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Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore.
As many of you probably already know, last week former U.S. vice-president Al Gore was in town to promote the environment and host a live presentation of his An Inconvenient Truth documentary. Afterwards, he dined with a Vancouver businessman at The Shore Club and enjoyed local seafood, eschewing bottled water for our “excellent” local tap water. Mr. Gore was seen dressed in a dark suit, pastel shirt and tie, and his signature black cowboy boots.
Bionic Woman loses strength
After being the highest-rated new series following its Sept. 26 premiere, NBC’s pivotal second episode of Bionic Woman quickly plunged in the Nielsen Ratings last week. The Vancouver-shot series has been mercilessly hammered by critics for poor plotting, one-note characters and stilted dialogue. Ordinarily, I don’t shed any tears when such a woefully executed series disappears into the ethers. Still, given our high Canadian dollar, the loss of any major series right now creates economic aftershocks that reverberate more profoundly when there is a production vacuum.
Still, vacuum or no, our sources tell us that unless the ratings for tonight’s episode are miraculously through-the-roof, NBC will likely relegate this bionic woman to the scrap heap.
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Actor Dean Cain
Smallville still soaring
Meanwhile, despite having little on-air advertising, the seventh season premiere of Smallville ended up with slightly more than five million viewers — close to the levels of last season’s premiere — putting the CW series in fifth place after the four major American networks, and first in cable.
Look for former Superman Dean Cain (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman) to guest-star in tomorrow night’s episode, Cure.
More Intelligence
Monaco-based Daro Film and Vancouver-based Thunderbird Films have extended their worldwide deal with Hallmark Channel for a second season of the Chris Haddock procedural crime drama, Intelligence. The series stars Ian Tracey as the kingpin of a West Coast Canadian crime family and Klea Scott (Minority Report) as the head of a local crime unit. The series also stars Matt Frewer (Max Headroom). Here in Canada Intelligence airs Monday nights on CBC.
