Music: {allcanada} Other TV options on Oscar night

Saturday, February 26, 2011

{allcanada} Other TV options on Oscar night

468x60 Getting Online Shouldn't be Tough- $7.49 .com Domains at Go Daddy

Want an idea of how expansive and exhaustive CTV's Academy Awards coverage is on Sunday? Consider this:

CTV's Oscar-related programming will be on the air almost half as long as TSN will spend covering the NHL trade deadline on Monday.

Bazinga.

When the Oscars can be mentioned in the same sentence as a swap of fourth-line wingers between the Nashville Predators and Columbus Blue Jackets, you know it's a big, big deal in Canada. Really, why do we give a damn if the Atlanta Thrashers might have given up one too many draft picks to the Anaheim Ducks? Sigh ... but that's a discussion for another day.

The 83rd annual Academy Awards are, in fact, the biggest deal Sunday, airing on both CTV and ABC, with plenty of extra red-carpet and pre-red-carpet (what the hell?) coverage on CTV-owned E!.

But as we point out every year, not everyone gets psyched up watching movie stars separating their own shoulders patting themselves on the back. There are viewing options.

Obviously, how everything lines up on your personal TV grid depends upon what time zone you're in, but here's what some of the other networks have in mind generally for Oscar night:

- CBS is going hard to the net this year with new episodes of both The Amazing Race and CSI: Miami. That's the opposite of running scared, for better or worse. CTV, by the way, has managed to ramrod The Amazing Race into its Oscar-overloaded Sunday sked, while CSI: Miami also will air on CTV-owned A.

- In recent years CBC has employed the following strategy for the Oscars: Since anyone with any pop-culture props is going to be watching the Academy Awards anyway, let's go in the exact opposite direction and try to captivate the socially challenged nerdy shut-ins. Hello, Miss Marple rerun. However, CBC also has a new episode of consistent ratings winner Heartland, so the network isn't completely mailing it in for the evening.

- Citytv is going the counter-programming route, too, with back-to-back reruns of Murdoch Mysteries movies. These are the ones from 2004, with Peter Outerbridge in the title role, as opposed to the current series, which stars Yannick Bisson. It's like an old joke, right? "How many Detective Murdochs does it take to solve a murder?"

- Fox and Global have reruns of some of their animated shows, including an hour-long Family Guy Christmas episode that first aired last December. Titled Road to the North Pole, Brian and Stewie head to the top of the world to teach Santa a lesson. They get skyward help along the way from the friendly and luminous Aurora Boreanaz, played by David Boreanaz from Bones. Now that's funny.

- HBO Canada has a new episode of Big Love, which is in its final season. Big Love, of course, is about a man with three wives -- you know, just like everyone at the Oscars.

- And lastly, for a complete change of pace, you always can catch the final of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts -- aka, the women's national curling championship -- on TSN. Unlike the Academy Awards, in curling the participants sometimes actually heed the words, "Hurry! Hurry hard!"