Wednesday, May 03, 2006

 

Chicken sandwich, Carl. And make it snappy!

the title, I admit, is only marginally relevant. but such fun.

I have found a new favorite TV show. Godiva's http://www.bravo.ca/godivas/index.asp

It is a ensemble drama about the staff of a restaurant in Vancouver. Canadian TV drama has a different visual sense than AMerican drama. Canadian culture is somewhere between British and American, and American tv looks like everything was shot in an LA set (because it was) and you always know you are watching British TV, because it has that outdoor, camcorder feel to it. Godiva's has intermittant production value which establishes the joys of american TV (there are beautiful people in nice clothes and trashy plots) without EVERYONE being pretty and glamorous. There are globetrotting DJs, yoga-cultists, money launderers, hard-nosed aboriginals, queens, self-involved celebrity chefs, it's great. Good clean fun. and you can say "fuck" and "bitch" on canadian TV (which is highly ironic given the draconian radio editing laws).

on the subject of young-adult ensemble shows, what the hell is going on south of the 49th, people. The loop? What about Brian? Cheap rehashes of Friends and Scrubs (the former) and Friends with a dash of 30something for the latter. MAKE UP SOMETHING NEW!! poseiden? Basic Instinct 2? This is just pathetic.

Comments:
I share your appreciation of Canadian television, and think your take on it is pretty spot-on. I also find that Canadian tv is less repetitive and lcd than American tv -- more literate, PBS-quality stuff, and fewer game shows and copycat sitcoms. And they give obscure sports like rowing, track & field and swimming prime air time, which I like to see.

Canadian tv also has some great advertisements. A couple of years ago, there was an absolutely hilarious string of advertisements for the city or Toronto, featuring cameos from a ton of canadian celebrities -- they were all got milk-caliber ads. The Blue Jays have some great ads featuring the players using their baseball skills in real-life situations. One of them featured Roy Halladay walking with his wife on the beach, and, without really thinking about it, skipping a stone across Lake Ontario. Five or ten seconds later, you saw a ship in the distance slowly start to sink. There were a couple of others with Vernon Wells and some other people like that.
 
You say it like you don't love sequals! Mission Impossible III: Mission Impossbiler?!? Tom Cruise gone batshit?

Please, I never heard you complaining about how Dawson's Creek was just a dolled up Facts of Life.
 
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