“Regular” winter programming begins very early in 2022: from January 3, viewers will be able to find their “favorite programs” on the networks (with the exception of Noovo) and on specialty channels. All the “new” fictions offered to ICI Télé have already been shown on the Tou.tv platform for the first time: Eye of the storm and Reasonable doubt (Monday, 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.), Without an appointment (Wednesday, 9 p.m.) and Outlive her children (Friday, 9 p.m.). TVA offers the thriller Robot portrait (Thursday, 9 p.m.), already available on Club Illico, and other new features, which will be discussed in our pages. Here are some productions, completely new or which are a little less so, which deserve our attention.
When science explains to us
The popular children’s show Crazy pig cedes its time slot until mid-February to It’s human, a “fascinating” magazine, but above all very entertaining whose mission is to explain, using data from serious scientific research and in-house experiences, certain behaviors, perceptions and physical characteristics of humans. This daily novelty, hosted by Marie-Soleil Dion, is of course aimed at curious young people, but also at adults, who will learn a lot of things, useful and unnecessary, about others and themselves …
Each of the episodes is built around a guest personality, who willingly participates in two scenarios or tests concocted by experts. The latter thus serve to popularize the current state of scientific evidence on the human behaviors studied. In another segment, closer to the talk show, In the company of regular contributors Manal Drissi and Meeker Guerrier, we look at a characteristic or an interest of the guest star based on existing research on the subject. Thus, in the episode made available to the press, we discovered with Kevin Raphaël if the fact of shouting during a physical activity made it more effective, the physical and moral benefits of volunteering and how we manage to “feel” with eyes.
The result is a series with substantial scientific content, well popularized, clearly illustrated, both for very young and old, and, above all, delivered in a playful and sometimes even comical spirit which makes the experience not at all painful. . A distant cousin of Brilliant !, with the same potential for listening pleasure.
It’s human
Télé-Québec, Monday to Thursday, 6:30 p.m.
Police daily
The coincidences of the programming mean that two documentary series which follow the not always restful daily life of peace officers working in Quebec, not quite “new” but no less relevant, are broadcast at the same time at the beginning of winter. .
Thereby Native policeman, whose first two seasons were first presented on the APTN network (and now available in French, English and Innu on the APTN Lumi platform), is finding its place with much delay (the original broadcast dates from September 2019 …) in the time slot of Great reports. The series tackles the not always easy daily life of police officers in four indigenous communities (Uashat and Mani-utenam, Odanak, Wendake and Wemotaci) in a now classic formula of “professional docurality”.
There is no narration other than that of the testimonies on camera of the police officers, who for the most part have indigenous origins and that we follow throughout their patrols, punctuated by interventions, preventive or repressive, of specific operations and even searches. The result is a rich chronicle of the different facets of the work of the police in their own community, where everyone knows each other, where it is sometimes necessary to intervene with family members and play a larger role than expected. the job, with few human and financial resources. We hope that RDI will present the second part later.
Speaking of the second part, Télé-Québec offers a follow-up to its docurality on the work of police officers and other employees working within the Police Department of Quebec City, always concocted by the duo Catherine Proulx and Nadia Ruel (On call 24/7). This new batch of episodes, where we follow police officers already present in the first season and some recruits, emphasizes the human dimension of their task, sometimes much more complex than one might think. An excellent way to discover “differently” the underside of the work of the police officers who made the headlines recently for rather muscular interventions …
Native policeman
RDI, Thursday, 8 p.m. Seasons 1 and 2 can be viewed at aptnlumi.ca.
Police on duty, season 2
Télé-Québec, Thursday, 8 p.m.
Youth work
The name Mark Critch might not ring a bell, but if you’ve ever watched the satirical news show This Hour Has 22 Minutes on CBC, you know this comedian from ROC, cousin of the right buttock ofInfoman, who allows himself to annoy the stars and powerful of this world since his arrival in the team of this televisual monument of the other solitude in 2003. Two years ago, the irreverent comic committed an autobiography a bit humorous from his childhood in Newfoundland in the 1980s, in a rather special family, Son of a Critch.
With his colleague producer of This Hour, native Montrealer Tim McAuliffe, also screenwriter for the American version of Tea Office, he adapted this learning story of a young adolescent victim of intimidation, who discovers life outside the family cocoon, of a journalist father from “region” always in search of scabrous stories (Critch), of a rough-hewn grandpa lover of funeral wakes (Malcolm McDowell, delicious) and of a mother who is too intrusive, of course …
The first episodes of this charming teenage chronicle that smacks of quirky nostalgia (apart from the pop cultural references, we frankly have the impression of being in the 1960s rather than the 1980s), both touching and at times very funny, do not unfortunately do not stand out so much from the batch of productions of the kind that are made in our neighbors to the South (Young Sheldon, The Wonder Years), as one would have hoped. Especially when you know a little Critch and his “passion” for his part of the island country, which he never shies away from gently ridiculing. Let’s give it a chance …
Son of a Critch
CBC, Tuesday, 8:30 p.m.