Hugo pop! | Under a sunny but changeable sky

Panic among many readers. The ARTV channel has this week completed the broadcast in bursts of the first three seasons of the period soap opera Under a variable sky without programming the last two chapters, the fourth and the fifth.

Come on, what a scandal! What a lack of respect! What is our tax money for, eh?

It’s been a while since I’ve been inundated with so many messages from angry, disgruntled and worried viewers. “Why deprive people like this?” asks Carole H. “How sad, we’re starting again with the first season next week,” laments Jennifer G.

“Nooo, I was so hooked, in spite of myself, bonyeux!”, insists Audrey G. “I had been hoping to see this series again for so long,” insists Patricia M.

I admit that this wave of discontent has overwhelmed me. I would never have believed that Under a variable sky would unleash passions like that. Especially for a show that dates back to the mid-1990s and which only attracts, on average, 30,000 viewers per day to ARTV. A very good score for a specialty channel, certainly, but it remains an audience one and a half times that of a Bell Centre, spread throughout Quebec.

Fans of the Tanguay, Thompson and Rousseau families are invested and devoted. Several addicts have also written to Radio-Canada, which operates ARTV, to complain and received this response, by email, about the sequel to Under a variable sky : “The decision for seasons 4 and 5 has not been made at this time.”

This is an error in the communications of the public broadcaster. Yes, the decision was made and the last seasons of Under a variable sky will light up ARTV screens from spring 2025. We’ll have to wait, as is the case with regular series, which are also renewed every year.

One might think that these reruns of period soap operas cost Radio-Canada peanuts, which would thus fill its programming schedule at a discount with “old stuff” like Time for peace Or Salt and pepper. This is far from being the case, I am told.

Radio-Canada does not reveal the total bill, but union agreements specify that a percentage of the initial fee must be paid to all the artists who created this soap opera. In short, it is more expensive than relaying a foreign series dubbed in French.

“I can’t buy a cottage or stop working with the royalties from Under a variable skybut for the actors, it’s a nice amount that allows them to treat themselves to a little trip, for example,” concedes screenwriter Michel d’Astous, who co-wrote the 124 episodes of Under a variable sky with his long-time accomplice, Anne Boyer.

Broadcast between 1993 and 1997 on Radio-Canada, the popular soap opera took place in the fictional village of Belmont, which was in fact Frelighsburg, in the Eastern Townships, where the author Michel d’Astous rented a country house.

Most of the characters in the series were inspired by neighbors that Michel d’Astous regularly met, not far from the home of Pierre Foglia, a local legend.

Under a variable sky was interested in the intertwined destinies of three families from this Estrie region, starting with that of the entrepreneur Léon Tanguay (Guy Provost), who wanted to build 50 condos at the foot of a wild mountain, coveted to become a ski center.

Apple grower Benjamin Thompson (Gilles Pelletier), a descendant of loyalists, fiercely opposed it, while Camille Rousseau (Patricia Nolin) transformed her superb summer home into an inn to avoid losing it after her divorce.

The slower pace, character archetypes, and less violent stories of Under a variable sky have charmed a new generation of viewers, while also filling the need for comfort of an older audience.

Under a variable sky was the last project of the prolific Boyer-d’Astous duo at Radio-Canada. Public television turned up its nose at The returnwhich TVA quickly picked up, with the huge success that followed. Anne Boyer and Michel d’Astous, masters of the soap opera, then wrote 2 brothers, Taboo, Our summers, The Gentleman, Yamaska, The blue Hour, My son And My motherall works on TVA.

With his modern eye, Michel d’Astous notices the small defects of Under a variable skyincluding sometimes overly loud music, variable acting levels and less well-paced plots.

“At the time, we wrote 34 scenes for a one-hour episode of a soap opera, whereas it’s around 55 scenes now, even more if it’s a TV series. Today, a soap opera plot must be resolved in four episodes. You can’t have an investigation that lasts eight weeks anymore,” notes Michel d’Astous.

Speaking of changeable skies, dear readers, I’ll leave you for a while to splash around in a cool lake, only to return in mid-August with a clear mind and a sunny heart.

I levitate

With The unsightly ones, by Claudia Larochelle

It is a book of autofiction of barely 136 pages that grabs us with its raw lucidity and the quality of her pen, agile and informed. To talk about sisterhood, toxic loves and anxiety, the 46-year-old author draws on three pivotal events in her life: her secondary education in a private school for girls, her difficult beginnings as a daily journalist as well as her twisted relationship with a former elected member of the National Assembly. Of course we try to unmask the misogynistic press bosses or the manipulative politician that Claudia Larochelle describes in precise details. And the writer does not spare herself by revealing all her “intensity”, which requires a lot of courage.

I avoid it

IKEA radio ads

Hooray, IKEA has cut prices on hundreds of items including the Billy bookcase and the Malm bed. Boohoo, the Swedish manufacturer also seems to have slashed its marketing budget. The radio ads that all start with “this is the sound of someone who…” are downright bad. And repetitive. Who says “grapefruit” in the middle of the night? Who still makes jokes about kale in 2024? Ingvard Kamprad must be turning in his grave Kleppstad.