Welcome to the first instalment of VanRamblings’ new Wednesday night TV feature. Each week, we’ll publish the latest television news, hot watercooler gossip, as well as seek to provide insight into the role of TV in our culture.
Throughout the month of July, VanRamblings will publish the upcoming fall TV schedules for each of the Canadian networks (the fall 2004 schedules for the American networks were published earlier, in Television — all you have to do is scroll down). This week, we begin with an introduction to the CBC’s fall television schedule, to be followed by CTV, Global and CHUM.
CBC Hopes For A ‘Must See’ Fall Line-Up … shyeeah, right
Here it is, the beginning of summer and the Canadian television networks are just getting around to announcing their fall television schedules.
Decidedly less exciting that the American fall television schedules (because Canadian TV, for the most part, acts simply as a re-broadcaster of American sitcoms, dramas and specials), there are nonetheless a few pleasant surprises, particularly on the CBC 2004 TV schedule.
Even so, Canada’s public broadcaster has unveiled a rather ho-hum fall schedule featuring familiar faces in unfamiliar places, a pair of new reality-based series, and an ensemble family comedy titled Ciao Bella (Adobe Acrobat required), about the trials and tribulations of an Italian-Canadian family in Montreal, from Mambo Italiano-writer Emile Gaudreault.
Something to look forward to: CBC will air a series of dramas, movies and miniseries this fall, titled High Impact, including a prequel to the successful miniseries Trudeau (Trudeau: The Prequel), and a sure to be groundbreaking, four-hour miniseries based on the life of five-time Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas (The Tommy Douglas Project).
CBC will also broadcast a drama based on the illegal trade in human trafficking across Europe, titled Sex Traffic, and H20, a futuristic political thriller. The British soap opera Coronation Street is scheduled to air four nights a week this fall, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
CBC’s Sunday Report will expand to a full hour come September, will go by a new name, Sunday Night, and have as its new hosts, Evan Solomon and Carole MacNeil. The much-praised Marketplace and the watchable and intriguing business programme, Venture, will kick off CBC’s Sunday evening programming this fall, at 7 and 7:30, respectively.
CBC’s award-winning drama, Da Vinci’s Inquest will move to Tuesdays, where it will follow Making The Cut, a reality TV series — a nationwide talent search for six of the best unsigned professional hockey players — at 9.
Returning series include The Nature of Things, the fifth estate, Royal Canadian Air Farce, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, On the Road Again, Just for Laughs Gags, The Red Green Show, Rick Mercer’s Monday Report, The Wonderful World of Disney and Mary Walsh’s Open Book.
Tom Stone and the investigative news programme Disclosure have been cancelled. The powers that be at the CBC ought to have cut the execrable This Is Wonderland from their schedule, but apparently this laughably awful programme will be returning after Christmas.
As for the remaining Canadian television network schedules: here’s a peek at CHUM’s fall TV schedule, as well as a glimpse of CTV’s fall 2004 schedule.
For the major U.S. networks fall television schedules, click on the following direct VanRamblings’ links: ABC, NBC, the WB, Fox and UPN, and CBS.
