Homespun fare, eh? -- Two new CBC series retreat to bucolic settings
December 22, 1996
By Brian D. Johnson, Maclean's Television
Like a national park whose boundaries are continually under siege, the CBC is a shrinking preserve of what could be called Canada’s old-growth TV drama. Providing a shady refuge from the glare of American programming, CBC drama—especially family drama—has become synonymous with nostalgia for homespun values and rural roots. Although Canada's population is predominantly urban, the people's network loves cozy, bucolic settings—its tradition of airing fresh-air fare goes back to The Beachcombers and has continued with such shows as Danger Bay, Anne of Green Gables, Road to Avonlea and North of 60. Now, it continues with two new one hour; 13-episode family dramas. Black Harbour is set in present-day Nova Scotia; Wind at My Back unfolds during the Great Depression in Ontario. They are independently produced by different companies, but there are some striking parallels.
Both are about dislocated families coping with hard times in small towns. Both revolve around blond, modern thirty-something mothers who have minds of their own and collide with stubborn matriarchs. And both shows dramatize the clash between tradition and progress, presenting a moral universe where the bank manager is despicable, the brother-in-Law is spineless, children run away from home—and grand ambitions can be made or broken by the local historical society.
Black Harbour (premiering on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 9 p.m.) is the more serious of the two dramas. Created by Wayne Grigsby and Barbara Samuels, the team behind North of 60, it presents a cultural showdown between the old-world traditions of the East Coast and the new-world presumptions of the West Coast Katherine (Rebecca Jenkins), a Los Angeles restaurateur, and her husband, Nick (Geraint Wyn Davies), a failed film director; return to her Nova Scotia home to help her ailing mother. In the fictional fishing village of Black Harbour; the couple ride out a soap-opera series of marital bumps, then decide to abandon their Hollywood life and make a fresh start Down East.
With visions of selling refurbished lobster boats to affluent Americans, Nick tries to buy the family boatyard from his resentful brother-in-Law, Len (Joseph Ziegler), who has his heart set on building a Treasure Island theme park. Caught in the middle is Len's master builder, Paul (Alex Carter), who is Katherine's old flame. Meanwhile, her readily bored teenage daughter; Tasha (Melanie Foley), is desperately homesick for Los Angeles.
Black Harbour’s pilot episode seems overly freighted with thematic intent. It is hard to see the characters through the thicket of cultural stereotypes assigned to them. And what does emerge seems very cut and dried— Katherine is chronically dour; punctuating her scenes with long sighs; Nick is irrepressibly jaunty; Len is stubbornly selfish; Paul quietly smoulders. But the seasoned cast is eminently watchable, and by the second episode the script begins to loosen up. Jenkins (who won a Genie for her starring role in the 1989 movie Bye Bye Blues) has an arresting, edgy presence. And if the script gives her half a chance, she is capable of emotional complexity that could transcend Black Harbour’s tidy little premise.
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December 22, 1996
By Brian D. Johnson, Maclean's Television
Like a national park whose boundaries are continually under siege, the CBC is a shrinking preserve of what could be called Canada’s old-growth TV drama. Providing a shady refuge from the glare of American programming, CBC drama—especially family drama—has become synonymous with nostalgia for homespun values and rural roots. Although Canada's population is predominantly urban, the people's network loves cozy, bucolic settings—its tradition of airing fresh-air fare goes back to The Beachcombers and has continued with such shows as Danger Bay, Anne of Green Gables, Road to Avonlea and North of 60. Now, it continues with two new one hour; 13-episode family dramas. Black Harbour is set in present-day Nova Scotia; Wind at My Back unfolds during the Great Depression in Ontario. They are independently produced by different companies, but there are some striking parallels.
Both are about dislocated families coping with hard times in small towns. Both revolve around blond, modern thirty-something mothers who have minds of their own and collide with stubborn matriarchs. And both shows dramatize the clash between tradition and progress, presenting a moral universe where the bank manager is despicable, the brother-in-Law is spineless, children run away from home—and grand ambitions can be made or broken by the local historical society.
Black Harbour (premiering on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 9 p.m.) is the more serious of the two dramas. Created by Wayne Grigsby and Barbara Samuels, the team behind North of 60, it presents a cultural showdown between the old-world traditions of the East Coast and the new-world presumptions of the West Coast Katherine (Rebecca Jenkins), a Los Angeles restaurateur, and her husband, Nick (Geraint Wyn Davies), a failed film director; return to her Nova Scotia home to help her ailing mother. In the fictional fishing village of Black Harbour; the couple ride out a soap-opera series of marital bumps, then decide to abandon their Hollywood life and make a fresh start Down East.
With visions of selling refurbished lobster boats to affluent Americans, Nick tries to buy the family boatyard from his resentful brother-in-Law, Len (Joseph Ziegler), who has his heart set on building a Treasure Island theme park. Caught in the middle is Len's master builder, Paul (Alex Carter), who is Katherine's old flame. Meanwhile, her readily bored teenage daughter; Tasha (Melanie Foley), is desperately homesick for Los Angeles.
Black Harbour’s pilot episode seems overly freighted with thematic intent. It is hard to see the characters through the thicket of cultural stereotypes assigned to them. And what does emerge seems very cut and dried— Katherine is chronically dour; punctuating her scenes with long sighs; Nick is irrepressibly jaunty; Len is stubbornly selfish; Paul quietly smoulders. But the seasoned cast is eminently watchable, and by the second episode the script begins to loosen up. Jenkins (who won a Genie for her starring role in the 1989 movie Bye Bye Blues) has an arresting, edgy presence. And if the script gives her half a chance, she is capable of emotional complexity that could transcend Black Harbour’s tidy little premise.
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