I’m probably the person who reacts the strongest to television punches — and also to punch served in an Arques crystal bowl. OMG, damn @# % $ &, let’s see, impossible, even if that’s the case, my range of reactions is thunderous, sincere and voluntary.
When it comes to major twists and turns, I’m an easy and docile viewer. I swallow them all. I would ask for one every five minutes. I love my TV punches so much that I would drink them through a straw, in a spritz or straight from the bottle, like a desperate Roy Dupuis in With a beating heart.
Fortunately for our insatiable thirst for suspense, excellent local punch is made, artisanal, well dosed and more exciting than a 43e Quebec gin that tastes like lawn mower grass.
Punch is proving to be an effective way to slow down the exodus towards digital giants and force addicts to consume their dose live, according to a precise schedule. No one wants to learn, in a gossipy column like this, that the raving Jean Dumas (Gildor Roy) is sleeping with (name censored). Let’s see, impossible!
This twist in the series Dumaswhich broke out Monday at 8:59 p.m. on Radio-Canada, blew the whistle on us all. Stop reading now if you are behind in your viewing of Dumaslike Dumas (Hugo, his first name) is often behind social trends, yo, quoicoubeh!
Not only did Jean Dumas send his son Anthony (Jason Roy Léveillée) on a spy mission to the competing firm Investcan, but he also maintains a clandestine affair with the chief enemy viper, Delphine Proulx (Catherine-Anne Toupin). This is Luc Dionne as we like it, surprising and impactful.
The story of the double life of Carl Lemay/Daniel Simon (Daniel Thomas) was shaping up to be a classic case of a man who wanders, incognito, between two families. But no, this fraud surely camouflages a murder in Thailand and hides an even more gigantic scam which involves the Ministry of Revenue and Carl Lemay’s first wife, Julie Gervais (Isabelle Guérard), who knew she was a cuckold from the start. I love that the cheated partner, Audrey Casgrain (Marie-Laurence Moreau), fights fiercely to recover each of the dollars that were stolen from her.
TV sprinkled with punch leads to frenetic and captivating episodes, which stimulate our curiosity and, above all, our furious desire to devour the rest. A well-delivered punch can even make us forget an entire episode that was very bad.
Deployed with intelligence and parsimony, the punch is a truly rewarding dramatic spring. Too many twists and turns and poof, credibility gone. Not enough surprises and boom, interest pulverized.
With the abundance of platforms and their almost infinite choice of series, Quebec television no longer has the luxury of taking its time. We can’t ask viewers to wait until the fifth episode before it becomes good, they will go elsewhere. Consequence? The TV series here have to perform quickly and well and it’s super thankless for the creators, I’m very aware of that.
For now, punch productions are doing well this fall. Whether it is Reasonable doubt, Alerts, STAT, Indefensible, With a beating heart Or Witchesthe screenwriters spoil themselves in the astonishing revelations. The weapons also packed a big punch in its last episode, broadcast Monday evening on TVA. Alert, whistleblower, blah, blah, blah, you know the drill.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY TVA
Vincent-Guillaume Otis in The weapons
While Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Philippe Savard (Vincent-Guillaume Otis) and military policewoman Kim Falardeau (Eve Landry) secretly investigate the shenanigans of the elite commando JTF16, they discover another clandestine thing buried within of the Canadian army, the Whitestone project.
Just the name (Whitestone!) opens the door to a lot of delicious speculation. Is this a worse unit than JTF16, which already seems very intense? What are the Whitestone guys secretly making in their hangar? Will their boss Thomas Dallaire (Frédéric Millaire Zouvi) end up killing someone by beating or kidnapping his comrades in uniform?
Reality TV, a veritable factory for plot twists, regularly relies on punch, but in an often clumsy, borderline frustrating way.
When the time comes to eliminate a participant, no, it’s not in the following episode that we want to see their face come out of the envelope. It’s now. Right away. Live there, one would say Double occupancy.
In short, give us today our punch of this day and above all do not deliver us from evil, amen, or bring some punch.
I levitate
With The ocean’s share by Dominique Fortier
It’s a silky, dazzling novel, difficult to describe aptly. With her magnificent pen, the author relates the epistolary passion between two monuments of American literature, namely Herman Melville, author of the classic Moby-Dick in 1851, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, creator of The scarlet lettera work published in 1850. Melville is obsessed with Hawthorne, an enigmatic being, but is it mutual? Through the fiery letters that the writers exchanged, Dominique Fortier inserts snippets of his own correspondence with a certain Simon, both man and poem. Two books are then woven before our eyes in a rich and delicate language, like precious embroidery.
I avoid it
Whispering about clothes on TV
Every year, at The voice or to What talent!for example, the same clothing comments stand out. What do you mean Rachid Badouri has always been wearing the same sweater for three weeks? Does he have nothing left to wear on his back? Marie-Mai isn’t tired of putting on the same dress every night? Sigh. The reason why the four judges of What talent! have not changed their outfit before Monday is very simple: it is to facilitate the editing of the episodes. The acts we saw were not necessarily filmed in the order they were presented on TV. It’s the same thing The voicewhere the coaches keep the same clothes during blind auditions, to simplify putting together the shows. And no, it’s not a question of laziness or lack of budget.