Send us Fan Mail As a TV beat reporter with an eye on the ratings, I never could understand why the Global television network walked away from their top-rated Canadian original hit Private Eyes in 2021. This breezy, stylish detective series, reminiscent of past romantic hits such as Hart to Hart, was vaulting well over the million mark in viewers. Fans couldn’t get enough of stars Jason Priestley and Cindy Sampson’s snappy repartee. Well, now it is five years later and, backed by producers Sh...

Send us Fan Mail Back in the ‘70s there was this hippie musical Godspell that ran for over a year in Toronto. The cast was mainly unknown at the time but wouldn’t stay that way for long. Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, Jayne Eastwood, Rudy Webb, and future Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer were all in on the act. The story has been told bit by bit in other documentaries but never all in one place. Director Nick Davis has put it all tog...

Send us Fan Mail As George Harrison once said, all things must pass. Which brings us to the fifth and final season of Son of a Critch, the CBC sitcom based on the early life of Mark Critch (This Hour Has 22 Minutes). Last June as production wrapped I met with the four main castmates from the series -- Critch, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Claire Rankin and Malcolm McDowell -- at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto. There we shared a conversation about how the series ends with young Mark (Ainsworth...

Send us Fan Mail This week on brioux.tv: the podcast, meet a former child star who continues to impress -- Kathy Garver, best known for playing oldest sibling Cissy on Family Affair. The series premiered on Sept. 12, 1966 -- 60 years ago next month. It ran for five seasons and 138 episodes and starred Brian Keith as Uncle Bill, a Manhattan bachelor. With the help of his gentleman's gentleman Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot), he was suddenly tasked with raising three kids. At 20 (thoug...

Send us Fan Mail For Part Two of my conversation with "Programming Insider" Marc Berman, we continue with the back half of the Critics Quiz. What was the scariest thing you ever saw on television? Do you think the era of the late night TV talk show is about done? What was your most memorable Television Critics Association press tour moment? Questions about those semi-annual network press gatherings dominate, including, "What show did you vote for in the annual TCA Awards as Program of the Yea...

Send us Fan Mail If you are reading this, you probably already follow Marc Berman, a.k.a. "Mister Television." In 1997, while at Mediaweek, Marc created The Programming Insider, the daily, digital online destination for television and media. We've known each other since then through our affiliation with the Television Critics Association. We've both worked our way through platefuls of scrambled eggs at fancy Pasadena and Hollywood hotels in bi-annual trips to countless network press tours. Th...

Send us Fan Mail Back in 2008, I had the pleasure of interviewing Peter Lassally, then winding up his extraordinary career in late night as executive producer of The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. For close to an hour, at his office deep within CBS Television City, Lassally regaled me with stories about Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Ferguson and many others. In listening back to the conversation — for the first time in 18 years — I’m struck not just by his professionalism but al...

Send us Fan Mail In 2022 I had the good fortune to welcome Ronnie Schell as a guest on this podcast. Schell was a familiar face and voice on TV for decades, most prominently as Jim Nabors' army pal on Gomer Pyle, USMC. He was also the voice of Hockey Night in Canada's animated mascot Peter Puck, did many Disney movies and cartoon voice-overs. Early on, he even snuck in an appearance on You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx. Schell was 94 when he died last month, just 10 days before Joby Baker p...

Send us Fan Mail In Part II of this two-part conversation, retired Globe and Mail TV columnist John Doyle returns to talk a little bit more about soccer but mostly about our shared fascination with television. The two of us tackle several of today's biggest TV challenges. For example: are late night talk shows going the way of the western? Does Crave sensation Heated Rivalry live up to the hype? Is funding at a crossroads in Canada? And because he simply can't help himself, Doyle also m...

Send us Fan Mail Can it be? Is that our John Doyle making sense of The World Cup in The Toronto Star? The former TV columnist at The Globe and Mail has come out of retirement to help explain why we are all suddenly mad for soccer as Canada continues to kick its way into contention. This isn't the first time John has turned into a sports scribe. He has reported on three other World Cups as a journalist. Hey, he's not just another pretty face TV pundit. He wrote the 2010 bestseller "The W...