CASTLE’S CANUCKS CONQUER U.S.

“Castle” is moving to CTV’s spring schedule for its final three episodes this season, Mondays at 10pm, beginning May 3. The series is now scheduled to follow Canada’s most-watched comedy ‘The Big Bang Theory.” Starring Edmonton-native Nathan Fillion and Hamilton-raised Stana Katic, the light-hearted, hour-long mystery-comedy follows crime writer Richard “Rick” Castle (Fillion) as he teams up with NYPD Detective Kate Beckett (Katic) to help solve strange homicides in New York.
“Castle” has been on an upswing this spring consistently charting as one of the top-rated programs on /A\.
Its spring season average is up 30% from its fall average, signaling a breakout for the second year comedy drama. Meanwhile, in the U.S., it has doubled its audience from last season, outperforming timeslot competitors “CSI: Miami “and “Law & Order.” It was recently renewed by ABC for a 22-episode third season.** Entertainment Weekly recently revealed that Castle and Beckett will exit the denial phase of their relationship in the series’ May 17 season finale.
“Beckett and Castle finally realize their attraction to each other is too strong to deny,” said Producer Andy Marlowe. “Decisions must be made by each of them.”

GOODBYE GIRL’ MASON SAYS HELLO AS GRANDMA

When some actors aren’t in front of the camera, they’re agonizing about the next part. Marsha Mason, who works steadily, left L.A. and New York for New Mexico, where she grows organic herbs on a 250-acre ranch.
After terrific turns in other shows – notably playing Martin’s girlfriend on “Frasier” – Mason returns to TV guest starring as Patricia Heaton’s mom in ABC’s “The Middle” Wednesday, May 5.
Immediately after shooting the sitcom, Mason, 68, was in New York rehearsing an off-Broadway play, “I Never Sang for My Father.” Despite having appeared in five Broadway plays, many more off-Broadway, and dozens of movies and TV appearances while racking up four Oscar nominations and winning two Golden Globes, Mason still gets stage fright.
“Oh, God, yes,” she says. “I think one gets more terrified as one gets older.”
Still, she keeps going. “Truthfully, I have a lot of energy,” Mason says.  “If I didn’t focus it, I’d get into trouble. That day on ‘The Middle,’ we shot like 10 pages. To memorize and remember and work that hard is very good for the brain and the body and keeps me mentally alert and gives me a sense of confidence as I get older.”
She’s packed the years with fun and fearless choices. When the St.
Louis native left to become an actress in New York, Mason initially worked in a department store, then as a file clerk for a railroad. Then she got braver.
“I was a go-go dancer,” she says. “I wore fishnet stockings and a leotard. Mostly I was there in the afternoon swinging on a swing over a bar.”
It’s probably not surprising that someone with such a free spirit would take up racing cars. And who could have resisted, considering her introduction?
“I was on a plane once with Paul Newman, and we were chatting,” Mason says. “I had always enjoyed racing to watch and had no frame of reference, and he invited me out to a race he was doing at Riverside, a track long closed. So I went for a weekend, and for a year I followed the team.”
That led her to attending four racing schools and racing for seven years. Now she drives trucks and a hybrid. The latter fits in with her ranch, another important part of her life that came about on a whim.
“I had hit a particular phase of my life in ’90 or ’91, and the business was changing a lot,” Mason says. “I wasn’t working as much and now divorced and on my own, I tried to make a life for myself in California but I found it wasn’t working for me. On a whim I moved to New Mexico, and bought raw land.”
She became a devotee of permaculture – a philosophy of designing human settlements and agricultural systems to mimic relationships found in nature – and taking care of the resources. Her herbs and products are certified organic and can be found at www.restingintheriver.com “The product line started because they were things I needed,” she says. “I started with the salve, then wellness products for the immune system and throat therapy because I was on a book tour and talking a lot and went to London and did a play. I worked with a master therapist in Albuquerque.” After the New York play closes, Mason plans to return to her ranch.  “The biggest thing I want to do now is downsize,” she says, “and simplify.”

HANDYGAL TEACHES TOOL SMARTS TO THE HOPELESS

You’d think life would be difficult enough for a woman in the construction industry without taking custody of people who not only admit to being inept but are kind of proud of it. But here Gail Prosser-Craig is, back for a second year of fl inching and wincing as five of the country’s most tool-challenged people bash and hack their way through another innocent building.
Season five of “Canada’s Worst Handyman” debuts Monday, May 3, on Discovery, and Prosser-Craig has returned to try to help control the mayhem.
Being a carpenter by trade, she focuses on detail, and one thing that drives her crazy about the “Worst Handyman” contenders is their lack of attention to it. “They’ll plow through something, say dry walling and mudding, and it looks awful,” she says. “They think in their minds that it’s done. I’ve heard that some of the handymen from Season 4 and
5 complained I was hard on them.”
If anything has singled these contenders to be worst handyman, she says, it’s aesthetic blindness. The participants haven’t made their homes unsafe so much as they’ve rendered them hideous with unfinished jobs, or are done so weirdly that they could never work out.
“They haven’t removed load bearing walls,” she says. “They haven’t cut the joist to run plumbing.  “One of this year’s handymen is a mechanic, and he patched a hole in his wall with auto-body filler that they use to repair fenders.
“It’s all he knows, and who cares what it looks like? The hole is filled.” This year, the team took on the job of renovating a fraternity house at U. of Western Ontario in London. The building, which was condemned before the all-thumbs brigade took it over, was once the home of actor and TV host Alan Thicke, who makes the occasional appearance. Prosser-Craig says she and her fellow expert adviser, construction company owner Geoff Woodmansey, “complement each other.”
“I think they’re less intimidated by me,” she says. “Geoff is over 6 feet tall and has this scowl for safety.  He’s always on the lookout.
I was trained as a finish carpenter.  Often, I’m the last person in a house, myself and the painter. The details are what I was trained to look for, because often I’m the one giving the homeowner the keys.”
Even after four seasons on the air and a fifth ready to roll, Prosser-Craig says many viewers still think the characters on the show are a put-on, that no one could possibly be this bad.
“But there isn’t a single thing that TV does to trick these people,”
she says. “They have access to any tool they could conceive of.  They have myself and Geoff to ask, and they have host Andrew Younghusband, who knows a lot about construction. And this year, they were allowed to use a computer and go on the Internet and ask the question: How do I do this?”
Some of the participants are unteachable to the point that watching them made her “sweat with anger.” “We don’t set them up to fail,” she says. “They’ll have a two-hour class to teach them how to do a task, and then they’ll walk over, and it’s like it never even happened.”

PACINO KILLS AS DR. DEATH

Usually, Al Pacino means raw emotion, a swagger, and an attitude and accent born from his upbringing in the Bronx. Yet in HBO’s compelling “You Don’t Know Jack,” airing at 8pm Sat., April 24, Pacino is restrained, shuffl ing and sounding as if he’s from Michigan. Pacino becomes Jack Kevorkian, known as Dr. Death for assisting terminally ill patients’ suicides.
“What appealed to me was to see if I could capture where I could go as a zealot because there are so few who are the real McCoy,” Pacino says.  “And that’s Jack. He’s the guy that goes out the window.”
Though Pacino makes viewers feel as if they know the crusading Michigan pathologist, he never met the man. He did, though, study hours of footage of the doctor and talked to him over the phone. He worked with a dialect coach to nail Kevorkian’s accent.
“I practiced every day,” he says. “It’s nice to have that advantage.
It’s like practicing anything.”
Long hailed as the consummate Method actor, Pacino sometimes forgot to come out of character.  When making “Serpico,” the 1973 film about the whistle-blowing New York cop, he was a passenger in a taxi, and he yelled at a truck driver to pull over for polluting.
“I was about ready to pull out my badge, I said, ‘What’re you doing, Al?’” he says, laughing. In another movie, “I was a lawyer, and friends were discussing a contract, and I said, ‘Let me see that.’ ”
At least with this role he didn’t try to help anyone commit suicide.
Kevorkian first became the subject of controversy in 1990, when he helped the first of about 130 terminally ill people kill themselves.
Though a movie about assisted suicide isn’t a day brightener, it is an important, exceptionally welldone film.
Besides Pacino’s worthy performance, John Goodman, Brenda Vaccaro and Susan Sarandon as his best friend, sister and an ardent supporter, respectively, all put in excellent turns. Perhaps the only shock here is that Sarandon is dowdy, in frumpy skirts, sneakers and an ugly wig.
But as Goodman says, “You can’t dull her up too much.”
Kevorkian’s story is told without sentiment, revealing a stoic man who loves to paint and listen to Bach. He built his life on moderation and doesn’t care about superficial trappings.
He does, though, fervently believe that people without hope of recovery should have the right to die. Like all true believers, he’s willing to sacrifice himself for that belief.  “I’ll tell you a couple of things that are not in the film,” Pacino says. “The whole idea of why Jack wanted to be there — that people needed to have some figure of authority there so that when this action takes place, they will be taken care of, so a doctor is there. Otherwise they will do it themselves, and they are afraid it can go wrong.  “How about this one?” he continues. “What is crucial to the experience with Jack is that most patients that left and did not come back were different after they saw Jack. Somehow, that he existed eased their anxiety.
They felt they had more control of their lives after meeting Jack, and their relatives would report back to Jack how much easier it was to live with them.”
Though Pacino declines to say how he feels about euthanasia, Goodman says, “If the cases are anything like the cases we portrayed, I believe these people have the right to say when. Unfortunately it gets political, with people making religious points.”
Kevorkian built a Mercitron, a device to deliver lethal drugs to suicidal patients. He was careful that even a quadriplegic would be the one to deliver the fatal dose, so Kevorkian never pulled the plug.
 “He was the kind of crackpot inventor that you used to see in the Midwest,” Goodman says.
“He’s a very, very gentle soul, and very, very bright. I never met Kevorkian. I guess I was with the next best thing.”
Goodman, who refers to Pacino as his hero, had worked with him in a play 23 years ago. He assumes a gravelly voice and starts talking like Pacino saying, “Me and my grandma used to stay here,” referring to a hotel in the Bronx.  The actors had walked around the neighborhood after shooting a scene in which Kevorkian is bailed out of jail. It was shot at the Bronx County Courthouse, next door to Yankee Stadium, during the 2009 playoffs.
Scenes throughout the movie, especially of Kevorkian interviewing terminal patients about wanting to die, are gut-wrenching. But it’s the jailhouse scenes when we’re reminded why Pacino has eight Oscar nominations.
Kevorkian was imprisoned several times, once for eight-plus years.
During one incarceration, he went on a hunger strike, and it’s so believable in the film, viewers can nearly feel the dizziness.
Throughout, they feel the compassion of a man determined to do right.

TENNANT AND STEWART IN RIVETING HAMLET

Even on a series as respected as PBS’ “Great Performances” — which is, after all, TV’s longestrunning performing arts anthology series — some performances are greater than others.
So it’s with great pleasure, and not a little relief, to report that viewers will get not one, but two (at a minimum) truly great performances in “Hamlet,” airing Wednesday, April 28, on PBS (check local listings).  David Tennant, who recently left the role of the 10th Doctor on “Doctor Who,” stars in the title role of this adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2008 stage production in which he starred, opposite Patrick Stewart as his nemesis, King Claudius. It may seem like the kind of vanity casting that Broadway traffi cs in, with often ill-suited celebrities trucked in to pump up the box offi ce, yet Tennant is really quite astonishing in the role, bringing the same quirkiness and wit on display in “Doctor Who” to the title role.
But make no mistake: This is “Hamlet,” not “Whomlet.” Tennant, who performs much of this modern-dress performance in jeans and bare feet, plays his early scene as glumly as required for a young prince whose father has recently been murdered by his uncle, yet once his character hits on the notion of feigning madness, the Scottish actor starts spinning familiar words and lines like a virtuoso juggler with plates.
The tragedy gets its full due, but this may be the least melancholy Dane ever.
“I had done some other work for them in the past,” Tennant says of the Royal Shakespeare Company.  “I had played Romeo for them.  Possibly there was a sense of progression there, and I am not unaware that they thought the success of ‘Doctor Who’ would sell tickets, but whether they would not have offered me the part otherwise, you would have to ask them. I know that when you’re successful in other media and go back to the theater, they always seem to welcome you.  “Obviously, it’s both a huge privilege and a huge challenge to get to play that part for the Royal Shakespeare Company. But the RSC was definitely a familiar home of mine, and I had done work with them before.due, but this may be the least melancholy Dane ever.
“I’d done other work for them in the past,” Tennant says of the Royal Shakespeare Company.  “I played Romeo.  Possibly there was a sense of progression, and I am not unaware that they thought the success of ‘Doctor Who’ would sell tickets, but whether they would not have offered me the part otherwise, you would have to ask them. I know that when you’re successful in other media and go back to the theater, they always seem to welcome you.  “Obviously, it’s both a huge privilege and a huge challenge to get to play that part there. But the RSC was a home of mine. As had Patrick, who’d worked there before he became a starship captain.”
As for Stewart, he long had wanted to play Claudius yet had never been invited. The chance to play the ghost of Hamlet’s father was sheer catnip for the actor.
“For one thing, they’re brothers, close in age, so if they look the same, it’s actually very interesting,” Stewart says. “Claudius is a great role. He’s a gifted, intelligent, bold man destined to be a great ruler who missed out and, as a result of missing out, chose a wicked option to achieve the life he wanted. And that one wicked option has totally rotted him, inside and out.  It’s right there, in Claudius’ first line: ‘Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death/The memory be green.’ Green. What does that make you think of?
Something suppurate and infected. He makes a confession right there, although he doesn’t know it, but later he says, ‘Oh, my offense is rank. It smells.’ He can smell his own rottenness. And yet he’s a brilliant man.”
Stewart’s formidable Claudius is only part of a riveting trio joined by Penny Downie, an Aussie-born known in Canada for her drama series “New State Law, and many PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre roles.  Her Queen Gertrude gathers urgency as the drama unfolds, culminating in a shattering “closet scene” with Hamlet, wherein he confronts her about Claudius’ crime, followed by a heartbreaking moment in the fi nal scene after she knowingly quaffs a poison drink meant for Hamlet, then tenderly tries to stroke his hair — which, like any son, he brushes off with clueless annoyance.
It’s all part of what makes this “Hamlet” so extraordinary, the vivid sense that these are complicated, recognizable human beings experiencing emotions that still resonate to this day.
And that’s what Stewart looks for in a role.
“If something’s not rooted in humanity, in something that is not recognizably of this world, it doesn’t interest me,” he says. “When I approach a new role now, I am looking for two things: Where does it live inside me? And where is the human being?  Where is the man, the boy, the teenager? If they’re not there, you’re looking at a charade, at something that could be exciting and dramatic and full of fireworks, but is it something where you would say, ‘Ah! I know what that feels like!’ ” As for Tennant, he’s just grateful this production was captured on fi lm.
“That’s something I never dared dream would come around,” he said. “It was a wonderful cast, and it’s something I will always be proud to be associated with. I’m also very happy that we got to do a … record of the stage play, not a full-scale movie. It very consciously reveals its stage origins. The great thing about theater is that it is so ephemeral, but it’s always a shame when great things pass by and there’s no record of them. I’m glad I will be able to look back in my dotage and remember doing it.”

WILD STORMS IN THE UNIVERSE

What would happen if the wildest storms in the universe hit Earth?
STORM PLANETS embarks on a wild journey through the solar system and beyond hunting down extreme alien weather. Toxic methane monsoons, planet-sized hurricanes raging for centuries, lightning bolts a thousand times more powerful than Earth’s, and winds traveling at nearly 17 times the speed of sound generating a killer shockwave – these weather forces are part of everyday life on other planets, but they may not be as alien as they seem. 
Scientists investigating these awesome planetary events in our solar system are finding critical clues here on Earth. From giant sand dunes in Africa to the huge sea eddies of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, our own environment may hold the keys to these mysterious extraterrestrial tempests. 
The power of these storms is literally brought to Earth as we witness, through cutting edge CGI fantasy sequences, their destructive impact on San Francisco, California.
Space storms may look vaguely familiar but they are off the dial in size and power to anything we encounter on Earth. The further we travel out into the solar system the wilder this weather gets. Our quest is to unravel the mysteries of alien storms, wild and furious, raging on the planets and moons throughout the solar system and beyond.
We begin on Titan, a moon of the planet Saturn. Titan is Earth’s smaller, weirder kid brother. It is the only other place in the known universe with land and surface lakes and a rain cycle like Earth – except that the “land” consists of water frozen as hard as granite, the “lakes” are chilled natural gas,  and the “rain” is hydrocarbons-like liquefied car exhaust. And, if that weren’t horrible enough, the volcanoes belch natural anti-freeze. An environmentalist’s worst nightmare.
Titan’s surface winds are one of the many mysteries of this strange world. There is one big clue to how they blow: Titan has dunes that cover one-fifth of its surface and scientists view them as nature’s wind vanes. They can reveal a lot about the wind forces that shaped them. But, since they can’t go to Titan, two senior NASA planetary scientists, Rosalie Lopes and Steve Wall, go to one of the few places on Earth that has dunes that are similar to those on Titan: the Namib Desert in Southern Africa.
The pair climb some of the largest sand dunes on Earth, some as much as 40 thousand years old, to take their precise measurements. They pour local sand on a customized turntable to figure out the wind forces. They learn that the winds which shaped these dunes – and by inference, those on Titan – are extremely complex. It will take much more work to decode them.
The other great mystery of Titan’s weather is the periodic occurrence of “methane monsoons”. As we learn about the toxic weather on Titan, we experience, through CGI, the effects of an intense methane downpour striking San Francisco, California.
Moving further out into the solar system, we encounter the four huge outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune  – called the “Gas Giants” because they are made up almost entirely of atmosphere.
Storms on the Gas Giants are much larger, longer lasting and simpler than those on Earth-some are three times the size of our planet with winds exceeding 1,000 kilometers per hour. But planetary scientist Tim Dowling has hit upon a unique way to use our environment to study them. He’s discovered that gigantic underwater eddies – called “Ocean Hurricanes” – have the similar structures to the mysterious storms that exist on the Gas Giants. Dowling is experimenting with using Elephant Seals to gather data about the structure of the eddies and upload it to a NASA satellite.
These violent storms pack enough power to destroy everything they touch. Using stunning CGI, we show the city of San Francisco being hit by Jupiter’s biggest storm, the Great Red Spot, devastating its landmarks.
Gas Giants like Jupiter give life to these massive storms, but here on Earth our combination of mountains, water and abundant sunlight prevent them from taking hold. That same combination of ingredients also makes our weather difficult to predict. Our storms can blow up, wreak havoc and then disappear in just a few days.  Wenzhou, China is a global hotspot for some of Earth’s wildest most unpredictable weather: super-typhoons. These monster storms have been clocked at 220 kilometers per hour at landfall. Scientists like Kam-Biu Liu hunt these storms through ancient records stretching back thousands of years, and by scouring the earth itself. His team digs down almost 50 meters into the muddy coastline in a forensic search for microfossils, chemicals and shell fragments that make up the typhoons fingerprints in time. Searching for clues about some of the Earths most violent storms, they uncover evidence that we may be experiencing a new era of giant storms.
Two hundred light years away, there is another planetary storm, one that has the most violent and extreme weather ever witnessed by human beings.  
The planet known as HD8060B is slightly larger than Jupiter and orbits a star in the Big Dipper constellation. . During its orbit, that planet’s atmosphere rapidly heats up to 1,200 degrees Celsius-the temperature of volcanic lava — generating shockwave winds that travel at a blistering 18,000 kilometers per hour – five times the speed of the average rifle bullet.
A network of astronomers joins forces to study the planet during a rare celestial eclipse, when it passes directly in front of its star. Working at observatories dotted across North America, they will have just 6 hours to gather data about the most powerful storm in the known universe.
As the planet is tracked across the night sky, CGI depicts the awesome power of an HD8060B shockwave coming to Earth, destroying buildings and vaporizing everything in its path – an alien wind creating complete devastation. “Storm Planets” premieres April 26 on History TV.

HAWKING ON BIG BANGS, MARILYN & EINSTEIN…

Stephen Hawking, the world’s most famous mathematician and theoretical physicist, answers the big questions in a three-part Discovery series, “Into the Universe,” launching Sun, April 25.
It opens with the visually striking “Aliens,” in which Hawking asks, “Are we alone on our small blue planet? I think not, because of one fact — our universe is really big.” As lights flicker against space, Hawking says, “Each point of light is an entire galaxy. That makes it difficult to believe we are alone, so to my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational.”
In Sunday’s second episode, “Time Travel,” he ponders warping the time and space continua.
In the final two hours on May 2, “The Life and Death of the Universe,”
he explains how the universe formed and how it’s changing.
Paralyzed and unable to speak, Hawking conducted this exclusive interview via e-mail, with an assistant’s help. Each question takes him hours to answer, so Hawking is understandably concise.
The following are unedited, direct quotes.
Q: What great thinkers do you look up to?
A: Galileo and Einstein. Galileo was the first modern scientist who realized the importance of observation. Einstein was the greatest, but reassuringly, he had a number of blind spots, like quantum mechanics and gravitational collapse.
Q: Who are your heroes?
A: Galileo, Einstein, Darwin and Marilyn Monroe.
Q: Who’s your favorite on “The Simpsons?”
A: Homer is the ultimate young, middle-aged man, a father who repeat edly fails his kids, messes up at work and is always trying to get something for nothing.
Q: Did you ever think you would star in a TV show?
A: I never thought that I would star in a cartoon where I am portrayed with a yellow face in a wheelchair with helicopter blades and boxing gloves.
Q: What TV shows do you watch?
A: I like 24-hour news, crime dramas and good documentaries.
Q: Why is it important to feature science on TV?
A: Our lives are increasingly shaped by science.
Q: What are some of the great science questions of our time?
A: How did the universe begin?  How did life start? And how will it evolve in the future? What is the grand design?
Q: How can science be more popular?
A: It must invoke the sense of curiosity and wonder we have as children.
Q: What are your favorite books and what are you reading?
A: I like the classics like Jane Austin, Dickens and “Wuthering Heights.” I’m currently reading the new Ian McEwan novel.
Q: What was your worst subject in school?
A: French.
Q: What do you spend time thinking about?
A: The answer is X-rated!
Q: What music do you like?
A: Opera, especially Wagner, who manages to convey emotion with music, better than anyone.
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: I don’t believe in a personal God. That’s just wishful thinking.
Q: What’s your favorite era in history?
A: The 16th century when new worlds were being discovered.
Q: Do you have a motto?
A: To boldly go … .

BEST THING’S NOTABLE NOSHES

The Best Thing I Ever Ate,” airing Mondays on Food Network , is a love letter to the favorite foods of some of the network’s biggest names. Warning: Do not watch this show if you are hungry. That may actually be a worse idea than going to the grocery store on an empty stomach. While you may not quite be tempted to leave the house in search of food after watching “Best Thing,” you may be compelled to eat just about anything you have lying around the house. As the title suggests, the series asks food pros about the yummiest food items they’ve ever indulged in and where they had them. Each episode features a theme food or topic and a fl urry of famous foodies who weigh in on their favorite treats, including Giada De Laurentiis (“Everyday Italian”), Bobby Flay (“Boy Meets Grill”) and Guy Fieri (“Guy’s Big Bite”).
And as passionate professionals, they’re happy to wax poetic about any kind of food, from hot dogs to french fries to Buffalo wings. The real fun is in the lesserknown and downright bizarre delights. Case in point: mofongo, a wild melange of deep-fried plantains and pork filled with veggies or chicken that’s the apple of Fieri’s eye. Meanwhile, “Ace of Cakes” star Duff Goldman goes bonkers for deep-fried shrimp heads.
In this week’s episode, Goldman, Ted Allen (“Food Detectives”) and Tyler Florence (“Tyler’s Ultimate”) sound off on the best pizza in the U.S. Their favorite pizza joints span from Seattle to Chicago to New York. No doubt feelings run deep in the underlying argument over what kind of pizza crust is a cut above: thin or deep-dish.

JUNOS RETURN TO THE START OF THE JOURNEY

Eight years ago, the Junos went from “a Sunday night show” to a movable music feast. That’s how impresario John Brunton sums up what has happened since 2002, when the Junos moved from CBC to CTV. An event that been held in Toronto for years (with occasional sojourns to Vancouver) invaded St. John’s, N.L. The show was set in Mile One Centre, on several stages, with the best seats filled with fans.
Barenaked Ladies hosted, and Great Big Sea opened the show. This year, after stops in eight provinces and every region but Quebec, the 2010 Junos return to Mile One Centre on Sun, April 18. CTV will broadcast it live. “We’re going back to the scene of the crime,” Brunton says. “In part, it’s because the city and the province wanted us back so badly. They had such an exceptionally great experience the last time around. It’s been an incredible adventure,” Brunton says. “In many ways, the success of that first show set the tone for the rest.”
And in those eight years, there have been some very memorable moments. In 2003, there was Shania Twain hosting in Ottawa in a series of NHL-themed gowns she designed herself. “This was 20 years ago, where it was impossible to convince big names to host the show,” Brunton says. “And for the biggest star, not just in Canada but in the world at the time, Shania Twain, to say, ‘I’d love to host the show.’ And not only  host the show, but all those gowns, and get completely into it.”
Twain also dropped probably the funniest double entendre in awards show history: “I think I just sat on a Swollen Member.” In a similar vein, Alanis Morissette in 2004 lampooned Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction.” She hosted the show in a body stocking — with fake nipples and pubic hair, which she removed and tossed into the crowd. This year, the show will be handled by a rotating group of emcees, and scheduled performers include Lights, Nikky Yanofsky, Metric, Blue Rodeo, Michael Buble, Billy Talent, Justin Bieber and Drake. And for the first time, there will be a street party, with festivities spilling onto the city’s famous George Street. “There’s nowhere else in Canada like George Street,” Brunton says. “There’s something like 57 bars in a block and a half. It’s so representative of St. John’s love of music. We’re going to create a monster party on the street, and have some performances, and do some of the hosting among the thousands of people on the street.”
The street party is a logical progression, when you consider that over the past eight years, the Junos have evolved into what Brunton describes as “a long Grey Cup weekend.” “Musicians from all over Canada, from the Wednesday to the Sunday, take over bars all over the city.”
The style of the show has varied with the styles of the hosts, ranging from the unflappable Brent Butt to bombshell Pamela Anderson to comic Russell Peters, who said he knew nothing about music but hosted for two years anyway, in 2008-09. But what was perhaps the most dramatic moment came in 2005, at Butt’s show in Winnipeg, when the focus was to be Neil Young’s return to a city where he spent much of his youth.
Just days before the show, Young collapsed on a street in New York with a ruptured artery in his thigh — two days after having had brain surgery. He was rushed back into the hospital near death and had to cancel. “Neil ended up watching the show at the consulate house in New York,” Brunton says. “And we talked to Neil’s camp about us doing a bit of a tribute to Neil. k.d. lang stepped up and sang ‘Helpless.’ She tipped her hat to Neil and brought down the house.”

SURVIVORMAN CHALLENGES A NEW CROP OF TEENS

One quick way to get the attention of a bunch of teenagers is to blow up their plane. At least, that’s how Les Stroud does it in the first episode of “Survive This.” The second season of the wilderness survival series for kids debuts with two back-to-back episodes Mon, April 19, on YTV. Stroud is a musician and wilderness expert who is probably best known for his OLN Canada series “Survivorman,” in which he’d stage disasters that would leave him miles from civilization with nothing but his wits and outdoors training to work with. At the very beginning of the first episode of “Survive This,” Stroud says, “This is not a game show.”
There’s no prize, no gimmicks, and the kids really are on their own. Then he blows up the plane. “That was one of those so-called-sexy-TV moments,” Stroud says with a chuckle. “It was fun for me, but the purpose of doing something like that is to bring it all home. It’s not, ‘Oh, here’s a busted plane. You’re on a shore. Now let’s survive.’ If something like this really happened, you’d have a burning plane.”
Over the course of the series, Stroud puts eight teens through survival training lessons and challenges that test their physical, emotional and mental stamina.  Stroud says the teens go into the experience thinking they know what’s coming, but it quickly dawns on them that they’re in a serious project and that they should forget anything they’ve seen on “Survivor.” “I think they go into it being children of the modern social network age,” he says. “They’re laughing their way into it, and they saw the last series. By the third season of anything, everyone is savvy. Now, you’ve got people camping it up for the camera, knowing how to get their moments. And these kids are no different.  They come into it: ‘Oh yeah, I watch television.’ And boy, do they ever camp it up.”
That’s why Stroud explains to the teens that he doesn’t do “game shows or reality TV” — that this is a doc and they’re the subjects. “It takes about three nights before the cracks start to show,” he says. “Then the odd kid starts to go, ‘Whoa, I didn’t know I was going to be this cold and wet, and didn’t know I wasn’t going to have food for days.’  It’s the point where they crack, or bear down if they’re in for the long haul, or where they teeter on the edge, and they’re not sure if they can do it.”
Stroud puts their ingenuity to the test when it comes to creating food and shelter from only found articles. With only a few supplies, the kids are assigned tasks that range from foraging for food and building shelter to finding their way across rough terrain or surviving a night with just one companion and only two tools.  “It’s cold, wet, tired and it hurts,” Stroud says.
Anyone can leave at any time — and many of the kids do choose to go. Stroud says he can divide the teens into three groups, the idealists, “who think we’re going to go and commune with butterflies,” the ones who ham it up and think the whole thing is a joke, and the ones that “exude a kind of quiet confidence.”

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