On Tuesday I was hinting that what is going on amounts to a whole lot of nothing.
Maybe I lied. The nominees for the 24th Annual Gemini Awards have been announced. Flashpoint is the big story, with a record-breaking 19 nominations. Garnering 11 nominations is the randy-royals period drama The Tudors, and four shows got nine nominations each - the miniseries Diamonds, CBC's The Border and Being Erica, and Less Than Kind, which aired on CITY-TV stations.
Congratulations to all, especially the Flashpoint team, creators Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, and producers Anne Marie La Traverse and Bill Mustos. They took a smart concept about a seemingly formulaic cop drama and made it better and better as the series progressed. And they gave Canada its first hit drama on a U.S. network in a decade.
Naturally there is some excitement in the Canadian TV racket about the Gemini nominees. Tuesday on CBC Newsworld, Jelena Adzic offered a live report and, asked by Nancy Wilson about the actual Gemini Awards shows and TV gala to come, said, "It's just gone berserk. It's all over the place." She also told viewers that the Gemini Awards are "pretty much considered the Emmys of Canadian TV."
Yeah, fine. Whatever. I cannot begrudge the acknowledgments given to many Canadian TV shows. But the fact remains, the Gemini Awards are far from a reliable barometer of excellence in our TV racket. They are beyond weird. They verge on being a joke.
Look through the entire list of shows in the 99 categories - count 'em, there are 99 categories - and you won't find a single nomination for Corner Gas. Seriously. Not a sausage. The show wrapped up its multi-season run this year and although both a popular critical success, it's missing. As far as I know, numerous episodes of Corner Gas were entered in the seven applicable categories and now it emerges that it was completely shut out. Corner Gas changed Canadian TV forever. Now it's like it never existed. Riddle me that one. It reduces the Gemini Awards to a comedy show, right there.
And then there is the matter of the TV gala presentation of the key awards. It will happen on Saturday, Nov. 14, in Calgary. And it will air on both Global and Showcase. Further details were not available Tuesday. Not the categories to be covered at the gala, the host of the event or the length or method of the gala.
So let's say it's going to be like last year's Gemini gala. That means a one-hour show on a Saturday night, when almost everybody is watching NHL hockey. Plus, of course, one of those cheesy little red-carpet things presented by ET Canada. Last year's red-carpet thing was an utter embarrassment.
Time was, the Gemini Awards meant a two-hour live show on CBC on a Sunday night in prime time, taking advantage of the biggest potential audience for showcasing Canadian shows and talent. It has now dwindled into perplexing obscurity. At this point the Giller Prize gala has a higher profile than the gala that honours Canadian TV.
Before the gala in Calgary there will be several nights of award-giving shindigs in Toronto. A month earlier, actually. No national TV coverage. Just routine press releases about shows that a lot of Canadians watch.
And it's not just me with the skepticism. For several years, CTV has taken a dim view of the Gemini Awards in the news categories, and declined to submit material in the news and news-information series categories. Thus, the "honouring" of Canadian TV in those areas does not, and cannot, include CTV news and W-Five.
Not many in Canadian TV will applaud my skepticism here. As sure as the weather will turn by the time of the Nov. 14 gala, some dippy actor will complain that the press is not going all-out to celebrate the Gemini winners. I will answer the complaint in advance. Journalists are not publicists. If you want a publicist, then hire one. The blame for skepticism about the Gemini Awards and the public's fuzzy awareness of the Geminis lies with the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. The academy runs the Gemini Awards and has reduced its importance. Not me. The academy has ensured the Gemini Awards are a whole lot of nothing.
Also airing:
Great performances: Harlem in Montmartre (PBS, 8 p.m.) is an excellent and eye-opening doc that tells the story of those who left America to create the jazz age in Paris between the First and Second World Wars. It points out that many black American musicians, having served in Europe, remained there rather than return to the segregation and racism of the U.S. Eventually, along with refugees from the U.S. jazz scene, they formed an expatriate community of musicians, entertainers and entrepreneurs, primarily congregating in the Montmartre district of Paris. Some, like Josephine Baker, achieved enduring fame, while others faded into history. Based on the book of the same title by historian William A. Shack, and using rare archival material from France, the program celebrates those Americans in Paris and points out that the French were the first people in the world to respect jazz as a serious art form.
Wide Angle: Once Upon a Coup (PBS, 10 p.m.) is another new doc, one that admits the content sounds like a John le Carré thriller, but is anchored in fact. And the facts unfold in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny West African nation newly rich with oil, and already infamous for corruption. The story begins in 2004, when a group of mercenaries is arrested in Zimbabwe. Equatorial Guinea's president said they were plotting a coup against him. The mercenaries claim to be part of an international plot to control the country's vast oil resources. The doc travels the world to try to sort out the truth.