Pamela Wallin & Company Show 1998-1999 Season Episode Guide

Pamela Wallin & Company Show 1998-1999 Season Episode Guide

September 11, 1998
Pamela Wallin & Company – Premiere
Two Thumbs Up!!  Everything Movies
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

Everyone’s invited to Pamela Wallin’s new weekly social gathering – in sassy new surroundings – where guests mingle, trade stories, argue, gossip and engage each other’s minds. The guest list for the first gathering includes Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert; celebrity scribbler Johanna Schneller; Wayne Clarkson, executive director of the Canadian Film Centre; writer and man-about-town John Frizzell; hot writer/broadcaster Linda Griffiths. The themes: film festivals, hot picks, new films, gay films, resurgence of horror movies, cult of celebrity, Hollywood and Hollywood North, lists literary adaptations, glitz, gossip and…well, and who knows what else! The gathering will build, the conversation evolves, surprises may occur. You never know who might turn up!

Pamela Wallin & Company is broadcast every Friday evening at 10:00 p.m. Eastern on CBC Newsworld. The program will be rebroadcast every Monday, at 1:00 p.m., on CBC Television.


September 18, 1998
Sick and Scared
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

Columnist and recent ‘patient’ Allan Fotheringham; actor and member of the Canadian Health Coalition, Shirley Douglas; Lisa Priest, author of Operating in the Dark; Law professor Patrick Monahan; virus specialist Dr. John Conley; and author Dr. Robert Buckman examine why getting sick is increasingly risky business.


September 25, 1998
The Scoop on Gossip
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

Psst!  Did you hear the dirt on dishing? Society stylist Robert Gage, gossip Maureen Holloway, pop culture critic Geoff Pevere,Globe and Mail society scribbler Sarah Hampson and psychiatrist Irvin Wolkoff rave on rumour, the psychology of gossip, and whether it serves any useful purpose.


October 2, 1998
Science and Faith
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

Are scientific advances an act of God? If not, what or who acts as the new conscience? Senator Peggy Butts; Rhodes scholar, Anglican priest and columnist Tom Harpur; author and Buddhist, Ron Graham; poet Christopher Dewdney; and professor Daniel Osmond, explore everything from choosing a baby’s gender to cloning to immortality to the Internet.


October 9, 1998
The Decline of Civility
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

From call waiting to road rage; from Howard Stern to kiss-and-tell: could we BE any ruder? Globe and Mail entertainment columnist Alexandra Gill, writer Sondra Gotlieb, philosopher and cultural critic Mark Kingwell, cartoonist Rina Piccolo, and comic Sandra Shamas point fingers as we rate the state of late-twentieth-century society.


October 16, 1998
Childfree
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

Look Ma, No Kids…  An honest exploration of what it means to be a woman and to be childless by choice. Author and social commentator, Molly Peacock; controversial poet Susan Musgrave; novelist and columnist Joan Barfoot; award-winning American journalist Terri Casey; and author of All in the Family, Suanne Kelman gather to shatter some stereotypes – childfree and not missing a thing.


October 23, 1998
Dissecting Democracy
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

Dissecting Democracy: the Tories and the grassroots; the Prime Minister and the dictator; reform, referendums and repercussions. Columnist Dalton Camp, journalist Laurier LaPierre, columnist Naomi Klein and Reform Party strategist Ezra Levant, debate the perils of democracy.


October 30, 1998
The Middle Ages
Producers: Shelley Ambrose & Sandra MacEachern

When you hear ‘hip’ do you think replacement?  When you hear ‘cool’, do you grab a sweater? Welcome to The Middle Ages. Best-selling authors Maeve Binchy and Joy Fielding are part of an eclectic group of guests who will discuss mid-life crisis management.


November 6, 1998/June 25, 1999
Quebec
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Author and satirist, Mordecai Richler, columnist and Chancellor of McGill University, Gretta Chambers; editor of Voire, Richard Martineau, and others, look at Quebec with passionate insider’s eyes.


November 13, 1998/July 2, 1999
Re-thinking the Royals
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

The British Monarchy:  on the eve of the 50th birthday of Prince Charles, Lloyd Robertson, Michael Valpy, Charles Pachter and former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Hal Jackman – among others – debate the rehabilitation of the Royals, remarriage, and the future King.


November 20, 1998/July 9, 1999
Young and Smart
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty: 18-year-old computer guru, consultant and businessman Tom Williams; 28-year-old publisher of REALM magazine Eliza Hendricks; 25-year-old writer, producer and host of Jonovision, Jonathan Torrens; 15-year-old activist Craig Keilburger and others shatter the stereotypes about their supposed lackluster demographics.


November 27, 1998/June 18, 1999
Roots and Regions
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Singer/songwriter and Albertan Jann Arden; Giller Prize-nominated author Wayne Johnston of Newfoundland; Manitoba Cree writer Thomson Highway; actor Anthony Sherwood from Montreal, and others, look at where they come from and what has formed them.


December 4, 1998
Rock ‘n’ Roll
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Author and Rheostatics guitarist Dave Bidini joins Goddo’s Greg Goddovitz, Rik Emmett of Triumph, Steve Smith of The Red Green Show, and others to share the stories of the great Canadian touring bands of the 70s – the pioneers of Canadian rock.


December 11, 1998
Affirmative Action
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

For about a decade, middle-aged, able-bodied white guys have been at the back of the line. Is it fair play or dirty pool?  Middle-aged, able-bodied white guy (and social critic) Robert Fulford, playwright Drew Hayden Taylor, comedian Kenny Robinson, author and labour leader Buzz Hargrove – and others – take a provocative look at the results of affirmative action, quotas and ‘reverse discrimination.’


December 18, 1998
Food for Thought
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Are we becoming a society of culinary illiterates? Entertaining is easy now with all the homogenized and prepackaged cheese balls and shrimp rings. Doing it yourself, though, is less expensive, more satisfying, and not as hard as you think. Cottage Country barbecue chef Ted Reader; cookbook author, restaurant critic and former personal chef to Mick Jagger, Byron Ayanoglu; cooking school maven Bonnie Stern, and Ken Kostick of What’s for Dinner? fame – along with his mother, Helen Kostick; and wine expert extraordinaire Don Ziraldo, share the secrets of successful entertaining in a holiday season special.


January 8, 1999
I’ll Be Your Best Friend
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Stories of comfort and joy from three pairs of best friends. Actors Cynthia Dale and Sheila McCarthy; singer-songwriter Murray McLauchlan; and Diane Sims and Marla Fletcher, co-authors of the recently released book, Gardens of our Souls: A Correspondence of Friendship and Healing, examine the power of friendship.


January 15, 1999/July 16, 1999
Respecting Your Elders
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

The formidable not-quite-retired 79-year-old former Supreme Court Judge Willard Estey; sprightly 88-year-old landscape artist Doris McCarthy; energetic 95-year-old actress Gladys O’Connor, and Osborne Colson – the 1936-37 Canadian Figure Skating Champion (who can still do the splits at 82!) – reveal their sources of inspiration, commitment and sheer chutzpah.


January 22, 1999/July 30, 1999
Power of the Critics
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Our love/hate relationship with the journalists who assign bouquets and brickbats to restaurants, books, musicals, dance, art, movies and culture. Influential Globe and Mail restaurant critic Joanne Kates; dance, music and drama critic and books editor at The Vancouver Sun, Max Wyman; visual arts critic and author, Robert Enright of Winnipeg; Maclean’s movie critic Brian Johnson; and self-proclaimed critic, artist Charlie Pachter criticize and defend their art.


January 29, 1999
Status
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Actor Albert Schultz; Victoria Branden, author of The Canadian Book of Snobs; computer whiz kid and entrepreneur Tom Williams and others look at what constitutes ‘status’ in the ’90’s.  Is it about power, youth, money, title, accomplishments, art, education, social life, celebrity or careers?  What is prestige in the age of the classless society?


February 5, 1999/July 23, 1999
Travels with Pamela
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Travel that changes your life and the way you look at the world – adventurer, author and financier Christopher Ondaatje, whose latest book called Journey to the Source of the Nile, has just been published; Jamie Zeppa, a native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, about her years spent in the tiny Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan (high in the Himalayas); Cleo Paskal, travel writer for The National Post and an expert on the smallest countries in the world; and Sylvia Fraser, award-winning author of eight books whose work has taken her to many destinations – including the Arctic, Mexico, Panama, Europe, Africa, Indonesia and, most recently, India, do a little mind traveling.


March 19, 1999
Extra!!  Extra!!
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

The War of the Newspapers could be a fight to the death.  Just months after the launch of The National Post, the reports from the battleground are in – and all four dailies are claiming victory.  Philip Crawley of The Globe and Mail, Don Babick of The National Post, Doug Knight of The Toronto Sun, and Jeff Shearer of The Toronto Star scoop each other on circulation figures, advertising ratios, readership and more.


March 26, 1999
Fifty Years of Confederation
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Celebrated novelist Wayne Johnston; former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford; director and writer Walter Learning; journalist Marjorie Doyle; and author Gene Long both celebrate and lament the course of their proud nation.


April 2, 1999/ June 11, 1999
Sex, Spies and Videotapes
Producer: Wendy Bryan

John Le Carre’s lifelong fascination with betrayal has produced 17 international bestsellers, including Russia House and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.  Britain’s master of intrigue draws on his own experience as a spy during the Cold War, and a painful childhood growing up with a con artist dad.  In his eerily prescient new page-turner, Single and Single, he again picks at the tortured father-son relationship, this time amidst the Russian Mafia’s money-laundering machine.


April 9, 1999
Warp Speed
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Faster, higher, deeper…better?  The speed of life and our disintegrating sense of where we are now and why we think we need to be somewhere else.  Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford; political theorist and philosopher Mark Kingwell; Paul Tough, editor of Saturday Night magazine; and Dr. Sylvia Ostry, distinguished research fellow at the Centre for International Studies, stop and think.


April 16, 1999
Celibacy
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Is there a trend toward celibacy?  Elizabeth Abbott, Dean of Women at Trinity College, is author of A History of Celibacy (and a convinced celibate); Father Brian Massie, a practicing celibate Jesuit; Donald Campbell, a married non-celibate Roman Catholic priest and ex-cleric; and Harold Visser, president of The Challenge Team, a group that advocates chastity for young people, look at the decision to – or not to – do it.


April 23, 1999
Life Imitating Art?
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Is the creator of art ultimately responsible for the consequences wrought by his creation?  When life starts to reflect art – copycat Natural Born Killers, a new bunch of American Psychos – who do we blame?


April 30, 1999
The Future of Work
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

No Collective Agreement:  As the President of the Canadian Labour Congress and one of our most influential union activists prepares to retire, join Bob White; Ken Georgetti, President of the B.C. Federation of Labour; author Richard Gwyn; “Nexus Generation” consultant Jennifer Welsh; and Anil Verma, professor of industrial relations and human resource management, for a look at the future of work and the changing role of unions, workers and productivity.


May 7, 1999
Youth Crime & Punishment
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Former boxer George Chuvalo; former British Columbia Attorney General and author of Outrage: Canada’s Justice System on Trial Alex MacDonald; Diane Dupuy, founder and director of Famous People Players; and veteran journalist Christie Blatchford share their personal insights into what society should do with “bad kids.”


May 21, 1999
Young and Hot
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

They’re hot, under 25, Canadian and they’re stars. Three-time Gemini award-winner Laura Bertram (Ready or Not); Johnathan Scarfe – who portrays Sheldon Kennedy in an upcoming movie; from The Rez and Riverdale, Jennifer Podemski; 16-year-old J. Adam Brown, who has just finished shooting Snow Day with Chevy Chase; and Kris Lemche – Gemini award-winner for his role in Emily of New Moon, and, most recently, in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ. Their views on everything from love to work to drugs, and people over 30.


May 28, 1999
Canadian, eh?
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Are we really what we think we are?  Peacekeeping, hockey-playing, maple syrup-eating, tolerant, gun-hating, non-racist, polite, prosperous and responsible?  Perhaps not.  Join MuchMusic maven Denise Donlon; author, broadcaster Laurier LaPierre; pollster Michael Marzolini; and the Donner Canada Foundation’s Sonia Arrison for a hard look at the real True North.


June 4, 1999
It’s Magic
Producer: Shelley Ambrose

Do you believe in magic? A truly magical Paul Quarrington, author of ‘The Spirit Cabinet,’ shares secrets and sleight of hand with conjurer David Ben and broadcaster, amateur magician Patrick Watson.