Defiance returns

ON SCREEN:

DEFIANCE
Showcase -- Thursdays, beginning June 19


Defiance

Julie Benz Gets Set To Take
Her Character Down
A Darker Path As "Defiance"
Rolls Out Its Second Season

By Eric Kohanik 

Somehow, the future never seems to be pretty in the world of science-fiction TV shows. And Julie Benz says there are good reasons for that.

“I think, with the sci-fi genre, we're able to explore issues that we're all faced with today,” the 42-year-old actress points out. “We're able to explore them in a deeper, darker way.”

Benz is no stranger to the deeper, darker realm of the horror/thriller/sci-fi genre. Perhaps still best known for her role as Rita on Dexter, her TV credits also include such other gems as Roswell, Supernatural, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Buffy's spinoff/sequel, Angel.

“I love working in 'genre' material, I really do,” says Benz. “The given circumstances are so extreme that they really challenge you, as an actor, to bring them to life and make them believable. And that is exciting.”

Benz's most recent “genre TV” job has been in Showcase's sci-fi adventure, Defiance. Filmed in Toronto, the series is set in a radically transformed Earth in the not-too-distant future, where the city of St. Louis has been renamed as Defiance, a town where humans and extraterrestrial species manage to live side by side.

Much of the core action in Defiance revolves around Joshua Nolan, played by New Zealand native Grant Bowler. Nolan is a former marine who became the town's chief lawkeeper during the show's first season. At Nolan's side for much of the show has been his adopted alien daughter, Irisa, played by English actress Stephanie Leonidas. Others in the cast include Canadian actors Graham Greene and Jesse Rath.

The Pittsburgh-born Benz plays Amanda Rosewater, the mayor of Defiance who ended up losing her bid for re-election as the series wrapped up its first season. The show's season finale also saw the disappearance of Irisa, as well as Amanda's sister, Kenya (Canadian actress Mia Kirshner).

According to Showcase, Defiance was the channel's No. 1 program in 2013. The series kicks off its second season on June 19 (moving to Thursday nights this season), with the residents of Defiance in turmoil in the aftermath of the town election.

Meanwhile, Nolan is out in the badlands on a quest to find the missing Irisa, a storyline that the show's producers have already been priming viewers for online (on Showcase.ca), via five “webisodes” entitled Defiance: The Lost Ones.

As the new season of Defiance opens, Amanda is setting off on a journey of her own as well, embarking on “a much darker path,” according to Benz. “Amanda starts in a completely different place than where she ended at the end of Season 1,” she explains. “Her sister disappeared. She lost her job. And she has to redefine herself in a town that is redefining itself. It's nine months later and she's really struggling. She's having a hard time. You get to see her start to unravel a bit.”

Although Amanda is no longer the mayor of Defiance, that won't necessarily keep her out of the political scene. “I don't think Amanda could ever be separated from the town,” Benz laughs. “I think the town is always a part of her. Her love for the town of Defiance is always going to be present, no matter what role she has in the town. I don't think she could ever fully be away from the politics of the town.”

Benz has been pleased with the fan response to the first season of Defiance. She has also been pleased with her character's journey on the show.

“I love Amanda's strength,” says Benz. “And that she's still feminine but very strong. She is basically surviving in a very masculine world. Even though she's the heroine, she's not perfect. She's deeply flawed. She's an alcoholic. She obviously has commitment issues. She's very controlling. Sometimes, her idealism gets in the way. She's extremely flawed, but she's still a woman. We don't really see many female characters that can be as flawed as she is and still be loved.”

Defiance – Showcase – Thursdays, beginning June 19

(Published in Channel Guide Magazine -- June 2014.)

Anna Silk's begins fourth season of Lost Girl

ON SCREEN:

LOST GIRL
Showcase - Sundays, beginning Nov. 10


"Girl" Talk

Anna Silk Faces New Challenges as 
"Lost Girl" Begins Its Fourth Season

By Eric Kohanik 

It's been a busy morning of pushing and shoving for Lost Girl star Anna Silk.

Inside one of the buildings that once housed the Lever Brothers factory near the Toronto waterfront, Silk, who plays succubus/heroine Bo Dennis on the supernatural series, has been locking horns on this late-September morning with guest star Linda Hamilton, who returns as ruthless assassin Acacia in the 11th episode of the upcoming season.

Lost Girl begins its fourth season Nov. 10 on Showcase with the first of 13 new episodes. Hamilton is part of a roster of guest stars that includes Kyle Schmid (Copper, Blood Ties), George Takei (Star Trek), Mia Kirshner (Defiance) and Ali Liebert (Bomb Girls).

When viewers last saw Bo, she had mystically disappeared in one of several cliffhangers in last season's finale. Bo's return will herald some big changes in the Fae world.

“Bo is a key player in the Fae world,” Silk says. “She doesn't even realize how key she is at this point.”

The new season also brings big challenges for Bo and those around her. But then, Bo has always had to face big challenges.

“What's been so great about Bo from the very beginning is that, no matter what, she has been a character with so much room for growth,” Silk reflects during a break in filming. “Because she started into this world brand new, she had everything to learn and every skill to learn and develop. So, that has been a real pleasure to play and a real gift.

“Our writers and creators come up with great stuff every season to keep challenging her. But, man, she never gets to rest! She always has to fight something.”

Exactly what Bo will fight is being kept super-secret. “I'm under lock and key,” Silk confesses. “Every season, I try to think of a handful of things I can say. And usually I have a good handful. This season, I have, like, no handful. And I've said this before in other interviews: The best way I can describe it is that you have to take everything you know about Lost Girl and turn it upside down, in every aspect of the show. With so many cliffhangers at the end of last season, the way that people might think it's going to go might not be the way it goes. Or it might be.”

Silk has a much easier time talking about changes that took place off screen between seasons, including the birth of her son, Sam, in May. So, how is mommyhood?

“It's wonderful. It's really wonderful. He's ridiculous,” Silk giggles as she shows a baby picture on her smartphone. “He's really a dream baby, as I'm sure every mother says about her baby. But he really is a pretty easy-going babe. He's a happy boy.”

As for whether parenthood has affected how she plays Bo, Silk isn't quite sure.

“I've always heard other actors say, 'Oh, being a parent changes how you perform.' And I think that's true because it opens up your emotions,” she says. “It opens up your heart in a broader sense. I feel I can't answer that question yet. I feel I need more time before I can really answer how it's changed. It's busier, for sure. And there's a lot more to balance, but it's really great.”

Parenthood seems to be a good fit for Silk, much in the way that Bo felt like a good fit to her right from the start.

“It definitely fit right away because I feel like, in my own life, I'm a bit of a late bloomer,” the 39-year-old New Brunswick native says. “And I've learned to kind of be proud of that. But I feel like Bo was so new and I felt like I was kind of new at taking on a leading role, and we kind of got to grow together, so it has felt very organic right from the beginning.

“And I've definitely learned from her. I'm way more tough in my own life now.”

Lost Girl - Showcase - Sundays, beginning Nov. 10 

(First published in Channel Guide Magazine - November 2013.) 

TV Season Report Card - Oct. 11, 2008

ON SCREEN:
PRELIMINARY REPORT CARD ON THE NEW TV SEASON

BOTTOM LINE:
THERE'S GOOD AND BAD AMONG THE NEW AND OLD.


Cheers and jeers

The new TV season is only a month old. 

And, already, it's clear there are things on 

the tube that are - and aren't - working well.


By Eric Kohanik

It has only been a few weeks since thenew TV season officially got rolling. But it has already become clear. There are shows, both new and old, that are – and are not – working for me this fall.

So, what’s doing it for me?

✔ Dancing With the Stars (Mondays andTuesdays; ABC, CTV): The calibre of talent is better than ever. In fact, the first week saw routines that were already miles ahead of the final weeks of some earlier seasons.

✔ The Big Bang Theory (Mondays; CBS): Jim Parsons’ stints as the socially clueless Sheldon get more ingenious each week.

✔ Californication (Mondays; The Movie Network, Movie Central): Hank Moody (David Duchovny) and those around him keep hitting one wall after another. It’s so much fun to watch them pick up the pieces.

✔ 90210 (Tuesdays; The CW, Global): OK, don’t laugh. Nobody expected it to be good because it didn’t have to be; the show had a built-in audience. And that actually makes it kind of a pleasant surprise.

✔ The Rick Mercer Report (Tuesdays;CBC): Mercer is a brilliant satirist, even if the elements of each instalment of his show are getting way too familiar and predictable. At least the federal election is providing plenty of new ammunition.

✔ Survivor: Gabon (Thursdays; CBS, Global): OK, if ever there were a show made for HDTV, this is it. Too bad it took so long.

✔ Weeds (Sundays; Showcase): Quite simply, it stars Mary-Louise Parker. Enough said.

✔ The Bonnie Hunt Show (weekdays; Citytv): Despite its cheesy opening titles, Hunt’s warmth on this daytime gab showputs TV’s latenight talkers to shame.

There’s plenty that’s not working for me this season, too. The leading offenders?

✘ Mad Men (Sundays; AMC, A): The first season was so fabulous. But sometimes, there are such long, silent moments this season that you can’t figure out what’s up.

✘ Desperate Housewives (Sundays; ABC, CTV): Executive producer Marc Cherry reset the clock, moving things ahead five years to get rid of story screw-ups. After only two episodes, though, the show has already painted itself into a creative corner again.

✘ Knight Rider (Mondays; NBC, E!): Sorry. Maybe a supercharged car would be way more appealing if gas were cheaper.

✘ Saturday Night Live (Saturdays; NBC, Global): No matter how good it gets, how come cast members still don’t know how to read lines on cue cards without making it so obvious that they’re reading cue cards?

✘ So You Think You Can Dance Canada (various days; CTV): I LOVE it, but I feel sorry for it. As the debut week of Dancing With the Stars and Grey’s Anatomy illustrated, if CTV’s American shows have something big going on, the network will quickly treat this as a second-class refugee. If only Canadian broadcasters had the balls to put Canadian shows ahead of American ones …

Boston Legal / The Shield / ER - Sept. 27, 2008

ON SCREEN:
BOSTON LEGAL
MONDAYS; ABC, E!
THE SHIELD
TUESDAYS; SHOWCASE
ER
THURSDAYS; NBC, CTV

The long goodbye

A lot of new TV series will fall by the wayside 

this season. But there are three trusty veterans 

that are on their way out, too.

By Eric Kohanik

Call it “the long goodbye.”

The fall season is barely under way. And, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around (either the Canadian or American one), a number of new series will have bitten the dust. It’s just the way TV does business.

But this season will also say goodbye to some trusty veterans. And the TV landscape will be a little less vibrant without them.

Boston Legal will close the law offices of Crane, Poole & Schmidt for good after the 13 episodes of its fifth season finish up their run. This is a comedy/drama that has always been one of ABC’s most underappreciated shows – by viewers and network bosses – ever since its debut in October 2004.

A spinoff of a much more serious legal drama called The Practice, the saga of lawyers Alan Shore (James Spader), DennyCrane (William Shatner) and the rest of their colourful crew started off on Sunday nights, in the primo slot after Desperate Housewives. The show was elbowed out of the way midseason by ABC, which wanted to introduce viewers to a hot new medical drama: Grey’s Anatomy.

Of course, Grey’s Anatomy caught on and Boston Legal was shelved, returning the next fall on Tuesdays before being shuffled to Wednesdays and then back to Tuesdays.

This season, it airs on Mondays. At least it has Dancing With the Stars as a lead-in.

Maybe ABC brass never got Boston Legal’s offbeat sense of humour. Or maybe the occasional pink-flamingo costume simply hit too close to home. In any case, we’ll miss Denny and Alan’s Scotch-and-cigars ritual at the end of each episode.

Over in the cable world, the transgressions of Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and his unorthodox squad of cops have been simply mesmerizing ever since The Shield made its debut in 2002. Finding where they were has often been a difficult task, though.

Although The Shield enjoyed a steady American cable home on FX, it was bounced around on broadcast and cable channels in Canada before landing on Showcase, where it is now serving up its seventh season.

Producers and actors say Mackey will finally get what he deserves when the final 13 episodes wrap up in November. Just what he deserves, though, is still debatable.

When it comes to TV longevity, though, there aren’t many series with the staying power of NBC’s ER. When it began in 1994, few predicted that the action inside Chicago’s fictional County General Hospital would win the head-to-head clash with CBS’s rookie hospital drama, Chicago Hope. Even fewer could ever have foreseen that ER would last for 15 seasons, thanks to ongoing transfusions of new acting blood.

Some of the old blood – like Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle) – will be back for ER’s farewell crop of caseloads. Even so, there’s no escaping the fact that “the long goodbye” will finally fill the halls of County General, too.

The Riches - May 5, 2007

ON SCREEN:
THE RICHES
PREMIERING WEDNESDAY; SHOWCASE (CANADA)

BOTTOM LINE:
DRAMATIC, DARK AND DELICIOUS


American dreamers

The Riches is a dark drama series
about a family of con artists.
You just never know what's going on
with the folks next door.


By Eric Kohanik

Some call them “gypsies.” Others refer to them as “tinkers” or “travellers.”

Most of us would simply know them as con artists.

Meet Wayne and Dahlia Malloy. They’re an average-looking American couple (played by British actors Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver) with three wholesome-looking American kids. The Malloys are making their way across the countryside in a mobile home. But things aren’t always as they seem.

Actually, in the case of the Malloys, things are never as they seem. So, when Wayne shows up at a high-school reunion in the opening scene of The Riches, you soon realize he is up to no good.

The Riches is a difficult series to sum up. Just know that it’s dramatic. It’s dark. It’s deliciously good. And you should watch it.

As the opening episode progresses, there are some twists of fate that befall the Malloys. For starters, Dahlia has been in the slammer and is just getting out. She also has a nasty little crack habit, which doesn’t help. 

After a violent run-in on the road with members of Dahlia’s extended family, the Malloys narrowly escape a car crash with a couple named Doug and Cherie Rich – who, as it turns out, are moving to a new house they’ve bought in Louisiana. 

The Riches never make it because they die in the crash. So, the Malloys do what they do best. They rob the bodies of their belongings. They assume Doug and Cherie’s identities. And they try to escape their past and pursue a new American dream.

The Riches is the creative brainchild of Dmitry Lipkin, a Russian-born playwright who first pitched his idea a few years ago.

“I wanted to write a show about a family who pretends to be someone they’re not,” Lipkin recalled during a press conference in Los Angeles. “I always felt that’s sort of what I was doing in my own life.” 

Immigrating to the United States when he was 10, Lipkin’s family settled in Louisiana. His upbringing in the swampy South made him want to “capture that oddness and that kind of outside perspective on America.”

According to Lipkin, there are 20,000 to 30,000 known “travellers” in the U.S. Their existence intrigues him.

“It’s just a fascinating idea,” he says. “In a time where everybody’s ‘on the grid,’ these guys are off the grid completely.” 

The opening episode of The Riches does a good job of exploring the subculture of “travellers” and their sense of morality, while future episodes delve into the culture clash that arises between the Malloys – er, make that the Riches – and their unsuspecting neighbours.

“We know this exists,” Izzard says. “For year after year, you can be next door to someone, and you don’t know what’s going on with them.

“So, check your next-door neighbours.”