The first day of April is always a special day in television listings. Some examples below. Remember, this calendar page is undated all month long, so please check back regularly. SAT/APRIL 1 Hudson and Wrecks (Citytv). In order to keep his body shop business booming, a former police detective uses his pet German shepherd to

As mentioned here a week ago, reporting ratings in Canada has become a bit like citing COVID statistics. They’re out there, they’re just not reported anymore. The good news for the return of Canada’s Got Talent for a second season is that the audience for the Howie Mandel anchored reality show grew in week 2
The pursuit of the “wow” factor intensified on Tuesday’s second episode of Canada’s Got Talent. First of all, the show moves faster than Connor McDavid through a defense pairing. Tuesday’s opening scenes were a blur of clips showing talented Canadians charging the OLC Stage at the Fallsview Casino, all in pursuit of the $150,000 grand
The Night Agent was the most-watched series on Netflix in Canada the week of March 20 to 26. The action-thriller in fact, was among the Top-10 most-watched on Netflix in 93 countries around the world. Based on the novel of the same name by Matthew Quick, The Night Agent was created by Shawn Ryan —
I always look forward to catching up with Mitch Azaria. He’s the executive producer behind the unique “Tripping” series of real time documentaries featured each spring on TVO. In the past few years, and especially throughout the pandemic, these docs have allowed viewers to travel virtually throughout Ontario when real travel was not an option,
Continuing on with my dive into the wonderful world of weirdly named free streaming services (Tubi? Pluto? Flurbo? Blurt?) let’s take a look at Plex. Plex is, in content, much like the other streamers, with a mix of old and new(ish) TV and movies. But there is one major difference. You can, if you want,
The return of a big-budget Canadian talent search series calls for something we at brioux.tv don’t do as much of anymore, for various reasons: look at a full night of national broadcast numbers. Several things to keep in mind: half a million is the new million in Canada as competition from streamers such as Netflix,
Robert Blake, who died March 9 of heart disease at the age of 89, almost didn’t get to be Baretta. The gritty cop series, which ran on ABC from 1975-78, began a season earlier when it was called Toma. That series was based on a real-life New Jersey police officer named David Toma, who was
You could not cover television in Canada for the past 40 years without encountering the great Gordon Pinsent. Thank God. Pinsent, who died in his sleep Feb. 25 at 92, was a towering figure in film and television. In his native Newfoundland, he was much more than that. I was out in St. John’s, Nfld.,
I never, ever watch The Masked Singer but last week I was flipping around and paused long enough to see the prime time broadcast TV highlight of the year — TV legend Dick Van Dyke unmasked! The 97-year-old Tony, Emmy and Grammy winner became the oldest and most decorated Masked Singer participant ever. The judges
Richard Belzer is primarily known to TV viewers as Detective John Munch. And no wonder. He played the sardonic cop character for 23 seasons on 11 different shows across six different networks. The two main shows were Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but Belzer also played Munch on
Charles Kimbrough looked like a local news anchor. He had the hair and the tight smile and looked good in a suit in that middle-aged white man tradition found on Eyewitness newscasts in dozens of North American TV markets. His ten season stint on Murphy Brown as anchorman Jim Dial cemented that impression. The series,
North America was certainly ready for Laverne & Shirley when the series premiered in 1976. It arrived as the ABC network soared from perennial also-ran status become the No. 1 US network for several years. Powering them there were the breezy comedies created by Garry Marshall, including Happy Days, the series that introduced the characters