On Friday, with precious little fanfare, Darryl Dahmer filed his final traffic report from high over Toronto. It marked the end of a 45-year radio broadcasting career as an airborne traffic reporter. When I spoke with him five years ago for The Toronto Star, Dahmer called it “the best job in the world.” Commuters in
Some end of the week observations from in front of the small screen(s): ONE SAD SEASON FINALE: Tuesday’s episode of The Connors was about the bleakest half-hour of a sitcom I’ve ever seen – even sadder than that time Buffy and Jodie on Family Affair got Uncle Bill and Mr. French to play Santa in
Cardinal returns for a third six-episode season Thursday with the following tag line: “The most dangerous thing in the world — a broken man with power.” No, Cardinal is not about Donald Trump. The broken man is Detective John Cardinal, played with understated grace and muted vocals by Billy Campbell. The Virginia native and his
This week, NATPE, the annual gathering of the National Association of Television Programming Executives, is taking place in Miami, Florida (Jan. 22-24). Hey, three days away from snow and ice in January; those TV programming executives aren’t so dumb. One of the trades that gets plenty of play this time of year is VideoAge International.
Last July I flew back from a brief stop at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles to head directly to Montreal and the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. One of the people I most wanted to speak with there hosts The Stand-up Show with Katherine Ryan, premiering Tuesday, Jan. 22, on The
Here’s a happy report on a Canadian series with a second lease on life: Pure. The drug-running drama about Mennonites and the mob is miraculously back after being canceled in 2017 by CBC. Distributor Cineflix wouldn’t quit on the show, needing a second season at least to land deals in America (at WGN) and elsewhere.
Happy to be back in The Toronto Star today, this time for a feature on two of my most treasured comedy film idols, Laurel & Hardy. The occasion is the release of the new feature “Stan & Ollie,” premiering Friday in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. The movie spreads to cinemas in other Canadian cities a
Captain’s log Stardate Thursday, January 17. Star Trek: Discovery boldly sets sail for a second shot-in-Toronto season. Fourteen new episodes will premiere on CBS All Access in the States and on specialty channel Space and the french-language Z in Canada. Canadians can also stream it on Crave. Netflix has rights in over 180 other countries.