The Best Laid Plans

ON SCREEN:

THE BEST LAID PLANS
CBC -- Series premiere Jan. 5;
Mondays beginning Jan. 6



Party Animals

Ottawa's Backroom Shenanigans Get 
A Playful Political Jab In "The Best Laid Plans"

By Eric Kohanik

Jonas Chernick admits he hasn't really paid much attention to the scandals, backroom dealings and other political-party shenanigans that take place on Parliament Hill.

“I can honestly say that, while I knew that went on, it wasn't something that I've ever had an interest in personally,” the 40-year-old Winnipeg-born actor confesses. “I'm not the most political person. I keep myself aware of what's going on. And, of course, I vote. But I'm not a political junkie.”

Nevertheless, when the chance came along to play the political junkie at the core of The Best Laid Plans, Chernick didn't waste any time. He began his campaign to land the role with full force.

“I kind of lobbied for it at first when I heard that the show was going into production,” explains Chernick, who is perhaps best known for doing triple duty as writer, producer and star of a 2012 Canadian movie called My Awkward Sexual Adventure.

“I said, 'I know the story. I know the character and I think I'm right for this.' It was kind of a match made in heaven right away. I really feel like this is one of the best projects I've ever been involved in.”

The Best Laid Plans is a six-episode series that premieres Jan. 5 on CBC, with the remaining instalments airing on Mondays, beginning Jan. 6. Based on the novel of the same name by Terry Fallis, the series takes a lighthearted look at the behind-the-scenes lunacy that often infiltrates the political arena in Ottawa.

The production casts Chernick as Daniel Addison, a down-to-earth guy with a Ph.D. in English who has a passion for teaching but has been working as a speechwriter for George Quimby (Mark McKinney), the Leader of the Opposition.

An ethical guy at heart, Daniel gets overwhelmed by the backroom hijinks of the Hill, not to mention certain backroom "manoeuvring" involving his girlfriend, Rachel (Sarah Allen). And so, he decides to head back into the academic world, where he would be safe from the backstabbing he has endured. Or, at least, so he thinks.

Blackmailed into completing one final assignment by his boss – Quimby's chief of staff, Bradley Stanton (Raoul Bhaneja) – Daniel agrees to recruit and work for a candidate who will challenge the stronghold of a longtime political incumbent (Peter Keleghan). He soon discovers that finding a suitable candidate – or even a less-than-suitable one – isn't so easy.

Many current comedy series rely on documentary-style formats that have characters being “interviewed” to offer comments on their storylines. The Best Laid Plans takes a slightly different approach, using a more traditional theatrical device of breaking down the “fourth wall” by having Daniel (who also narrates the story) turn directly to the camera in various scenes.

“That was really fun and unusual,” Chernick recalls. “I had never done that before. I'm a real fan of that style. One of my favourite movies ever was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That was the first time I became aware of that storytelling strategy. I spent a lot of time in my prep thinking about and exploring my character's relationship with the audience. That was a unique and exciting discovery for me – and really fun to play.”

The Best Laid Plans is brimming with familiar faces. Among them: Eric Peterson (Corner Gas), Jodi Balfour (Bomb Girls), Leah Pinsent (Made in Canada), Sonja Smits (Traders) and, of particular note, screen veteran Kenneth Welsh – who, without giving too much away, puts in a show-stealing performance as Daniel's gruff and grizzled landlord, Angus McLintock.

Chernick is effusive in his praise for Welsh. “Ken is literally a living legend,” he says. “He is one of the greats in the industry. Acting with him, across from him, is like a master class in film acting because he is truly a natural. When the cameras are rolling on him, anything can happen.

“It's just miraculous to be there with him when that magic is happening.”

The Best Laid Plans – CBC – Series premiere Jan. 5; 

Mondays beginning Jan. 6 

(First published in Channel Guide Magazine - January 2014.) 

Corner Gas - Oct. 4, 2008

ON SCREEN:
CORNER GAS
MONDAYS; CTV

BOTTOM LINE:
MEMO TO PRODUCERS: ERIC PETERSON IS AVAILABLE.


Gas Pains

The final season of Corner Gas will mean 

a return to square one for its cast members. 

Even for a veteran like Eric Peterson.


By Eric Kohanik

I’ve always had a tremendous respect for Eric Peterson.

No, it’s not because of his first name. It’s because he is truly one of Canada’s most compelling actors.

My respect for Peterson stretches way back to the late 1980s and early ’90s, when I would simply gobble up his performances as Leon Rabinovitch, the scrappy, left-wing lawyer he played on Street Legal, a CBC drama series that was set in a downtown Toronto law office.

You can still catch reruns of Street Legal on cable, every weekday on Canada’s version of Bravo. Originally, though, CBC aired the show on Friday evenings, as a lead-in to its simulcasts of CBS’s Dallas.

Yes, this was back when TV was worth staying home for on Friday nights.

Peterson has done a ton of TV guest stints since his Street Legal days, popping up on shows ranging from Touched by an Angel and Da Vinci’s Inquest to Puppets Who Kill and two Trudeau miniseries, in which he portrayed the legendary Tommy Douglas.

Peterson has done a lot of theatre work, too, which he refers to as his “steady employment.” For the past few years, though, his steady employment has been the role of Oscar Leroy, the crabby dad of Brent Leroy (Brent Butt) on CTV’s Corner Gas.

Oscar has become a Canadian TV icon. His exclamations of “jackass!” have become as much of a signature for him as “meathead!” became for Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) on All in the Family.

Corner Gas begins its sixth – and final – season on Oct. 13. According to Butt, the show won’t be going out with a bang. When the final episode wraps up, it will be just the end of another day in the fictional Saskatchewan town of Dog River.

For Peterson, though, the end of Corner Gas will mean things have come full circle.

“I’m a Canadian actor, you see,” the amiable Saskatchewan native told me as we huddled in the corner at a CTV media event in Toronto back in June. “Now, I go back to square one again. Once the series is over, I go back to looking for work. I’m back to scale salaries. But that’s my life.”

It will be the life of most of the Corner Gas cast. But then, it’s the plight all actors face – even a respected veteran like Peterson.

“People aren’t banging my door down, Canadian producers, to get me to do things for them,” Peterson smiles. “So, on that level, when the series is over, it’s quite a bucket of cold water in the face again.”

Like most actors, Peterson says he is “always thinking about what the next job is going to be.” So, is the next role he wants to tackle going to be a comedy or a drama?

“The next role I want is just a role,” Peterson laughs. “I don’t even dare think of choosing, making a demand. Basically, you never get far above, ‘I’ll do anything they want me to do.’ “

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.