Much has happened in the Canadian television business in the year leading up to the 18th Annual Gemini Awards. In addition to contending with wide-ranging economic woes, the TV industry was hit with the bombshell that $50 million would be lopped off the Canadian Television Fund over the next two years.

Last year, one of the facts that the sorry state of Canadian drama was pinned to was that broadcasters had only one new one-hour Canadian drama to offer up – The Eleventh Hour. Well, one year later, the only new domestic serial one-hour drama on the big three’s skeds is CBC’s Wonderland.

And so perhaps the 2003 edition of the Geminis takes on greater significance, making the fact that our own programs and craftspeople were able to achieve any degree of excellence amid these trying conditions all the more remarkable and worthy of championing.

Ironically, leading the pack in ’03 among nominees, with 14 nods, is that same Eleventh Hour, the poster child for the dilemma that is Canadian production. The Alliance Atlantis program may draw favorable notices from TV critics, as it earnestly expounds on such lofty themes as journalistic integrity, but it has not been able to draw significant eyeballs for broadcaster CTV. In its inaugural season, the show averaged 400,000 viewers, or about one-third of what CTV/AAC’s short-lived The Associates did when it launched.

‘Over and above the industrial issues that a show is facing – or from the media side or any side – our process supports these shows in terms of focusing on the excellent quality of work,’ says Maria Topalovich, president of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, overseers of the Geminis.

CTV is apparently paying heed to The Eleventh Hour’s positive reviews, having signed on for a second season. Perhaps taking home a few trophies might help the production light a fire under audiences, although traditionally that has not been a guarantee.

Viewers will get to see how The Eleventh Hour fares against its rivals during the Geminis’ live Awards Gala broadcast on CBC, Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. Yukster Sean Cullen returns as the host (see story, below), after a performance last year that is itself nominated for a Gemini. Cullen even takes on a producing role for night three along with Lorne Perlmutter and David Kitching. Meanwhile, Star TV will once again provide one hour of red-carpet coverage prior to the show.

Oct. 18 and 19 are the respective dates for the newly consolidated Documentary, News and Sports Awards Gala and the Industry Gala. On night one, additional categories have been added for sports, lifestyle and information programming, acknowledging what a bigger chunk of networks’ bread and butter these formats represent, especially in light of dwindling drama outputs.

Night two, meanwhile, is primarily for the presentation of craft awards. For the first two evenings’ festivities, taking place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the Academy has enlisted presentation company Mediaco to add an innovative spin to the proceedings. Broadcasts of nights one and two will air after the fact on Rogers Television.

‘The industry is very much part of the Geminis,’ says Topalovich, on the challenge of making the awards relevant to insiders and audiences alike. ‘But of course we are looking to reach out and really try to increasingly engage the general public in celebrating Canadian television with us.’

To that end, the Academy has altered the format this year in a bid to make the broadcast sexier to the average viewer. The Awards Gala will be limited almost exclusively to dramatic programming and performance prizes, with the addition of awards for doc show and news and sports hosts.

While industry peers vote on the Geminis, this year’s viewers choice award will let the public decide who is Canada’s funniest performer. Folks can cast their ballot for one of the 10 nominees at the Gemini website, and the contest will get added exposure on AOL Canada’s home page as well.

Viewers will not, however, see the presentation of the award for best comedy program or series during the Awards Gala, as it has been moved to the industry evening. Surely some viewers will miss this category, as comedy is a good part of any awards broadcast, and it can be argued that comedy is what Canada does best. While nominees in this category might feel they are getting short shrift, the Academy believes that moving the award to night two adds profile to that evening.

It is rather ironic that the Academy is hanging the big show mostly on drama, when the genre has lately been at a low ebb volume-wise. But Topalovich takes exception to the notion that nominees are largely the same faces year-in, year-out because of a small number of programs out there.

‘There were quite a few dramas – series and TV movies – quite a large spread that was entered for consideration,’ she explains. ‘The Eleventh Hour is certainly new, and [best dramatic series nominee] The Atwood Stories wasn’t there last year… And in terms of the ‘same faces,’ well, I think it speaks to the quality of the [nominated] shows. You take a look at what happens in the Emmys, and you see a lot of the same faces as well.’

Venerable detective show Da Vinci’s Inquest, a previous winner of 11 Geminis, including the past two for best dramatic series, trails The Eleventh Hour with 11 nominations. Of course, the new intrigue with Da Vinci’s is the fact that creator and executive producer Chris Haddock is launching the series The Handler on CBS, and it will be interesting to see how he straddles the industries on both sides of the 49th.

The relative upstart on the cop show trail is Blue Murder, which bursts into the top five for its third season with nine noms, including best dramatic series (see story, p. G-8). The most nominated TV movie or dramatic miniseries is 100 Days in the Jungle, based on the true story of North American oil workers taken captive by Colombian guerillas in Ecuador. The MOW chimes in with nine nods, including best direction for Sturla Gunnarsson, who seems equally as comfortable on the big and small screens, as evidenced by his Genie nom last year for Rare Birds. The most nominated comedy is the now-defunct Made in Canada, also with nine nods.

-www.geminiawards.ca

-www.academy.ca