CBC's finest hour of drama in years; Black Harbour extends sudden hot streak
December 4, 1996
By Richard Helm, The Edmonton Journal
“What the heck is going on at the CBC?”
The question came unsolicited from someone who’d just sat, mesmerized, through a preview screening of Black Harbour, which joins the network’s Wednesday schedule at 9 tonight. I know exactly what she means.
While it’s certainly true that even a blind pig will stumble across the odd mushroom now and then, mere serendipity doesn’t seem to explain this creative hot streak our public broadcaster is currently enjoying.
In the span of a single season, the CBC has gone from the embarrassment of Howie Mandel’s Sunny Skies and Side Effects to the genuine triumph of The Newsroom and Black Harbour. And Black Harbour is triumph indeed for Susan Morgan, CBC’s creative head of TV dramatic series. The debut episode is the best single hour of drama from MotherCorp in years.
This weekly series makes its introduction tonight with a haunting melody from a lone bagpipe, reeling in the air above the rolling surf and picture-postcard backdrop of a tiny fishing community on Nova Scotia’s South Shore.
Katherine Hubbard, played by Rebecca Jenkins (Bye Bye Blues, Destiny Ridge), is a prodigal daughter returning to her birthplace to visit her ailing mother, with her painfully Californian family in tow. Her husband Nick, played by Forever Knight’s Geraint Wyn Davies , is a once-successful director whose career has stalled, an affliction that’s also noticeably struck the marriage. The oldest of their two daughters, a wonderful portrayal here by Nova Scotia native Melanie Foley, is the perfect model of adolescent fury. A valley girl banished to the bay.
The chill without is almost as bad. Katherine’s brother Len (Joseph Ziegler), the family member who stayed in Nova Scotia and ran the family business while she became a renowned L.A. restaurateur, seethes with bitterness and resentment. Grinding emotions even further is the presence of Katherine’s former boyfriend Paul (Alex Carter), now employed as the master builder at the Hubbard family boatyard.
Creators Barbara Samuels and Wayne Grigsby first explored the clash of cultures in their formative Canadian hit, North of 60. Here they throw together the vastly different worlds of California and Canada’s East Coast and see what magic emerges from the collision.
There’s a cinematic quality to this production that’s too rarely seen on the small screen these days, the domestic screen in particular. The characters are finely drawn and fully fleshed out, the acting superb. The relationship of Katherine and Nick alone is a wonder to observe -- all the petty hostilities of a troubled marriage are there, the stiletto silences, as well as the aching efforts to hold things together and beat back the melancholy. It is that motive above all that convinces the two to wipe clean the slate and start over again in Black Harbour by taking control of the family boatyard.
The effect is hypnotic; the viewer’s attention is seized from the start. It looks as though time spent with the citizens of Black Harbour will be time well spent.
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December 4, 1996
By Richard Helm, The Edmonton Journal
“What the heck is going on at the CBC?”
The question came unsolicited from someone who’d just sat, mesmerized, through a preview screening of Black Harbour, which joins the network’s Wednesday schedule at 9 tonight. I know exactly what she means.
While it’s certainly true that even a blind pig will stumble across the odd mushroom now and then, mere serendipity doesn’t seem to explain this creative hot streak our public broadcaster is currently enjoying.
In the span of a single season, the CBC has gone from the embarrassment of Howie Mandel’s Sunny Skies and Side Effects to the genuine triumph of The Newsroom and Black Harbour. And Black Harbour is triumph indeed for Susan Morgan, CBC’s creative head of TV dramatic series. The debut episode is the best single hour of drama from MotherCorp in years.
This weekly series makes its introduction tonight with a haunting melody from a lone bagpipe, reeling in the air above the rolling surf and picture-postcard backdrop of a tiny fishing community on Nova Scotia’s South Shore.
Katherine Hubbard, played by Rebecca Jenkins (Bye Bye Blues, Destiny Ridge), is a prodigal daughter returning to her birthplace to visit her ailing mother, with her painfully Californian family in tow. Her husband Nick, played by Forever Knight’s Geraint Wyn Davies , is a once-successful director whose career has stalled, an affliction that’s also noticeably struck the marriage. The oldest of their two daughters, a wonderful portrayal here by Nova Scotia native Melanie Foley, is the perfect model of adolescent fury. A valley girl banished to the bay.
The chill without is almost as bad. Katherine’s brother Len (Joseph Ziegler), the family member who stayed in Nova Scotia and ran the family business while she became a renowned L.A. restaurateur, seethes with bitterness and resentment. Grinding emotions even further is the presence of Katherine’s former boyfriend Paul (Alex Carter), now employed as the master builder at the Hubbard family boatyard.
Creators Barbara Samuels and Wayne Grigsby first explored the clash of cultures in their formative Canadian hit, North of 60. Here they throw together the vastly different worlds of California and Canada’s East Coast and see what magic emerges from the collision.
There’s a cinematic quality to this production that’s too rarely seen on the small screen these days, the domestic screen in particular. The characters are finely drawn and fully fleshed out, the acting superb. The relationship of Katherine and Nick alone is a wonder to observe -- all the petty hostilities of a troubled marriage are there, the stiletto silences, as well as the aching efforts to hold things together and beat back the melancholy. It is that motive above all that convinces the two to wipe clean the slate and start over again in Black Harbour by taking control of the family boatyard.
The effect is hypnotic; the viewer’s attention is seized from the start. It looks as though time spent with the citizens of Black Harbour will be time well spent.
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