Streaming This October on CBC Gem

New to CBC Gem in October 2020

Exclusive Canadian Premiere of Season 2 of Emmy™-nominated comedy series PEN15 on Oct. 16

Tenth Anniversary Celebration of THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW with Seasons 1-3, the Exclusive Canadian Premiere of Season 10, and Specials available to stream beginning Oct. 9

New seasons of CBC Gem original scripted kids’ series DETENTION ADVENTURE and CBC documentary series YOU CAN’T ASK THAT reflecting Canadians with disabilities debut Oct. 2

Exclusive Canadian Premieres of British comedy series BRASSIC (Season 2) and Idris Elba’s IN THE LONG RUN (Season 2) begin streaming Oct. 2

POLARIS MUSIC PRIZE Shortlist Celebration and Winner Announcement (Oct. 16)  

New original Canadian documentaries including CBC Creative Relief Fund project ROCKIN’ THE COFFIN (Oct. 23) and Hot Docs 2020 Official Selections INFLUENCE (Oct. 9) and MEAT THE FUTURE (Oct. 23)

CBC Films-supported titles AMERICAN WOMAN, CLARA, DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL and RED SNOW begin streaming this month

Parenting Collection, with Exclusive Canadian Premieres of THE ARRIVAL and PLANET CHILD, and Halloween Collection, including Seasons 1 and 2 of R.L. STINE’S THE HAUNTING HOUR, available this month

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ACCLAIMED COMEDIES

• PEN15 Season 2 (Comedy, 7×30, United States)
  *Exclusive Canadian Premiere*
  Begins streaming Friday, October 16
  Produced by The Lonely Island, Primetime Emmy™-nominated PEN15 is middle school as it really happened, in all its R-rated glory. Maya Erskine (Betas, Insecure) and Anna Konkle (Rosewood, Maron) star, playing younger versions of themselves as awkward seventh grade outcasts, surrounded by actual 13-year-olds. Set in 2001, Maya and Anna face the trials and tribulations of middle school, from boys to school dances to overbearing parents – where the best day of your life can turn into your worst with the stroke of a gel pen.

• BRASSIC Season 2 (Comedy, 6×60, United Kingdom)
  *Exclusive Canadian Premiere*
  Begins streaming Friday, October 2
  BRASSIC follows a group of working-class friends who find unconventional ways to win at life. In Season 2, Vinnie and the gang are even more ambitious with their mad-cap money-making schemes which bring them a whole new world of trouble, including an escaped circus animal, a severed human head and a recently deceased old lady. BRASSIC is co-created by BAFTA® and International Emmy®-winning writer Danny Brocklehurst (Shameless, Safe) and Joseph Gilgun, and stars Gilgun (Preacher, Misfits), Michelle Keegan (Our Girl), Damien Molony (Ripper Street), Tom Hanson (The Little Drummer Girl), Dominic West (The Affair), and Joanna Higson (Shameless).

• IN THE LONG RUN Season 2 (Comedy, 7×30, United Kingdom)
  *Exclusive Canadian Premiere*
  Begins streaming Friday, October 2
  IN THE LONG RUN is a period comedy created by Idris Elba (Luther, Beasts of No Nation) about family, community and what home really means. In Season 2, Walter (Elba) has been elected union rep at the factory to tackle a very slippery negotiation. Melissa’s (Amani Johnson, Les Misérables) biological father, Leon (Curtis Walker, Youngsters), has turned up on the estate, and Kirsty (Kellie Shirley, Call The Midwife) is faced with the difficult task of telling Bagpipes (Bill Bailey, Hot Fuzz).

• DETECTORISTS Season 1 (Comedy, 6×30, United Kingdom)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 9
  A comedy about the lives of two eccentric metal detectorists, Andy (series creator, writer and director Mackenzie Crook, Britannia, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Lance (Toby Jones, The Girl, The Hunger Games), who spend their days plodding along ploughed tracks and open fields, hoping to disturb the tedium by unearthing the fortune of a lifetime.

• MOHAWK GIRLS Season 4 (Comedy, 8×30, Canada)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 23
  MOHAWK GIRLS is a comedic look at the lives of four modern-day women trying to stay true to their roots while they navigate sex, work, love, and the occasional throw down. This is life on the reserve like you’ve never seen it before – modern, tough, and funny.

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CBC GEM ORIGINALS

• DETENTION ADVENTURE Season 2 (Tween, 10×11, Canada)
  *CBC Gem Original, Canadian Premiere*
  Begins streaming Friday, October 2
  Framed for an epic prank, the now famous “Detention Adventure Four” – Raign (Simone Miller), Brett (Tomaso Sanelli), Joy (Alina Prijono), and Hulk (Jack Fulton) – must team up with new ally, Kelly (Lilly Bartlam), to hunt for the legendary lost fortune of Ignatius Cockshutt. Their punishment lands them roles in the local Brantford Historical Society’s reenactment play under the hawkish eye of historian Miss Dumont (Sarah McVie). Delving deeper into history unearths surprising truths about the town’s past, while leading them closer to their goal. When it becomes clear that a mysterious foe is racing them to the treasure, they have to work against the clock, create unlikely alliances, and face hard truths.

• YOU CAN’T ASK THAT Season 2 (Documentary series, 8×30, Canada)
  *CBC Gem-First Premiere*
  Begins streaming Friday, October 2 
  Based on the hugely successful unscripted format from ABC Australia, Season 2 of CBC documentary series YOU CAN’T ASK THAT continues to confront prejudices and break down taboos in society in an authentic and relatable way. Each episode asks a group of Canadians with different disabilities to respond honestly to the awkward, inappropriate or uncomfortable questions they hear all the time, offering them a platform to speak candidly for themselves. Topics discussed this season include growing up with a disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Order (PTSD), Deafness, Schizophrenia, Multiple Sclerosis, Bipolar Disorder, Parkinson’s, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. CBC continues to offer the series with Integrated Described Video.

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DRAMAS

• DOWNTON ABBEY (Drama, United Kingdom)
  A beloved and critically acclaimed historical drama created by Oscar™-winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), DOWNTON ABBEY chronicles the lives of the British aristocratic Crawley family and their servants through sweeping change, war, scandals, love, and hope in the early twentieth century. Over the course of its run, DOWNTON ABBEY won a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film, and a Primetime Emmy™ Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie, among other awards and accolades. 

• • Season 1 (7×60) begins streaming Monday, October 5

  • Season 2 (9×60) begins streaming Monday, October 12

  • Season 3 (9×60) begins streaming Monday, October 19 

  • Season 4 (9×60) begins streaming Monday, October 26 

  • Season 5 (9×60) begins streaming Monday, November 2

  • Season 6 (9×60) begins streaming Monday, November 9 

•  THIRTEEN (Drama, 5×60, United Kingdom)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 23
  Starring Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer in a BAFTA-nominated performance, this tense psychological drama follows the story of Ivy Moxam, a 26-year-old woman learning to live again after 13 years in captivity. Comer won the Emmy™ Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2019 for her role in Killing Eve.

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ARTS, LIFESTYLE & MUSIC

• BIG THINGS SMALL TOWNS Season 2 (CBC Arts, 12×8, Canada)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 2
  Follow Tamarra Canu on a prairie road trip across Alberta and Saskatchewan as she continues her search for thriving small town communities and the origin of the bizarre gargantuan art within them. Are these big objects big enough to keep the culture in our small towns alive? If not, what are they willing to do to thrive?

• THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW Seasons 1-3, Season 10 and Specials (United Kingdom)  *10th Anniversary Celebration*
  Begin streaming Friday, October 9
  THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW is the ultimate baking battle where passionate amateur baking fans compete to be crowned the UK’s Best Amateur Baker.

• Seasons available as of October 9 include:

  • Season 1 (6×60)

  • Season 2 (8×60)

  • Season 3 (10×60)

  • Season 10 (10×60 and 2×60) *Exclusive Canadian Premiere*

• Specials available as of October 9 include:

• • Wedding Cake Special (1×60)

  • Master Class (2×60)

  • Master Classes, Easter & Christmas Special (5×60)

  • Season 3 [Class of 2012 Special] (1×60)

  • Season 4 [Class of 2014 Special] (1×60)

• • Season 5 [Class of 2015 Special] (1×60)

• POLARIS MUSIC PRIZE Shortlist Celebration and Winner Announcement (CBC Music)
  Streaming live Friday, October 16 at 8 p.m. ET Hosted by CBC Music’s Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe, CBC Music celebrates the Polaris Music Prize Shortlist with a special cinematic tribute and announces the 2020 winner.

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PARENTING COLLECTION

Begins streaming Friday, October 16

• TODDLERS BEHAVING (VERY) BADLY Season 1 (Factual, 3×60, United Kingdom) *Exclusive Canadian Premiere*
  Childcare expert Laura Amies takes on tears and tantrums as she teaches toddlers how to listen, develop self-discipline and good manners.

• MY BIG FAMILY FARM Season 2 (Lifestyle, 6×60, United Kingdom)
  *Exclusive Canadian Premiere*
  Join shepherds Amanda and Clive Owen, and their nine children, for more adventures on their remote hill farm in the Yorkshire Dales.

• THIS WILD LIFE (Documentary, 12×30, United Kingdom)
  *Canadian Premiere*
  Wildlife expert Saba Douglas-Hamilton (Big Cat Diary, Nature’s Epic Journeys, Last of the Longnecks) and family move to the romantic Samburu National Reserve in Kenya to run a safari lodge for the first time.

• THE ARRIVAL (Documentary, 4×60, United Kingdom)
  *Exclusive Canadian Premiere* THE ARRIVAL takes an unprecedented look at the lives of six different families in the lead up to the birth of a child, the arrival home, and the first few weeks following.
  

• PLANET CHILD (Documentary, 3×60, United Kingdom)
  *Exclusive Canadian Premiere*
  PLANET CHILD explores the fascinating journey of child development up to the age of seven. From mega-cities to deserts, the series showcases global examples of childhood.

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ORIGINAL CANADIAN DOCUMENTARIES

• LESSONS INJUSTICE (Documentary, 1×8, directed by Karen Chapman)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 16 *Hot Docs 2017 Official Selection*
  A father sets out on a car ride with his teenage son and reflects on the conversation he knows he will soon have to have: how to conduct himself as a young black man in Canadian society while facing the harsh realities of racial discrimination.

• INFLUENCE (Documentary, 1×78, directed by Diana Neille and Richard Poplak)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 9 *Hot Docs 2020 and 2020 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection*
  Starring Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, and F.W. de Klerk, INFLUENCE is a profile of the morally slippery British reputation manager, Lord Timothy Bell. In 1998, Bell co-founded the legendary PR firm Bell Pottinger. The film examines the politicization of modern communication over the last 40 years—the winding journey from advertising to algorithms; television to Twitter.

• THE SEARCH: MANUFACTURING BELIEF (Documentary, 1×78, directed by Patrick Payne)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 16
  THE SEARCH: MANUFACTURING BELIEF examines the mysterious, universal emotion of awe — that “aha! moment” or epiphany — as experienced by Patrick Payne, first as a teenager at a Catholic Retreat Weekend in 1975, and then again more than 40 years later as a seasoned agnostic and skeptic.

• MEAT THE FUTURE (Documentary, 1×78, directed by Liz Marshall)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 23 *Hot Docs 2020 Official Selection*
  From filmmaker Liz Marshall (The Ghosts in Our Machine, Water on the Table), MEAT THE FUTURE is a close-up, personal look at the visionaries risking everything to innovate real meat without slaughtering animals, and without environmental degradation.

• ROCKIN’ THE COFFIN (CBC Short Docs, 1×9, directed by Cailleah Scott-Grimes)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 23 *CBC Creative Relief Fund Project*
  In this whimsical animated documentary, a father and daughter discuss the creative ways they deal with the idea of death. They decide to build a coffin together by hand during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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CANADIAN FILMS

• DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL (Drama, 1×90, directed by Albert Shin)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 2 *CBC Films-supported*
  Set amidst the strange and eerie world of off-season Niagara Falls, DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL is a mystery drama about a self-destructive pathological liar (Tuppence Middleton, The Current War) who inherits a crumbling motel and becomes entangled in the memory of a kidnapping she claims to have witnessed as a little girl. DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL premiered at TIFF 2019, and was nominated for four 2020 Canadian Screen Awards.

• CLARA (Drama, 1×90, directed by Akash Sherman)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 9 *CBC Films-supported*
  An obsessive astronomer (Patrick J. Adams, Suits) and a curious artist (Troian Bellisario, Pretty Little Liars) form an unlikely bond which leads them to a profound, scientific discovery. CLARA received its World Premiere at TIFF 2018, and won the 2018 Jury Award for a Narrative Feature at the 2018 Austin Film Festival.

• AMERICAN WOMAN (Drama, 1×90, directed by Semi Chellas)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 16 *CBC Films-supported*
  In 1974, two different women are thrown together on the run: an anti-war activist (Hong Chao, Downsizing) and an heiress (Sarah Gadon, Alias Grace) who’s converted to her captors’ radical cause. AMERICAN WOMAN received its World Premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, and was nominated for four 2020 Canadian Screen Awards.

• TORONTO FOOD FILM FEST COLLECTION  Begins streaming Friday, October 16 
  The collection highlights Festival selections from talented Canadian filmmakers like Diana Dai with My Farmland, Aube Giroux with Modified, and Drew Hayden Taylor with Cottagers & Indians.

• RED SNOW (Drama, 1×90, directed by Marie Clements)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 23 *CBC Films-supported*
  Dylan (Asivak Koostachin, Cardinal), a Gwich’in soldier from the Canadian Arctic, is caught in an ambush in Kandahar, Afghanistan. His capture and interrogation by a Taliban Commander releases a cache of memories connected to the love and death of his Inuit cousin, Asana, and binds him closer to a Pashtun family as they escape across treacherous landscapes and through a blizzard that becomes their key to survival. RED SNOW premiered at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Most Popular Canadian Film. The film also went on to win Best Canadian Feature at the Edmonton International Film Festival.

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MUNK DIALOGUES

The Munk Debates’ second series of MUNK DIALOGUES offer live, hour-long conversations with some of the world’s sharpest minds and brightest thinkers, and will focus on the big issues transforming our world, from the U.S. election to the continuing fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic to geopolitics and international relations.

• Wednesday, October 7, 8 p.m. ET dialogue with Michael Eric Dyson, bestselling author, scholar, and racial justice campaigner, on the future of the politics of race and social justice in the shadow of the most consequential U.S. election in a generation.

• Wednesday, October 14, 8 p.m. ET dialogue with Robert Reich, former U.S. labor secretary, economic inequality activist, and filmmaker, on how to meet the once in a generation societal challenges presented by COVID19 and its shakeout of the global economy.

• Wednesday, October 21, 8 p.m. ET dialogue with Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of U.S. House of Representatives and bestselling author, on the legacy of Trump’s first term as president, and the future of U.S politics, two weeks out from November’s vote.

• Wednesday, October 28, 8 pm ET dialogue with James Carville, U.S. Democratic Party stalwart, political strategist, and bestselling author, on the likely outcomes of the November 3, 2020 U.S. election, one week out from this high-stakes global event.

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HALLOWEEN COLLECTION

• R.L. STINE’S THE HAUNTING HOUR Seasons 1-2 (Tween, 22×30, Front Street Pictures/Incendo Productions, Canada)
  Season 1 begins streaming Friday, October 2; Season 2 begins streaming Friday, October 9
  R.L. STINE’S THE HAUNTING HOUR picks up where Goosebumps left off, bringing a new generation of young horror lovers a fresh look at one of the most popular anthologies in children’s suspense.

• THE HOLLOW CHILD (Horror, 1×88, directed by Jeremy Lutter)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 23 A troubled foster teen, Samantha (Jessica McLeod, Death Note, Scary Movie 4), works to expose a dangerous supernatural impostor in her new family and rescue her foster sister.

• THE CRESCENT (Drama, 1×99, directed by Seth A. Smith)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 30 At a remote beach house, a single mother struggles to keep her infant son safe from the influence of an otherworldly presence.

• NOWHERE TO BE FOUND (Thriller, 1×93, directed by Thomas Michael)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 30
  A mother’s worst nightmare comes true when her teenage daughter goes missing.

• WHAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE (Horror, 1×98, directed by Colin Miniham)
  Begins streaming Friday, October 30
  On the eve of their one-year wedding anniversary, Jules (Brittany Allen, It Stains the Sands Red) and Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson, X-Men: Dark Phoenix) become embroiled in a merciless fight for their lives when they find themselves pitted against the most unexpected of adversaries: each other.

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THE BEST OF CBC:

• Past and current seasons of CBC series, including hit competition series BATTLE OF THE BLADES; crowd-pleasing dramas MURDOCH MYSTERIES, FRANKIE DRAKE MYSTERIES, HEARTLAND and ANNE WITH AN E; acclaimed comedies STILL STANDING, TALLBOYZ, KIM’S CONVENIENCE, BARONESS VON SKETCH SHOW and SCHITT’S CREEK; and classic CBC hits like THE KIDS IN THE HALL and BEING ERICA.

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COMING IN NOVEMBER:

•      DAS BOOT Season 2

•      NOUGHTS & CROSSES

•      DEFENDING THE GUILTY

•      MOHAWK GIRLS Season 5

•      Travel Collection