This Week in WCIW #37

Welcome to the September 20, 2021 edition of This Week in WCIW, the weekly newsletter from Where Can I Watch – covering the latest news on where TV shows and movies will be available in Canada.

This week: updates on a bunch of series like The Unusual Suspects, The Pact, and plenty more. Plus, an attempt to figure out what's going on with Cruel Summer in Canada.

Programming news

• As you may know, a federal election is happening today in Canada, which will impact regular programming on most of the major broadcast networks, even though it's also the official start of the fall season in the United States.
  
  CBC and CTV will be on-air with coverage by the time the first (Newfoundland and maybe Labrador?) polls close at 7:00 p.m. ET, and will simulcast coverage on their respective news channels, while Global will mostly stick with regular programming like NCIS and 9-1-1 in most markets until 10:00 p.m. ET, with extended coverage available on the History channel (yep, but it's currently on free preview) from 7:00 ET onwards.
  
  Citytv and CTV2 will be sticking with regular programming in primetime, including the respective season premieres of Dancing with the Stars and The Voice, though Citytv will have coverage on its website starting at 9:00 p.m. ET, and on regular TV starting at 11:00 p.m. ET in Ontario and Quebec (times vary in western Canada).
   
• Bell Media has confirmed fall premiere dates for a number of new and returning series on its specialty channels, including Death Walker, Day of the Dead, and Star Trek: Prodigy on CTV Sci-Fi; Tha God's Honest Truth (as in Charlamagne tha God) which just began on CTV Comedy; new seasons of Walker and Project Runway on CTV Drama; and plenty of new and returning series on Discovery. (Still no sign of The Other Two, though.)
   
  Additionally, CTV Comedy is currently re-running HBO Max's That Damn Michael Che on Friday nights after the aforementioned Tha God's Honest Truth.
   
• In other Bell Media programming news, this time on Crave: Season 2 of Canada's Drag Race debuts October 14, HBO's Succession returns a few days later on the 17th, while on-air promos this past weekend confirm that Australian miniseries The Unusual Suspects will be available starting Wednesday, October 6, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It will be made available at some point next month.
   
• Corus has announced details on kids programming premiering this fall on its channels like YTV, Teletoon, and Treehouse (and available on StackTV), including programs originating from Nickelodeon and HBO Max like Jellystone! and Aquaman: King of Atlantis.
   
• Super Channel has picked up BBC limited series The Pact, which will air Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET starting October 24.
   
• BritBox has announced (in an email sent to WCIW earlier this month) that programming coming to its service in October and November include ITV miniseries The Long Call, 2010 BBC series (Chef's) Whites, plus a new season of Call the Midwife (series 10). [Updated September 22 to remove a few programs for which BritBox has informed us that release plans are being re-assessed.]
   
• CBC and Paramount+ are co-producing the new Canadian series Skymed, which will premiere during the 2022–23 season.
   
• Blue Ant Media has announced a number of new original productions to air on its channels like T+E, Cottage Life, and BBC First over the coming TV season.

Mailbag

From Shane K.: "Would you be able to please do a post on Cruel Summer and how it is not available to stream at all in Canada and yet it is streaming nearly everywhere else in the world?"

The teen drama Cruel Summer did air in Canada on ABC Spark from April to June, in parallel with its run on Freeform in the U.S., with the premiere episode also airing on W Network. But as of this writing, the series is not available on demand to cable subscribers to ABC Spark, and it does not appear it was made available on StackTV either.

Naturally (with Freeform being a Disney property), the series is streaming on Hulu in the U.S., and internationally – specifically, everywhere except the U.S., Canada, and China – the series is available on Amazon Prime Video, under a deal with producing studio Entertainment One announced in January.

So where can Canadians stream Cruel Summer? As of this writing, the only option we can find is to purchase the season, on either the Apple TV / iTunes Store (currently priced at $19.99) and Google Play Movies & TV ($16.99).

But in terms of availability on a subscription service, there are two likely future possibilities. The first is that Disney held onto the long-term Canadian streaming rights as it did in the U.S., and will eventually make it available in Canada on Disney+ / Star. The second is that Prime Video has second-run rights in at least Canada, alongside its international first-run rights.

Either way, it may be a while before it shows up on streaming.

Recent updates on WCIW

We've added new posts about Ted Lasso and Hacks in case there's any sudden new interest in those series, but otherwise no significant changes.

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