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November-December 2018

I grew up in the age of VCR recordings and pay-per-view. Now, I’m raising my son in the streaming era.

Anne Thériault on what she's learned from Netflix, iPads, and her seven-year-old

Anne Thériault

Now that my son is seven, our weekend mornings have gelled into a proper routine. He wakes up at some ungodly hour—earlier, by the way, than he gets up on weekdays—and plays for a while in his room. When he’s tired of that, he’ll grab a couple of granola bars from the kitchen and then […] More »
November-December 2018

I gave up television for 35 years. Why I started watching again

Writer Thelma Fayle jumps back into the world of TV and finds value in the medium that she never did before

Thelma Fayle

In the 1980s, Dan Hubbard and Richard Catinus were two brainy young guys trying to sell Apple computers when I was working in a government office that used IBMs. While outlining the advantages of using a Mac for my work, Dan mentioned in passing that, after reading Jerry Mander’s book, Four Arguments for the Elimination […] More »
July-August 2018

When it comes to representations of OCD in media, we can do so much better

We shouldn't have to rely on stereotyped characters to see ourselves in the shows and movies we consume

Lisa Whittington-Hill

I am quite open about the fact that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. Talking about it comes easy to me. More difficult to handle are the reactions I get from others. “So are you like that nerd on The Big Bang Theory?” someone in a work meeting recently joked after I mentioned my […] More »

Where is Canada’s multicultural television space?

Russell Peters's new TV show hits all the wrong notes in a media space desperate for more representation

Aadil Brar

Russell Peters’s much awaited return to television was finally satiated with the CTV show The Indian Detective, which aired last December. The sitcom has been five years in the making, and it’s a first for Peters, a Canadian stand-up comedian who began his career in Toronto. It tells the story of Doug D’Mello (played by […] More »
January-February 2018

Is love on a deadline? According to The Bachelor, yes

A look at the reality TV show from Suzannah Showler's Most Dramatic Ever

Suzannah Showler

Time bends on The Bachelor. For one thing, its passage is parsed in weeks, as if love’s progress was some form of gestation hitting developmental milestones, scaling up from lima bean to lemon to dragon fruit. And within this episodic unfurling, contestants suffer the effects of time turned lopsided. Bachelor time is like chewing gum: it […] More »
November-December 2017

An ode to old technology

In defence of the big-ass cellphone in our pop culture favourites

Lisa Whittington-Hill

Dear pop culture, You know I love you, but you really need to stop making me nostalgic for the technology of days gone by. Please, I beg of you, stop reminding me of the good old days like I am Lindsay Lohan and you are 2004. In Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, Adam Driver’s character Paterson refuses […] More »
July-August 2017

Where CBC’s The Story of Us went wrong

From historical inaccuracies to the commentary of (irrelevant) Canadian celebrities

andrea bennett

When I was a child, I used to confuse the title of Us Weekly magazine—a glossy about celebrities—as U.S. magazine, the entirety of America summed up in a glossy about celebrities. Twenty years later, the same can be done with Canada: The Story of Us. First-person plural pronouns are a messy affair, and it turns out […] More »
May-June 2017

The joy of watching TV at your own pace

Binge-watching seasons of TV may be celebrated, but there’s solace in viewing on your own time

Lisa Whittington-Hill@nerdygirly

My decision to watch Flavor Flav over Tony Soprano was, at the time, a no-brainer. On March 12, 2006, I had two television options: a viewing party of the first episode of the final, and sixth, season of HBO’s hit crime drama The Sopranos or a solo session with the first season ender of VH1’s Flavor […] More »
May-June 2017

The curse of nostalgia on millennial television

Shows for millennial audiences rely on sentimentality to reel in its viewers. In the case of Riverdale, it’s a detrimental move

Richard Kelly Kemick@richardkemick

The camera pans the much-anticipated pep rally, tasked with cheering-up the students of Riverdale High after their classmate’s recent murder. The cheerleading squad performs a dance to a mash-up of “Sugar, Sugar” (aptly, by The Archies), and even though the choreography is composed mainly of coquettish shrugging, the performance is so emotionally damaging to Cheryl Blossom—twin […] More »
January-February 2017

Why Canada needs quality queer entertainment

Carmilla's Natasha Negovanlis reflects on the responsibility of queer entertainers, both on screen and off

Natasha Negovanlis@natvanlis

Photo courtesy of Jasper Savage/Smokebomb I remember the day I booked the now-hit web series Carmilla like it was yesterday. I was so ecstatic I performed an awkward little happy dance to the dust bunnies in my bedroom when I received the call from my talent agent. I had never wanted to land a part so […] More »

Friday FTW: Girls Gone Wild goes Bankrupt

Catherine McIntyre

With more than $16 million in debt and just $50,000 in assets, Girls Gone Wild is officially bankrupt. Finally, right? Girls Gone Wild and its founder, Joe Francis, got famous in the late 90s for preying on some of society’s most vulnerable—drunk, barely-legal college girls and late-night, hedonist infomercial viewers. Francis made a fortune selling […] More »