuing legal action in the future," Miles huffed at a council meeting last week, according to the Guardian. Brampton taxpayers--who already pay the highest taxes in Canada--would then apparently have to foot the bill for an action taken against Brampton taxpayers for venting their frustrations on political entitlement.
Here's hoping Kimmel and Stewart keep pulling down political pants north of their border.

This week's podcast: About a Boy and Blacklist among shows gaining early buzz

Benjamin Stockham and David Walton from NBC's About a Boy

This week, CHML's Scott Thompson turns into Mr. Question Man. Among his queries: will ratings for the Stanley Cup playoffs tank now that Leafs are kaput? The answer, of course, is yes. If you are CBC, the playoffs are over. Goodbye 5 million, hello 2.5.

Spader at NBC's upfront in New York

Scott asks about the upfronts in New York and all the new shows just announced for the 2013-14 season. 24 run in 2014. The more I think about that one, the more I think it could be a mistake.
Can Michael J. Fox really headline another sitcom? I have to say yes, and playing a character with Parkinson's is the key. We also talk about Kiefer Sutherland's return as Jack Bauer in a 12-episode
Early word out of Los Angeles, as the Canadian network showbuyers attend the Hollywood screenings, is that a new NBC sitcom based on the novel and movie About a Boy is pretty good. Minnie Driver is in that one. So is David Walton, so good on the short-lived sitcom Bent. There's also some early buzz building about Blacklist, an NBC drama starring James Spader, who--no surprise--makes a creepy-good baddie. The series has already been described as Silence of the Lambs meets The Following.
Canadian nets will screen CBS shows Saturday, ABC/Disney shows on Monday, with parties Sunday and Monday night. The wallets come out Wednesday.
Scott also asks about Seth Meyers taking over Late Night once Jimmy Fallon moves up to The Tonight Show next February. Another 35-year-old white guy? The Scott admits he's already setting his PVR for Barbara Walters' year-long retirement-palooza.
He also brings up the passing of Toronto Sun founding editor Peter Worthington and asks if there isn''t a feature film in this guy's life. Not a bad idea.
News hadn't broken yet about Rob Ford's latest hilarious misadventures so there are no cracks about him teaming up with Cheech & Chong.
The podcast runs a little longer than usual, so you can start listening in here and find part two here.

Lehman finds her Motive in This Fair Land

Because it gives away the "who," Motive was sold as a "how-dunit" rather than a whodunit.
Now that it has been renewed for a second season, it's an it-dunit.
The season finale airs Thursday night at 10/9c on CTV.
The Vancouver-based drama launched Feb. 3 (directly after CTV's power-out delayed Super Bowl coverage), opening to 1,354,000 total viewers (Live+7). By the time all the data was in, the next three Sundays also topped over a million.
Then the series was shifted to Thursdays, a strong night for the network but shifting a new show is always a gamble. Motive never really missed a beat. The first Thursday night episode March 14 drew a total of 983,000 viewers and it soared to 1,202,000, 1,240,000 and 1,193,000 the next three Thursdays. The series did another 1,019,000 April 25. In originals, it is averaging a rock solid 1.1 million a week for the season--hence CTV's order for Season Two.
The series gets its U.S. network launch Monday May 20 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC before moving to Thursdays at 9 May 23; savvy CTV will simulcast.
Tonight's finale finds Det. Angie Flynn (Kristin Lehman) and Det. Oscar Vega (Louis Ferreira) investigating the murder of a young adult just as Flynn's own son, Manny (Cameron Bright), heads off to college.
Lehman was bright and chipper when I spoke with her on the phone last week despite the fact that it was 7:30 in the morning on the West Coast. No problem, she said, her five year old had been up since 6.
On a roll since starring on AMC's The Following, the Toronto-born actress claims she stays "blissfully away" from the numbers but was pleased to hear things were good.
The ratings numbers, of course, are important to CTV, not just for its own welfare but because it can now hand the series off to ABC as an unqualified Canadian success story, the No. 1 new domestic scripted drama of the season.(Not that there was a ton of competition in that category in 2012 - 13).
Lehman says her hope going in was simply to be in something Canadians actually watched. "I signed on to do a Canadian show," she says. Having survived 10 or 12 years slogging through pilots and pickups in the U.S. before breaking through in The Following, Lehman's own sense is that the business is even more fickle Stateside.
Now she's waiting to see "what this other giant country" thinks about the show. She feels the acting holds its own with any U.S. network fare and is proud of the natural rhythm she's found with Ferriera.
"It was just always there," she says. "ABC has said one of the things they really loved was the chemistry between the two characters."
Ferriera's Vega is the more quiet, soulful character; Flynn tends to wear her heart and passion more on her sleeve.
Getting that balance and energy right is something the two actors commit to "every morning in the makeup trailer," she says. "Louis and I work hard to stay really strongly connected to our characters. We encourage each other to stay as loose as possible so we can breathe life into the relationship."
Production on Season Two won't ramp up again until August. Until then, Lehman plans to immerse herself in her pet project, This Fair Land, an on-line magazine she edits exploring "living a creative life and an artful life in Canada." The 'zine is film, photography and lifestyle based, she says. There's a story up now on the Wildebeest Restaurant, a B.C. eatery that serves the whole animal "snout to tail," says Lehman, "although they probably don't describe it that way."

Upfront 2013: Sutherland, Fox, Helfer and other Canucks make U.S. network cut

Kiefer Sutherland in, Kiefer Sutherland out. Canadian talent headlining American shows are breaking about even as the 2013-14 schedules are announced this week in New York.
Sutherland's Touch didn't touch enough viewers to stick around for a third season on Fox, but the network did announce that Sutherland is inked to reprise his role as Jack Bauer on a new season of 24. Plans to do a 24 feature film were scrapped, apparently, when executive producer Howard Gordon concluded a two-hour movie just didn't fit 24's real time format. Instead, the series will return with a 12-hour run to start the spring/summer of 2014.

Michael J. Fox is a big TV star many thought was done making a weekly series after easing out of Spin City 15 years ago. Recent stints on Rescue Me, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Good Wife have proved Fox is up to the task, especially if the show is shot in New York. That's where The Michael J. Fox Show will be based. The NBC sitcom stars Fox as a news anchor forced to step back from TV when diagnosed with Parkinson's but, with the kids grown up and bored sitting at home, he ventures back before the cameras.
Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) will headline the ABC drama Killer Woman. The Alberta native will play a Texas Ranger. Modern Family's Sophia Vergara is among the producers.
B.C. native Brendan Fehr (Roswell) returns in the mid-season NBC hospital drama The Night Shift.
Losing jobs are Matthew Perry, whose Go On was turned off at NBC. Elisha Cuthbert saw Happy Endings fade out of sight at ABC. Sarah Chalke did not get to keep on Living with Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life.
Most U.S. shows shot in Canada survived the cut, including Nikita and Beauty and the Beast shot in Toronto and Arrow and Supernatural shot in Vancouver. Cult was no surprise as a B.C. casualty. The fate of NBC/Global's Hannibal, a Mississauga, Ont. production left off fall schedules, still hangs in the balance, with hopes for a possible mid-season pick up.