This post is dedicated to the memory of Denis McGrath, a talented writer and storyteller who left a lasting impact on the television industry. Denis passed away in March 2017, but his legacy continues through his work, and his words remain alive in the stories he crafted and the interviews he gave, still resonating across the internet. As a writer, Denis was known for his involvement in Blood Ties, a television series based on the books by Tanya Huff, as well as his contributions to Canadian television. His journey into Blood Ties began through a long-standing professional connection with Peter Mohan, the showrunner. Denis brought his love for supernatural tales and his sharp writing to the series, helping shape its distinct tone. His creative input wasn’t just about adapting a vampire story; he worked to bring out the unique voices of Huff’s characters and make sure the show reflected her original vision. Denis’s love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Anne Rice shaped his interest in supernatural narratives. However, he found a refreshing angle in Blood Ties where the focus was on a strong female lead, and the vampire character broke away from the brooding archetype, instead presenting something new and exciting. Denis’s enthusiasm for the project and the collaborative nature of television writing is evident in his reflection on the process, which he shared in interviews. His work as an Executive Story Editor on Blood Ties meant he not only wrote scripts but also helped rewrite and refine other writers' work, guiding episodes through various stages of development. He described the chaos of working on multiple episodes simultaneously, balancing creative integrity with production demands, and ensuring the final product reflected the original story vision. Denis was passionate about the role of writers in television and the evolving landscape of Canadian TV, advocating for writers to have more creative power. He believed that the shows people truly love, like Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys, succeed because writers were given the freedom to influence and defend their creative vision. He also recognized the vital role of producers but stressed that the balance between creativity and production needed to favor storytelling. Denis McGrath's career was not just about the scripts he wrote but about the changes he pushed for in the industry, fighting for writers to be seen and valued as the heart of television storytelling. Though Denis is no longer with us, his words and ideas live on, influencing how stories are told and celebrated. His thoughts on writing, storytelling, and television continue to inspire and challenge creators today. In his memory, we celebrate his contribution to television and the passion he brought to every project. His legacy remains not only in the shows he wrote but also in the hearts of those who worked with him and admired his work. Denis, your stories will continue to captivate audiences, and your words will live on.
In this interview with Denis McGrath, we delve into his fascinating journey as a writer for TV Show Blood Ties, the adaptation of Tanya Huff's Blood books. McGrath, an experienced writer with a passion for supernatural dramas, gives us insights into his involvement with the show, his creative process, and how the writing team brought the characters and stories to life. He also reflects on his role as an executive story editor and the challenges of working in the Canadian television industry. McGrath shares candid thoughts on the struggles and triumphs of writers in Canada, highlighting how the creative landscape is evolving. Let’s dive into the world of Blood Ties with Denis McGrath!
------------questions asked in the interview -------------
Why did you decide to start your blog? (and out of curiosity, why is the word ON all capitalised?) How would you describe your blog?
I started "Dead Things on Sticks" in August of 2005. 2005 was kind of a weird year for me-- my year of "development hell." I had three series in development, which was cool. But I didn't work on anything that got made. So it was also very isolating and lonely. When you're in production, you tend to go into an office and you have to have lots of meetings, and you have lots of real human contact.
But I live alone, and obviously when I'm not on a show I work alone -- and around the time I started the blog I was beginning to get stir crazy staring out at Lake Ontario and the Gardiner every day. The only human contact I had professionally was various network people I was developing with. And at the risk of offending hardworking network people everywhere, that is simply not a recipe for meaningful human contact.
So I started the blog. Initially I thought it was just going to be a little low-level talk about what I liked on tv, and maybe some process-y stuff about how I write for TV. I've taught screenwriting at Ryerson for years, so I kind of always had that "give somebody a hand up" attitude. But then a lot of the other possibilities started to occur to me.
Screenwriters in Canada were very isolated because they don't work together very often. And the industry in this country is messed up, but no one ever really speaks truthfully about why it's messed up. After a while I decided, the hell with it. I'll do it. It's not like anyone's reading anyway. Then, of course, people started reading. And it got to be a gallows thing, "how does Denis ruin his career this week?" But so far, I've got to say that all the "sky is falling," scared predictions I've gotten from people saying "you can't write things on your blog because people will get back at you" haven't materialized.
I couldn't be busier right now. I guess maybe it's that, deep down, I come from a place of wanting to do better, and wanting to be optimistic, and wanting to serve the audience better. And I think people respond to that, because deep down, everyone wants to be doing better work.
Why's the "ON" capitalised? Just 'cause. Aint I a stinker?
2. How did you get into screenwriting?
Sideways. I always wanted to write. When I first graduated Ryerson I sent a script I wrote down to L.A. It was a "Wonder Years" spec script and I got really great feedback on it from the Executive Producer of the show. But I didn't follow up. I drifted into TV producing, doing stories on media and technology, first at TVOntario, then at Citytv. I had a wonderful time at Citytv, got to interview a lot of people, but was still restless.
In 1996 I did a play at Summerworks called "Press'd" -- and my boss at the time, Moses Znaimer, brought a Director friend named Jeremy Kagan to the show. And Kagan flipped for my play. He loved the writing. But I never followed up. About a year later, I'm watching the Emmys and there's Jeremy Kagan, accepting an award for Directing "The West Wing," which was my favorite show at the time. And I decided, if I ever got another break like that, I wasn't going to let it pass by.
By this time I'd moved on to help start up Space: The Imagination Station. I met up on-set with a couple of guys producing a show called STARHUNTER. They liked me, I wrote a few eps for their second season, and then I took the big leap. I quit my job and went to the Canadian Film Centre. When I got out, I never looked back. I've been working ever since, first in documentary (I did a lot of lifestyle wedding shows) and now drama
I say all this because now I look back and I think the missed opportunities had purpose. I had to get past my fear. People tend to think that you only get one 'break,' but it's not true. You just have to want it badly enough that you are willing to risk everything. Some get there more quickly because they've got youthful bravado or a natural fearlessness on their side. Some come later to it, once they realize that they won't be happy if they don't really try. But the risk taking the risk, is all.
3. How did you get involved with writing for Blood Ties?
I met the Executive Producer and Showrunner, Peter Mohan, when I was at the Film Centre in 2001. We kept in touch over the years. Blood Ties actually was supposed to go a year or so earlier, but didn't because they couldn't get fully financed. I read some of Peter's initial scripts then and really liked them.
I was a huge fan of Buffy and Angel, and Anne Rice but I liked the take on this where, first of all, the female tough talking cop was the protagonist, not the vampire and also that the vampire wasn't all broody and sturm and drang...I kind of felt that cursed 'children o'the night' thing was a bit played out.
When the show finally did get going, I wasn't available I was doing another show for the same network, CHUM. (Across the River to Motor City, I co-created it and wrote five of the six episodes)
Luckily, my show was only six episodes long and Blood Ties was doing 22. So when they lost a writer (a good friend of mine who wanted to return to T.O. from Vancouver) Peter called me up over Christmas and said, "how you feel about coming out to Vancouver and joining us here?" And I leapt at it because I knew Peter was fun, and a good writer with tons of experience, and I'd seen early cuts of the first episodes and really liked what I saw. So I headed out to Vancouver in time to work on the last 9 episodes.
4. Have you read any of Tanya Huff's Blood books?
Oh sure. I read the first one when I was at SPACE, cause I was curious about the Toronto setting. And I really enjoyed it. I've dipped into most of the others -- some just before I went out to start. The nice thing about this show is that we really did recognize that Tanya's tone was unique...we really are trying to go with the characters she laid out. And the best thing is, she really appreciates what we're doing, too. She knows how different the two mediums are. It's a bit of an embarrassing love-in, actually. I think Tanya's a hoot and a lot of fun, and she praises us to high heaven every chance she gets. It's awesome.
I should say actually the Blood stories I liked best were the ones in the short story collection. I thought they were super-cool. I even 'borrowed' a plot twist for my first BT ep from one of the stories. Thanks, Tanya!
5. What's the process when you're writing an episode of Blood Ties?
Notes, notes, notes, and more notes. Tanya wrote a really good bit on her blog about the process of freelancing (she wrote an ep of the series). When you staff it's a bit different. All the writers come up with (or "break") the story as a group. In essence, you figure out what happens in every scene.
Then the writer who's going to write that ep goes out and writes an outline. Then you get notes from the other writers and from the network. You change it. You write a draft. Repeat. Then production concerns come up "Can this scene be day instead of night?" "No." "Why Not?" "Because one of our characters in the scene is a vampire." etc, etc. Changes continue right up until the episode is shot. Sometimes you talk to the actors and they have great ideas that you want to incorporate, or the director, or even the network.
So it's a lot of rewriting, and the trick is to keep it fresh and retain the nut of what you thought was cool about the story in the first place, and not let it get blanded out to a fine paste. It can be a grueling process, but if you like who you're working with, it can be fun, too.
Oh, one more thing while you're doing all the above on one episode, there's the ep behind you and two more in front of you that are in different parts of the process, and you're trying to give notes and keep an eye on those eps as well. So it's chaos. You're working 13, 14 hour days. it's not for the faint of heart.
6. IMDB has you listed as "executive story editor" for nine episodes. What does an executive story editor do?
In TV there's a whole lot of titles that mean the same thing they just connote rank and salary level. A staff writer generally just writes their own scripts. A story editor or executive story editor weighs in and rewrites other people's stuff when needed. Sometimes as they move up writers get "producer" credits like Producer or Supervising Producer, up to Executive Producer where they have production responsibilities, too like they'll be in on casting, or post production but the most important thing they do, still, is write.
It's all about moving up the ladder so one day you can run your own show. Being a showrunner is a very difficult job because it requires you to know about so many different sides of the business. But that's why it's got to be a writer in that chair -- because only the writer has the full vision of where the story's been and where it's going.
In Canada, the titles are sometimes a bit loosey-goosey'er because there's kind of a fight going on behind the scenes. IN the US the people who are in charge are always writers. In Canada, traditionally the people who have been in charge have been money, or line producers. They're not always the most creative people. Their position is that it's so hard to get financed here that that's the hardest thing to do, so they should be in charge. And Canada loves bureaucracy, and nobody really understands what writers do, so they've been more comfortable with the people who fill out the forms in charge.
But here's the thing: they don't know story as well, and not to put too fine a point on it, that's why a lot of the time, Canadian TV is so terrible. The shows that people actually like Corner Gas, Trailer Park Boys those are shows where the writers have enough power to influence and fight for their vision.
The good news is that writers are slowly winning that creative war more and more of us are getting Producer credits and the power to say 'no,' and the power to bring our vision to the screen. I don't want to downplay the role of a producer they're really important especially in Canada, because more often than not you're working with a much smaller budget. In the U.S. when there's a problem, the answer is usually "throw more money at it." In Canada, that's usually not an option. So having a smart, engaged producer is key.
It's just that, up to now, they've overreached a bit, and tried to be the last word on creative. And in the service of that, they've marginalized writers and tried to treat them as crew, basically. So writers write scripts and then are sent away, and then actors change lines, and directors throw out story in the service of being 'cool.' And producers allow themselves to be talked into cutting scenes for budget that they shouldn't cut, and supporting a director who's looking at putting a pretty shot on his reel, but not necessarily serving the series, and making wardrobe choices or set or location choices that don't serve the material well. Nobody's minding the store.
Then, when they put the show together, the result is something that was push-me-pull-you'd into existence, and it kind of...sucks.
As we get rid of that bad old way of doing things, our homegrown shows are going to get better and better. Viewers will be able to see the difference, like they do with Corner Gas.
7. According to your IMDB entry, you've written four Blood Ties episodes so far (Drawn & Quartered, The Devil You Know, We'll Meet Again, and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly). Will you be writing more?
Do I have credit on The Good The Bad? I shouldn't. I cowrote Drawn & Quartered with Dennis Heaton (he's actually the evil Dennis. I'm the good Denis. I'm not actually that good but Dennis is....well....he's just...he wrote FIDO. He's awesome, but...alright, I'm scared of him. There. I said it.) The other two I wrote solo.
I'm jazzed about my eps because they're really, really important eps when it comes to the mythology of the show. I can't really say more. But they're cool. If we get a second season, I would love to write more. I think the eps I wrote turned out really well, and I love, love, love the Blood Ties people. The actors, the crew, the writers -- it was a really positive experience. I hope that when it starts on City TV in August and on Space in the fall that Canadians really embrace this fun little show. It gets really intense as it goes along. And the last set of eps are just killer!
What to expect on Republic of Doyle finale: skulduggery, tomfoolery and derring-do
February 5, 2014
The series occupies the same territory as Corner Gas did – TV entertainment spun out of whimsy, nailed down to a specific locale and allowing well-defined characters to shine. (It also has the benefit of actors who look like real people, not merely botoxed wannabe actors.) It will be missed in the interval between seasons, which is more than can be said of some Canadian productions with far greater pretensions.
Yer man the former mayor is out of jail. Hopped the hoosegow. After doing time for the corruption thing and, anyway, the bloody man should have done more time for his outrageous treatment of the comely and driven Sergeant Leslie Bennett.
Meanwhile, there's an eejit making porno films in the garage of a suburban St. John's house. The same eejit's ex, one Elsa, is involved in some skulduggery with yer man the former mayor. And in another twist, that young woman who is claiming to be Jake Doyle's long-lost daughter – although it's easy to believe she is that, given the saucy look on her face – is lifting Doyle's money from the safe.
I haven't written much about Republic of Doyle (CBC, 8 p.m.) this season. So there was some catching up to do, with tonight being the two-hour season finale.
It's skulduggery galore, of course. And a glamorous guest star. Gangster types and their fawning lickspittles racing around St. John's, plotting evil and putting the squeeze on decent people. Is Jake Doyle (Allan Hawco) up for it? Well now, by the end of the two hours tonight, you'll be wondering.
Things kick off with former Mayor Clarke (Rick Roberts) on the loose and braying about settling scores with Leslie (Krystin Pellerin) and Jake. It doesn't help that Leslie is in the bad books of her boss, Inspector Valerie O'Brien (Natasha Henstridge, your glamorous guest star, ladies and gentlemen). One thing leads to another and there's kidnapping, thievery and the matter of dangerous explosives being stolen.
It's all tangled tomfoolery but there's meat in it for closely watching followers of the Doyle saga. Leslie and Jake find themselves in an intimate encounter. Leslie is dressed only in a bedsheet. Honest to God! And Jake says, "I feel like I've been waiting to talk to you for months. Maybe my entire life, even?" Oh lordy, the romance is back on. To add fuel to the romantic fire, Leslie later observes of Jake, "You do have a way with kids." But, to keep the action going, in another scene she cold-cocks the former Mayor.
In the second hour, there's a fierce amount of car chases, narrow escapes and derring-do. I cannot give away the ending for this season. But I'll tell you that you'll be shocked. Shocked, I tell you. A song with the word "goodbye" used an awful lot is heard in the final scene.
Republic of Doyle took a blow when CBC changed its time slot and moved it to Sunday for a while. With the fierce competition on that night, the show's ratings dropped. They haven't fully recovered this season, but the raucous action and fun haven't subsided.
The series is the most unlikely of iconic Canadian shows. Disliked by the self-important in the Canadian TV racket, it has successfully mined Newfoundland and old-fashioned TV storytelling to find a treasure trove of material – something that is both comedy and drama and always a cornucopia of homespun japes.
Watching the two hours of tonight's ending, all the strengths and flaws are evident. It's a bit too serious, too reliant on wildly elaborate criminal schemes to forge a plot. The wit gets a bit lost and it's the wit that carries the series to its highes. A too-mature Jake Doyle makes for a too-serious Republic of Doyle. The series occupies the same territory as Corner Gas did – TV entertainment spun out of whimsy, nailed down to a specific locale and allowing well-defined characters to shine. (It also has the benefit of actors who look like real people, not merely botoxed wannabe actors.) It will be missed in the interval between seasons, which is more than can be said of some Canadian productions with far greater pretensions.
A Blast From The Past, & Notes from a Canadian TV Libel
DEC 07 2014
During the three months I worked on (Republic of Doyle), we talked a lot about TV: what worked, what didn’t, what was good, and what was bad, and I have to say this:
What I remember most strongly from the principals involved was the constant derision they expressed for most Canadian shows, and the people who made them. They seemingly had nothing good to say about anybody except Paul Gross. They roundly dissed the very show with which they would later do a crossover.
Does that have anything to do with not having huge swaths of support come awards time? I couldn’t say. But I think it’s a lot more plausible than the McGrath-is-Gandalf theory.
So I’ve been libelled by FRANK magazine again. For those of you who don’t know FRANK, it’s a satire magazine that was briefly-relevant in the early nineties. About a year ago, a much-diminished zombie version lurched to life once more.
The whole thing keys off a relapsing, silly donnybrook between me and a newspaper critic at a certain paper who loves, loves, loves REPUBLIC OF DOYLE. Fair enough. To each his own, right?
In March 2013, in a shot against the brand-new Canadian Screen Awards, said columnist suggested the CSA’s were “crooked” because the only nomination REPUBLIC OF DOYLE received that year was for a Guest Starring role by Gordon Pinsent. The writer felt this showed bias against Newfoundland, or the star of the show, or joy, or something.
FRANK picked up on the newspaper story, presumably operating on some inside grumbling, and named me as a person who apparently had the power to keep the show from getting nominated. The motive, according to FRANK, was bad blood because I was “fired” from Doyle.
FRANK got just about everything wrong. I’m going to set things straight. But we need a bit of background first.
Back in 2010, I was still blogging about Canadian TV. I’d gotten more careful over the years, and yet I started hearing that people were getting mad at me for “things I’d written.” Only problem was, a lot of the time, these “things I’d written,” I hadn’t written.
An example: in one story room a writer dissed me to someone they didn’t realize was my friend, claiming I’d written a bunch of terrible things about Republic of Doyle. My friend, who knew I had not written a negative word about RoD since I’d left the show, challenged her to find the blog entry. She instantly backtracked to, “Well, I didn’t read it myself, someone told me…” My friend called up the entry she referenced and read it out loud, pointing out that it didn’t say what she claimed. She changed the subject.
Then, the critic who’d once described me as “thoughtful, learned and provocative about creating Canadian TV” started taking shots at me in print. My little sideline had become a liability. It was time to quit.
Instead, I became much more involved with the Writers Guild of Canada. (I should point out what I write here is speaking for myself, and not on behalf of the WGC.)
It’s through the WGC that I became briefly involved with the Canadian Screen Awards.
In 2011, Martin Katz and Helga Stephenson took over the award shows presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. They were in dire shape.
Under the old system, each award had a chair who would assemble that award’s jury. Since the jury’s vote counted for something like 70% of the final result, the chair could effectively stack the jury and decide the award depending on who they selected.
Helga and Marty cleaned house, brought in a new Board and created an advisory committee on the new “merged” awards. I represented the WGC on that committee.
We pared down some awards categories. We established a “Best International Series” award.
We also revised the jury system. The juries still selected the nominees, but their votes for the winner only counted for 50%, with the other half being decided by the General Membership. Finally, the juries all prepared and watched the materials on their own time, then met as a group to deliberate. For the first time, all the juries met and decided on nominees on the same weekend. If there was any kind of collusion or horse-trading before, that opportunity was now gone. It was a much fairer system.
As a show of confidence, I agreed to be a juror for the Dramatic Series Writing category for the first ever Canadian Screen Awards. (I hadn’t entered, so I wasn’t in a conflict.) I got a bunch of DVD’s to watch. There were eight people on the jury, and each submitted episode went to at least three. From there we pared down the lists of our favourites and came in to compare and select the nominees.
In my package there was one episode of Republic of Doyle. Because of my unhappy labor history with the show, I immediately contacted Louis Calabro at the Academy and told him that I had a conflict. They shuffled that episode to someone else.
Now back to the FRANK article, which claims that somehow, despite the new rules, the simultaneous jury deliberations, and the dozens of other people involved, I was able to wield immense power which allowed me to deny Republic of Doyle its rightful nominations.
Well, let’s take a look at the one jury decision I actually did have a hand in — the Best Dramatic Writing award. It’s a drag to open the kimono on this, but if the alternative is allowing a bunch of people to continue to lie, that’s not cool. So here’s what happened.
The actual jury debate was a great success and a pleasant surprise. We all had an interesting and cordial debate about what five nominees we should put forward. People advocated. Some were swayed, and some were not. I went in with a list of my top five and was convinced by the debate and the arguments of other jury members to change two of them.
What I remember of the jury: it was about a fifty-fifty gender split. I knew two people relatively well, had worked with one, had met maybe two more. The rest were strangers.
Oh, and one more thing: not one of the eight of us had Republic of Doyle on our shortlist. Not even the writer from Newfoundland.
We were one of the last juries to finish that day, having discussed the work passionately for almost two hours. Getting down to five nominees was really difficult. I think we would have liked to put forward seven or eight. It was creatively very exciting. It made me feel hopeful about the whole industry. (The show that won the category, a Flashpoint episode, I think is probably my favourite of the series.)
Looking back, one of the scripts I wish we could have nominated was a wonderful Murdoch Mysteries called “Dead End Street.” It was a tight little mystery about a murder that had taken place during a parade, and the key came down to a mute, autistic savant witness played wordlessly by Liisa Repo-Martell. It was unpredictable, ingenious, and spare. A perfect example of a series that is sadly too often underestimated. If only I actually possessed the power some think I do, it might have been nominated. But the other work was too good that year. Champagne problems.
So…at no time was Republic of Doyle talked about by anyone as being in their Top Five. Even if we had been able to nominate eight shows, Doyle wouldn’t have made the cut. It simply wasn’t in the running. I only have knowledge of the jury I served on, but the buzz among all the people gathered in the atrium after the awards suggested that our jury experience wasn’t unique. There was a lot of good work that year. Canadian TV had stepped up its game.
Once the first FRANK libel came out last November, I was surprised the Academy didn’t do more to defend the integrity of the system they’d worked so hard to fix, let alone defend me. I still don’t know why they chose not to. It was pretty disheartening to volunteer all that time and get slimed for it. So I asked to be replaced on the advisory council and as it happens, haven’t attended or had anything to do with the Awards since.
So. That’s the story. A few things I’d like you to consider:
Republic of Doyle was nominated for Best Series in 2010. Indeed, it has not won any major awards since. Gordon Pinsent won the CSA for that guest starring role. But neither the star, nor the series, nor the writing has been nominated. All that’s true. As far as I know, the show has never been nominated for a Canadian Screenwriting Award. In fact, I don’t even know if they submit. I don’t judge those awards because I usually have a script in there myself.
I did have one opportunity to wield immense power over denying recognition to Republic of Doyle, during a quarterly story meeting for the Writers Guild magazine, Canadian Screenwriter. Here’s the problem, though. Just a few months before my supposed mustachio-twirling foiling of the show’s CSA chances, I, and the rest of the board, signed off on an article on the show written by Philip Moscovitch for CS’s Summer 2012 issue. The Creator of RoD was quoted wall-to-wall. So I can spike the punch at the Canadian Screen Awards, but not in the magazine where I’m the Chair of the Editorial Board? In the story room, we call that kind of logic “a bit sweaty.”
It seems ludicrous to have to say this, but I have not, in fact, done anything to prevent the glory due to Republic of Doyle from happening. I quit the show (Oh yes, FRANK got that part wrong too) OVER FIVE YEARS AGO.
Get over it, b’ys.
This week, after six seasons, Republic of Doyle will air its last episode. They did wonderful things for the City of St. John’s. They celebrated many Newfoundland and Labrador-born actors by repatriating them for juicy guest starring roles. Their fans include a couple of the top newspaper writers in the country, and some of the online generation of journalists, too. RoD’s producers and creator made sackloads of cash, and got to buy houses. So many achievements worth celebrating. Isn’t it a little bit weird that that’s not enough?
During the three months I worked on the show, we talked a lot about TV: what worked, what didn’t, what was good, and what was bad, and I have to say this:
What I remember most strongly from the principals involved was the constant derision they expressed for most Canadian shows, and the people who made them. They seemingly had nothing good to say about anybody except Paul Gross. They roundly dissed the very show with which they would later do a crossover.
Does that have anything to do with not having huge swaths of support come awards time? I couldn’t say. But I think it’s a lot more plausible than the McGrath-is-Gandalf theory.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I’m sorry this was so long, but libel really sucks. A special thanks to all the people volunteering on CSA juries this weekend. Good to see that people will still volunteer time to celebrate their colleagues, not just themselves. If you care to, do watch the series finale of Republic of Doyle this week on CBC.
I hope the ratings are good. I really do. Because I like to see the Canadian TV glass as half full.
THE CALGARY HERALD, of all places, came up with a very trenchant quote from Paul Gross on the current vogue of Canadian-made shows now (or soon-to-be) exporting to the USA, in Eric Volmer'sarticle from the Banff TV Festival.
Context here: Gross, being as he is the bankable 800 lb. Gorilla of Canadian production, (He's soon to be seen in Eastwick, a U.S. network show, and his production shingle, Whizbang Films, is healthy with lots in the hopper) gets to say the things about the downside of this arrangement that many producers (and writers, and various others) don't have the guts to say:
Actor and producer Paul Gross, whose show Due South was among the first Canadian-made shows to win a prime-time time slot on a major U. S. network after it was picked up by CBS, says the Canadian industry should be careful about making this a model for their future, suggesting there is a danger of our industry becoming an "assembly branch plant" for the U. S. networks.
"The difficulty with the Canadian companies that are engaging in these is that if it's not a hit, then what do you do?" says Gross. "You suddenly have this big fallout of the financing of the show. It's a dangerous model to pursue exclusively. And it's completely outside of your control. You might be putting in the lion's share of the money, but you do not control the fate of the production. But it's extraordinarily attractive. You get big exposure in a way you can't generate out of Canada alone. It certainly helps with foreign sales to have ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox behind it. But it does bring some handcuffs that aren't all that attractive, creatively and for broadcasters."
From @shelaughsinflowers: “To the anon that was worried about everyone dying in the finale - I found this on Digital Journal’s review of the latest episode: “According to Denis McGrath, the team’s mission in this episode is partially based on the Dieppe experiences of RAF Flight Sgt. Jack Nissenthall, whose raid on a German radar station provided the Allies with important intelligence.” It also gave this link, which was an interesting read.”
