• Painting insurance biz a comic black; Adjusters duke it out in a legal world far-removed from ICBC
  “The private insurance companies lobbying for work, these big advertising billboards up all over southern Ontario — when I first moved here I thought it was totally bizarre, how commercial it is,” says Cave, who nonetheless got some input from her dad on the legal world. “There’s stuff I don’t understand that he’s been able to answer. I grew up meeting female lawyers, watching them. I’ve seen how they had to operate — it’s a male-dominated world, they have to be tough.” Read more.

Emma (Miriam MacDonald) and Kelly (Evan Williams) make a pit stop at Degrassi while on their Cross Country Bike Adventure raising awareness for their Re-Cycle project. Combining the great outdoors with her sexy boyfriend, Emma’s convinced she’s destined for the best summer ever. Meanwhile, Chantay (Jajube Mandiela) and Danny (Dalmar Abuzeid) have the best first date ever. But the next day, Chantay posts a “Date Ethics” blind item on her blog, and word spreads fast that Danny’s cheap. Ouch!

7:30 p.m. – DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION – “Start Me Up” – ALL-NEW EPISODE

It’s been a tough year for Peter (Jamie Johnston). He has a severe need for some good news and, lo and behold, Peter’s been accepted to Toronto University. In need of a summer job, Peter opens a club above The Dot and gets hot new band Fritz Helder and the Phantoms to perform live! Meanwhile, the students are assigned to present autobiographical short stories and Clare (Aislynn Paul) thinks she has nothing interesting to share. Desperate, she appropriates a story she overhears from Declan (Landon Liboiron) in order to be considered cool by her classmates.

• Top programs – Total Canada
  #15 Dragons’ Den (2.075 million)
  #16 Battle of the Blades (1.878 million)
  #20 Flashpoint (1.771 million)
  #28 Heartland (1.278 million)

• New series shines spotlight on Steeltown
  “t doesn’t happen too often, but Hamilton actually gets to play itself in the new Showcase series Cra$h & Burn. ‘It’s rather unapologetically Hamilton,’ says actress Caroline Cave, who plays company lawyer Catherine Scott in the ensemble show about the ruthless insurance game. ‘It really gives Hamilton a personality, which it always had, but maybe it doesn’t get a chance to show all the time.’” Read more.

• The girls did make the guys look great’
  “With ice and not much else in common, hockey and figure skating have long been strange bedfellows. But a CBC-TV series, Battle of the Blades, married the two winter sports in prime time this year.” Read more.

From a media release:

Blackstone is a raw, inside look behind the veil of power and politics on an Indian reserve.

The story we tell of the Blackstone Cree First Nation is one that many communities will recognize as their own. The circumstances and details may be different, but the underlying climate of corruption, mismanagement and nepotism that gives rise to the story is becoming an all-too familiar reserve experience…and the cost in human terms is tragic.

PILOT SYNOSIS

Blackstone is fact-based fiction; a one hour television series pilot, telling the story of a community suffering disintegration by its own hand – a result of the corruption, mismanagement and nepotism of its Chief and Councillors; and the parallel complicity of the silent bandmembers.

A fire at the Blackstone Reserve sets the stage, claiming the life of three bandmembers. The suspicious circumstances of the tragedy compel bandmember Victor Merasty to turn his focus from videotaping the band’s history and cultural traditions to using his camera to document the reserve’s entrenched ‘culture’ of corruption.
Bandmember Leona Stoney lives off-reserve, by choice; an addictions counselor in the city, she removed herself from the vicious cycle of dependency that is reserve life but continues to do follow-up work on the reserve and visits her family who is still there -her sister Gail, and her niece Natalie.

Unanswered questions about the real cause and purpose of the fire lead to an occupation of the Band Office. Chief Andy Fraser attempts to quash the
allegations by holding a Band Meeting reporting the results of the official fire investigation, which exonerate him.

Having watched the news report of the occupation Leona returns to Blackstone for the Band Meeting. During her visit to Blackstone, while at Gail’s, Leona takes note of the telltale signs of Natalie’s continuing gas-sniffing habit. Gail has a serious alcohol addiction and Leona can’t help but judge Gail for the poor example she is setting for Natalie.

After the meeting, Leona is invited to elder Cecil Delaronde’s house to meet with a small group of bandmembers who voice their concerns about problems on the reserve. With an election in the offing Leona knows what’s coming and she declines their proposal she run against Andy Fraser.

The meeting, covered by Kyra Amos, a news reporter for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, backfires on Chief Andy Fraser when Victor starts asking challenging questions. After the meeting, Chief Fraser attempts to intimidate Victor, leading to an exacerbation of existing tensions between Victor and his wife Gloria.

Victor is stonewalled in his efforts to tape bandmembers about what’s really going on at Blackstone but his camera leads him to Natalie, gas-sniffing with her friends.
Natalie is living her own private hell, one including sexual abuse. Her suicide borne of hopelessness forces Leona’s decision to run for Chief. Leona asks Victor to run as a Councillor with her, a discussion witnessed by Councillors Leonard Morin and Rick Amenakew. Victor declines but nevertheless becomes the target of intimidation, causing the final rift between Victor and Gloria. She leaves him for the city, and Victor aligns with Leona.

They win the election, thereby upsetting a familial power-base that had been untouchable for years. But Andy Fraser, Leonard Morin, and Rick Amenakew meet to plot how they can get Leona ousted out of office.

“A constitution will give us power over our own future. That’s real self government, not something imposed by the Indian Act. A constitution defines what’s important to Blackstone as a Nation, as a people. It has to come from the people, the stakeholders… So what do you want?”

From a media release:

THE TIME TRAVELER
Premieres Tuesday, November 24

In an effort to save her dying world, a young woman time-travels from the year 3012 to Toronto 2009, where she enlists the help of a young Aboriginal man.

Tune in for the APTN premiere of The Time Traveler, an exciting Sci-fi drama that takes viewers on the journey of a young woman who in an effort to save her dying world, travels back in time from the year 3012 to Toronto 2009, where she enlists the help of a young Aboriginal man.

It is the year 3012. Thanks largely to the practices and wisdom of indigenous cultures, modern people have finally learned to live in harmony with the environment. In some ways humans have attained a utopian society. But despite this, and despite fantastic scientific advances, the human race has become an endangered species: a mysterious flaw in people’s DNA has caused widespread, encroaching infertility. However, a small, renegade group of people have figured out that the one solution to this devastating problem disappeared from earth over a thousand years ago. Luckily, time-travel has just become possible in this amazing future, but unluckily there is a catch: time-travel is illegal, drastically forbidden, and punishable by immediate death.

Nevertheless, a young woman named Nikki decides to travel back in time. She’s only twenty-five, which makes her extremely young in a population where the average age is 386. Nikki is brave and lonely and is willing to take the risk to find a rare strand of DNA that will revive her aged, dying world.

Nikki takes the dangerous time-travel journey and beams back to the year 2009. In present day Toronto, she meets Jackson, a free-spirited urban-Aboriginal guy, down on his luck. Nikki and Jackson really click and she is able to convince him that she’s from the future and that she needs his help. Together they set out – joined by Jackson’s cousin Ray, down from the Rez.

However, ominous complications quickly arise. It becomes apparent that Nikki was not the only time-traveler to arrive in the city that day. Nikki must find out who has followed her and she has to track down the DNA strand, and she must do it quickly: she has just had word from her colleagues in the future that immediately after she travelled back in time, people in her world began to inexplicably die.

As Nikki embarks on her mission she realizes that she is in extreme danger, that she is a pawn in a sinister game and that in order to save her people she has to save herself.

Starring: Meegwun Fairbrother, Elitsa Bako, Ali Adatia, Inna Ivanova, Waawaate Fobister

• Cra$h & Burn 1.1 – “God Protect Us”
  “I appreciate that Cra$h & Burn is set in the Hammer, but its high concept shouldn’t work. Insurance isn’t normally seen as a sexy profession. This is Showcase’s first hour-long drama, so Showcase’s reputation in this genre will be defined by how well C&B does. It’s not a good start so far.” Read more.

• WATCH ME GRACE PARK
  “Part of her allure is that actress Grace Park, who plays U.S. Homeland Security agent Liz Carver on CBC-TV’s The Border, comes across as an everywoman – an everywoman, that is, who sprang to stardom on Battlestar Gallactica and has electrified the pages of Maxim magazine. Yet the Vancouver-raised actress does seem down to earth. How does she do it?” Read more.

• Ice Pilots Soar, CSI: NY Kills, Glee Grows
  “Ice Pilots NWT took off Wednesday night, soaring to 459,000 History Television viewers according to BBM Canada overnight estimates.” Read more.