Canadian Crossing

2023 Canadian Screen Awards nominations: Television

The television landscape looks very different for the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards nominations for Canadian television. Lots of old favourites are gone, opening up new opportunities for rising Canadian TV shows.

The Porter got 19 nominations, best among Canadian TV shows. Sort Of received 15 nominations and Pretty Hard Cases had 11 nominations.

The CTV show Children Ruin Everything has a few major nominations on the comedy side as does Run the Burbs on CBC. Son of a Critch is surprisingly absent in these categories, especially Best Comedy Series. Strays is not on the list but Fakes somehow is.

Meredith MacNeill (Pretty Hard Cases) and Dani Kind (Workin' Moms) are 2 of the few repeat nominees for the same show. Andrew Phung received an acting nomination for his new show. Somehow Hudson & Rex has 2 of the lead role nominees on the drama side.

The gender-neutral acting awards mean that Bilal Baig got a very justifiable nomination for Best Lead Performer, Comedy. While the film roles are split in half by primary gender, only 4 of the 16 comedy acting nominations are for identifiable males. as a contrast, 10 of the 16 supporting acting nominations went to identifiable males.

One of those identifiable males is the late Christopher Plummer, up for Departure.

Jonathan Torrens wins our versatile Canadian actor award for guest performance nominations in comedy (Letterkenny) and drama (Moonshine).

Usually, foreign actors tend to have more of a force on the film side. Malcolm McDowell (Son of a Critch) and Alfre Woodward (The Porter) are up for Canadian Screen Awards. Absolute acting legends, even if they are not from Canada.

Comedy

Best Comedy Series
Astrid & Lilly Save the World (CTV Sci-Fi Channel)
Children Ruin Everything (CTV)
Fakes (CBC Gem)
Letterkenny (Crave)
Sort Of (CBC)

Best Lead Performer, Comedy
Meaghan Rath Children Ruin Everything
Meredith MacNeill Pretty Hard Cases
Adrienne C. Moore Pretty Hard Cases
Rakhee Morzaria Run The Burbs
Andrew Phung Run The Burbs
Bilal Baig Sort Of
Dani Kind Workin' Moms
Catherine Reitman Workin' Moms

Best Supporting Performer, Comedy
Ennis Esmer Children Ruin Everything
Tricia Black Pretty Hard Cases
Al Mukadam Pretty Hard Cases
Karen Robinson Pretty Hard Cases
Malcolm McDowell Son Of A Critch
Amanda Cordner Sort Of
Sarah McVie Workin' Moms
Enuka Okuma Workin' Moms

Best Guest Performance, Comedy
Anna Hopkins Letterkenny
Jonathan Torrens Letterkenny
Kardinal Offishall Run The Burbs
Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll Son Of A Critch
Amanda Brugel Sort Of

Amanda Brugel, who is a Canadian acting gem, is a repeat nominee for this last category switching from Pretty Hard Cases to Sort Of. Brugel, as 7ven's mother, was amazing in that role. Another fun nod in this category to Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll for Son Of A Critch. You might remember him as a frequent customer on Kim's Convenience. Making the audience love you and sometimes cringe is a difficult task for an actor and he pulled that off well.

Drama

Best Drama Series
Departure (Global)
Moonshine (CBC)
The Porter (CBC)
SkyMed (CBC)
Transplant (CTV)

Best Lead Performer, Drama Series
Mayko Nguyen Hudson & Rex
John Reardon Hudson & Rex
Jennifer Finnigan Moonshine
Aml Ameen The Porter
Ronnie Rowe Jr. The Porter
Mouna Traoré The Porter
Hamza Haq Transplant
Laurence Leboeuf Transplant

Best Supporting Performer, Drama
Thom Allison Coroner
Andy McQueen Coroner
Wendy Crewson Departure
Karen LeBlanc Departure
Christopher Plummer Departure
Dwain Murphy Diggstown
Kevin Hanchard Hudson & Rex
Daniel Maslany Murdoch Mysteries

Best Guest Performance, Drama Series
Jo Vannicola Diggstown
Natalie Brown Hudson & Rex
Allan Hawco Moonshine
Jonathan Torrens Moonshine
Alfre Woodard The Porter

Between Coroner, The Porter, and Departure, there will be a lot of upheaval for the 2024 version. Wendy Crewson was up for guest performance last year for Frankie Drake Mysteries and is up for a supporting role in Departure.

Hamza Haq and Laurence Leboeuf from Transplant won the lead drama awards last year but only one of them, or someone else, can win this year.

Interesting to see a summer show such as SkyMed make the cut for best drama series.

Somehow not a single Podemski sister was up for an acting award.

CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage

CanadianCrossing.com television coverage

CBC will carry the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards on April 16 at the Meridian Hall in Toronto. The telecast concludes a week of awards presentations.

Overview Canadian television Canadian film

photo credits: The Porter; Run the Burbs

Canadian TV notebook: Sort Of makes Season 2 debut on CBC and CBC Gem

SORT OF returns this Tuesday on @CBC TV & @cbcgem! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 Spread the word and plan your watch parties now! pic.twitter.com/eH6ufMRqqp

— CBC Comedy (@CBCComedy) November 10, 2022

Sort Of had such an outstanding debut last fall on CBC and HBO Max. There is some new energy for Season 2 where Amanda Brugel will come in to play 7ven’s (Amanda Cordner) mother. That should be a lot of fun.

Scott Thompson (Kids in the Hall) will appear as Bryce, a wealthy investor and potential business partner. Raymond Cham Jr. will play Wolf, Deenzie’s (Becca Blackwell) offspring.

The family unit returns: children Violet (Kaya Kanshiro) and Henry (Aden Bedard) and their parents Paul (Gray Powell) and Bessy (Grace Lynn Kung). Bessy spent most of Season 1 in a coma but that will change in Season 2.

Sort Of is airing in back-to-back episodes Tuesday nights, starting tonight at 9 pm local time on CBC. CBC Gem is streaming the show as of today. Those who watch Sort Of on HBO Max in the United States will have to wait until December 1.

Bilal Baig has a much better shot at getting nominated for an acting award now that the Canadian Screen Awards will have awards for lead and supporting performances in the drama and comedy categories that are not split off by gender. Though the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television made a terrible mistake in reducing the number of nominees from 10 to 8 in each category.

Canadian Screen Awards shift to gender neutral performance awards

Transplant, Sort Of win top TV honours at 2022 Canadian Screen Awards

Loved this interview with @cleaduvall and @cbcradioq (the best)! So excited High School is streaming in Canada now! Hope everyone is enjoying it! Watch this weekend! All 8 episodes are on @PrimeVideoCA !!! https://t.co/TreqJeEyDv

— Tegan and Sara (@teganandsara) November 4, 2022

High School is the TV adaptation of the memoir from the Canadian indie pop duo Tegan and Sara. Clea DuVall, along with Tegan and Sara, created the show.

The memoir of the same name came out in 2019.

This show isn't considered Canadian even though this is literally a Canadian story. Tegan and Sara, besides being amazing singers and songwriters, have a really intriguing story.

There is a lot of relevant music from that time as part of the unofficial soundtrack.

There are a few Canadians in the cast. Amanda Fix, who was marvelous in North of Normal, is in the primary cast. Cobie Smulders plays the mother of Tegan and Sara. Recurring Canadian cast members include Jayne Eastwood and Nikki Rae Hallow.

We included a link to the Clea DuVall interview on Q with Tom Power in the Twitter capture.

The program airs on Freevee in the United States and Amazon Prime Video in Canada.

CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage

CanadianCrossing.com television coverage

We try to write about Canadian television even with shows that aren't as accessible. Hudson & Rex on Citytv has been particularly non-accessible.

The program is the major Canadian TV show for Citytv in a sea of Canadian knock-offs from American shows, such as Canada's Got Talent.

If you are visiting the United States from Canada, you can log into the Web sites (ABC, Fox, etc.) and watch over-the-air television. Same thing if you are visiting Canada, you can watch shows on CTV and Global, since they are over-the-air networks. So your humble narrator figured to watch Citytv by being on Canadian soil.

Uh, no.

The Citytv site, at first, would only let me watch the last episode. Didn't care. Then, the site required a cable or satellite authentication — for an over-the-air network. Also, my Airbnb had a Roku setup with apps for CTV and Global, but not Citytv. Of course, you can watch CBC shows in Canada on CBC Gem.

Part of the curiosity behind this program is that Hudson & Rex is all the way up to Season 5, unlike a lot of Canadian television shows. I got a friend who got me a Hudson & Rex episode from Season 5.

The obvious comparison is Republic of Doyle, since both shows shoot in St. John's in Newfoundland. Put that out of your mind since there is little comparison other than similar space.

Charlie Hudson (John Reardon), the Hudson & Rex human partner, is milquetoast at best. Rex (Diesel vom Burgimwald) has slightly more charisma than Hudson.

Chief of Forensics Sarah Truong (Mayko Nguyen) deserves a better show as does Superintendent Joseph Donovan (Kevin Hanchard). When Donovan tells the sister of the victim to have faith in Hudson, you almost want to laugh instead of the seriousness the show is going for in the moment.

IT Specialist Jesse Mills (Justin Kelly) feels like he belongs on this show.

You could tell us that a single episode from Season 5 isn't a good indicator. Fair point but this is what we have to go with for now. Feel free to defend the show in the comments.

We are much more excited about a new Citytv Canadian TV show debuting this TV season.

Wong & Winchester features Marissa Wong (Grace Lynn Kung) and Sarah Winchester (Sofia Banzhaf), an ex-cop and a naive former university student who partner as detectives.

We talk about reasons to come to Canada: legal marijuana, poutine, abortion, a different sensibility. Watching Season 3 of Mary Kills People, the lone season that hasn't made it to the United States, or Season 3 of Jann, also not available in the States: not a huge reason to cross the border but that could be further down the list. A way to pass a winter weekend in Canada.

One year after Fox acquires Diggstown rights, unknown when episodes will air

A fond farewell to Diggstown, ending its run on CBC after 4 seasons. The series finale airs tomorrow night on CBC at 8 pm local time.

A show has been notable with a Black female lead (Vinessa Antoine) with Black producers (Floyd Kane, creator and executive producer) and Black directors (including Cory Bowles). The show also was a rare legal drama where lawyers fought for those who really needed help.

Maybe Fox was waiting until all the episodes had aired in Canada to then run the show in the United States. The U.S. network announced almost 2 years ago that the program would be picked up. For those who think we are a little obsessed, don't announce on my birthday you did something great and then not do it.

U.S. viewers can catch up on Diggstown through BET+, though Season 4 isn't yet available on the U.S. streaming service. Canadians can watch all 4 seasons on CBC Gem.

CanadianCrossing.com CBC coverage

David Suzuki has been hosting The Nature of Things since October 24, 1979. Suzuki is stepping away from the show in the spring to focus on activism and calling out BS, in his words. 

Suzuki has made an amazing impact on the show. The show itself has been around for 62 seasons.

"I have been fortunate to have been endowed with good health which has enabled me to remain the host of the series long after my 'best before date'," said Suzuki.

Matt Galloway with The Current has an extensive interview with Suzuki on CBC Radio One.

We will be curious as to the new direction for the show.

2022 CBC television fall preview

Fakes is not the strongest Canadian TV show on U.S. television but you might be in the young person demo. Zoe (Emilija Banarac) and Becca (Jennifer Tong) start and end up losing a fake ID empire. That might seem like a spoiler but that info comes up in the first 5 minutes of the opening episode. Zoe is the good and smart one while Becca is the party animal.

More about the ride than the result. Any previous CW comparison based on really pretty people: well, the show is smarter and has a lot more swearing than the CW would allow (as we saw with Trickster).

Banarac and Tong, both Canadian, have a nice chemistry. Wish their characters were more realistic instead of the simplistic shy versus over the top aspects of their personalities.

Vancouver is a beautiful co-star in the show.

Fakes is available on CBC Gem in Canada and Netflix in the United States.

Twitter captures: @CBCComedy; @teganandsara
photo credits: Sort Of/CBC; Hudson & Rex/Citytv

2022 Canadian TV upfronts highlights

While CBC carries more Canadian TV shows than the 3 Canadian private networks combined, we are curious what CTV, Global, and Citytv have for the upcoming 2022-2023 TV schedule.

CTV/Bell Media

Sullivan’s Crossing is coming to CTV. Morgan Kohan is the lead along with American actors Chad Michael Murray and Scott Patterson. The cast features Canadian actors Tom Jackson, Andrea Menard, Amalia Williamson, Lynda Boyd, and Allan Hawco. The latter two actors worked together in Republic of Doyle. The series will shoot in Nova Scotia.

Shelved is a single-camera, workplace comedy set in the Jameson Public Library in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood. Think 1300 block of Queen Street West (west of BMO Field). I did spend some time at a a different Toronto library in 2016. That was a really nice location. Also, waiting for the headline once this show ends that says, "Shelved is shelved."

Sight Unseen is about a former homicide detective who has lost her vision. She meets a professional seeing-eye guide through a visual assistance app. They try to solve crimes.

The Spencer Sisters is about Darby Spencer, who quits her job as a police officer, and her mystery novelist mother Joan teaming up to solve crimes.

Little Bird is on Crave, not CTV, but sounds fascinating. Bezhig Little Bird is removed from her home in Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan and adopted into a Montréal Jewish family at the age of 5, becoming Esther Rosenblum. She goes back to her roots to discover who she is. Jennifer Podemski is the showrunner.

We don't normally talk about unscripted shows but a couple of notable shows are worth mentioning. Battle of the Generations is a game show featuring different generations (Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z) for how much they know about all the generations. This is notable given Family Feud Canada and watching old Talk About episodes and why there aren't more Canadian game shows.

Farming For Love features 5 Canadians "searching for their soulmates open up their farms – and their hearts – to a select group of urban singles." We love farmers and they deserve love. Like most unscripted shows, this feels like more about humiliation than love.

Bell Media renewals of note include Children Ruin Everything (Season 2), Transplant (Season 3), Surrealestate (Season 2 CTV Sci-Fi Channel), Letterkenny (Season 12 though Season 11 hasn't aired), and Mary Makes It Easy (Season 2) with Mary Berg, which might end up on the Food Network in the United States.

The press release notes an 1-hour Jann holiday special. Season 3 aired in Canada but is still not on Hulu in the United States.

2022 CBC television upfront preview

2021 Canadian TV upfronts highlights

Global/Corus

We already know about Family Law with Jewel Staite and Victor Garber. Season 2 will air this fall on Global while Season 1 airs in the U.S. on the CW this fall. The show is shooting Season 3 in Vancouver.

Global will also have Season 3 of the Canada/Ireland co-production Departure. The show featured the late Christopher Plummer. The show runs in the United States on Peacock.

Robyn Hood, a modern adaptation of the classic Robin Hood story, comes from filmmaker Director X and Boat Rocker. The show will shoot this summer in the Toronto and Hamilton areas.

The Global release didn't mention a Season 3 for Nurses. The show ran 2 seasons on Global. NBC carried Season 1 in the United States.

CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage

CanadianCrossing.com television coverage

Citytv/Rogers

Citytv is known for Hudson & Rex, its only scripted Canadian TV show on the network.

Season 5 arrives this fall with a 2-episode arc in Northern Ontario. The show normally shoots in St. John's, Newfoundland. The drama runs Sunday nights at 8 pm ET/PT.

Citytv has a new drama called Wong & Winchester, a female-driven buddy detective procedural, debuting in the winter. The partnership is unlikely (Pretty Hard Cases?) with Marissa Wong (Grace Lynn Kung) and Sarah Winchester (Sofia Banzhaf).

The cast also includes Joe Cobden and Anthony Lemke.

We have a soft spot for Grace Lynn Kung. Kung has been in so many Canadian TV shows: Mary Kills People, Sort Of, Transplant, Frankie Drake Mysteries.

Are show titles required to have an ampersand to be on Citytv?

CanadianCrossing.com CBC coverage

The TV-eh.com Web site is a great resource on Canadian TV. We like promoting them because they are such a valuable resource on this topic. There is no relationship of any kind; we are just generous.

Please let us know any corrections or updates to this list.

photo credit: Children Ruin Everything/CTV

Canadian TV notebook: CW picks up Season 1 of the Global TV series Family Law

Editor's note: This story has been updated with the date for the BET+ debut of The Porter.

The CW network in the United States has picked up Season 1 of the Global TV series Family Law. The 10-episode Season 1 does not have a start date.

The Canadian show premiered in Italy even before the show aired in Canada. The Nine Network carries the series in Australia.

Jewel Staite stars as lawyer and recovering alcoholic Abigail Bianchi. The premise is that she has to work at her estranged father Harry’s (Victor Garber) law firm as a condition of her probation. She also has to form relationships with her half-siblings (Zach Smadu and Genelle Williams).

Staite was the star of the not-so-great Canadian film A Frosty Affair and the much better Canadian film How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town.

Garber has a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Lead Actor, Drama Series for Family Law.

CW had carried Burden of Truth so the show could fit into a late spring or summer timeslot. The U.S. network also carries Coroner (CBC) and did carry CBC shows Trickster and Fridge Wars.

There have been Global shows that aired in the United States. Ion television carried the first 2 seasons of Private Eyes (5 seasons on Global) and Lifetime television carried the first 2 seasons of Mary Kills People. Hulu doesn't even have the final season of the show.

2021 Canadian TV upfronts highlights

Trickster coming to the U.S. on the CW in January

Transplant fans are used to subtitles with Bash (Hamza Haq) and other characters speaking in Arabic. In Season 2, Episode 3 (Sever), we heard the French language.

Dr. Mags Leblanc (Laurence Leboeuf) had a scene where she joins her sister Camille (Mylène Mackay) for lunch. They speak in French and English in the scene. Leboeuf crosses over easily from French to English and Canada and the United States.

Anglophones watching Transplant on CTV and NBC may not have known Mags is fluent in French. As we've noted, French speaking actors are more likely to cross over to English in Canada. Leboeuf has also worked in Montréal on the English language show 19-2. Even though Transplant is set in Toronto, the show is actually filmed in Montréal.

Leboeuf played one of the many Tremblays in French Immersion, a Canadian film co-written and directed by Kevin Tierney (Jacob Tierney's father). The elder Tierney also co-wrote and produced Bon Cop, Bad Cop, another film that plays on the French-English divide.

Letterkenny is one of the few anglophone shows that acknowledges French Canada. Jared Keeso, who co-created the show with Jacob Tierney, also starred on 19-2.

Mackay was the lead in Nelly.

Transplant Season 2 airs on CTV and NBC.

Canadian TV notebook: Transplant Season 2 debuts Sunday on NBC

Bilingual Canadian actors tend to flow from French to English

Ion Plus, a streaming service of sorts, may be a good resource for Canadian TV shows. According to the Wikipedia listing, Ion Plus "linear broadcast is found on Samsung TV Plus and Vizio WatchFree without advertisements."

The channel has Murdoch Mysteries, Hudson & Rex, Saving Hope, and Private Eyes.

The problem is that you have to know when the show is on; these programs are not available on demand. Unless we did something wrong. We consider ourselves to be reasonably technically aware and are confused by how this works.

If we can figure this out, we will update this story. If Ion Plus makes sense to you, let us know in the comments.

CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage

CanadianCrossing.com television coverage

The Porter will debut in the United States on BET+ on May 5. We wondered back in March as to when the show would arrive on the U.S. streaming service.

Season 1 has been running on CBC since February 21. The Season 1 finale airs next Monday (April 11) at 9 pm local time on CBC.

Canadians can catch up on past episodes through CBC Gem. There are 8 episodes in Season 1.

We saw the first episode and found the show gripping and well told.

photo credit: Family Law/Global

2021 Canadian TV upfronts highlights

We don't spend much time on the upfronts from CTV, Global, and Citytv because most of the programming is American or Canadian copies of American shows. The announcements come with shows on the over-the-air networks as well as their cable channels.

We have also noted that most Americans can't get a CTV signal, even on cable. Buffalo and Bellingham, WA are grand exceptions.

Transplant (CTV) and Nurses (Global) — Canadian dramas on U.S. television — will have a Season 2. NBC will carry Transplant and we're waiting on the status of Nurses on the U.S. network. The latter show had a problematic episode in Season 1.

Let's look at some of the intriguing tidbits from the upfronts:

CTV/Bell Media

Jann has also been renewed, hoping that ends up on Hulu in the United States. Letterkenny is shooting the next 2 seasons and there is a spinoff Shoresy.

Surrealestate, which we wrote about last month, will run on Syfy in the United States and CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada.

Children Ruin Everything covers the world of parents and their 2 young children and the struggles of juggling all of that chaos. The show has 8 episodes and stars Meaghan Rath, Aaron Abrams, Ennis Esmer, and Nazneen Contractor.

Corner Gas Animated will have its fourth and final season on the CTV Comedy Channel starting July 5. Season 4 will have 13 episodes.

Global/Corus

Family Law is a new Canadian drama starring Jewel Staite as a recovering alcoholic lawyer forced to work for her estranged father (Victor Garber). The show also features Zach Smadu and Genelle Williams as her half-siblings.

Departure will be back for Season 2. This includes the late Christopher Plummer, who filmed his scenes before his death in February. Departure is a British-Canadian co-production with English actor Archie Panjabi, Plummer, and Kris Holden-Ried. The show airs on Peacock in the United States.

Canadians can watch Season 2 of Nurses with 10 new episodes starting June 21. Season 5, the final season, of Private Eyes starts July 7. The adventures of Matt Shade (Jason Priestley) and Angie Everett (Cindy Sampson) are sadly coming to a close. Seasons 1-2 aired on Ion television in the United States but the U.S. cable channel or anyone else hasn't aired any new episodes.

Citytv/Rogers

Hudson & Rex is an example that not every Canadian TV show makes a way to the U.S. What little I know about the show is that there is a German shepherd, the show is shot in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the cast includes John Reardon, Mayko Nguyen, Kevin Hanchard, and Justin Kelly. The show is shooting Season 4 this summer.

Canadian presence on 2021 U.S. TV upfronts

2021 CBC television upfront preview

The Canadian upfronts don't focus as much on specific schedules with simsubs at play. There is also the issue where what counts as Canadian programming in terms of the CRTC is rather lenient. Having a majority U.S. show lineup isn't as much of an issue as simply having more Canadian TV shows on the private networks.

The private networks are skirting the rules but not violating the rules.

CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage

CanadianCrossing.com television coverage

Our critiques of CBC running British seat fillers is the same concept: run more Canadian TV on Canadian television.

photo credit: Departure TV show