I am a proud Canadian. This country is home to some of the world's greatest artists, writers, musicians, and performers. However, there is one area of the arts and entertainment world where Canada is clearly lacking: television.
Canada's television shows - news and non-fiction programs excluded - are terrible compared to their American counterparts. And it's not only in one genre: we fail in every category imaginable. In response to American comedies like
The Office and
30 Rock, we come back with
Little Mosque on the Prairie. For their action dramas
NCIS and
Prison Break, we come up with
Flashpoint. Animated shows like
Family Guy and
South Park are met with
Bob & Doug and
Chilly Beach. They created
Saturday Night Live, we came up with
The Royal Canadian Air Farce.
The Daily Show?
The Rick Mercer Report. Seriously, we couldn't even get
Sesame Street right - we had to create a monster named
Sesame Park.
It's not that every Canadian show is completely awful, but in relative terms the best we can do is create shows that are equal to a reasonably bad American one. If you don't believe me, let's look at the main offenders. One of the most popular Canadian shows of the past decade was
Corner Gas, a sitcom set in rural Alberta based on unfunny banter and Canadian stereotypes - kind of like those episodes of
Malcolm in the Middle where the oldest brother was living in Alaska. It ran for six seasons and averaged about one million viewers per episode.
Another popular show,
Heartland, is like watching an episode of
The O.C. but with less characters, less jokes, less drama, and if everything they did had to do with farm animals. Again set in rural Alberta,
Heartland focuses on a teenage girl with a loosely explained ability to communicate well with horses. You might be thinking that only shows set in rural Canada aren't that funny or interesting, but that wouldn't be fair. Last year marked the end of several failed urban Canadian shows including
Instant Star and
Robson Arms, which might make you sad if you ever heard of them. It's true: much of Canadian television is so bad that you forget it was ever on the air.
If any older readers are itching to remark that a 20-year-old doesn't remember good old comedies of Canadian TV like
SCTV and
Kids in the Hall, I challenge you to find a clip of either that still makes you laugh. For younger folks,
SCTV is the original bad answer to
SNL while
Kids in the Hall is like a cleaner, remarkably less funny version of
The Whitest Kids U' Know. Defenders of these shows are only romanticising the past, like fans of fedoras and The Eagles.
Now I know you think that
Trailer Park Boys is the exception. While I admit to being a dedicated fan of the earlier seasons, the show went on for three seasons too long and spawned two unnecessary soon-to-be bargain-bin movies. While it's not bad for a Canadian show, it certainly isn't strong enough to be our best effort. So far, I've not been able to find one Canadian TV show that I am proud to say is from my country. I'll just have to stick with my Timothy Findley novels, Group of Seven prints, and Broken Social Scene albums until we come up with something better than
Puppets Who Kill.
Viewing Comments 1 - 9 of 10
Maxim Voronov
posted 11/10/09 @ 7:17 PM EST
How sad is the country where people are so conditioned to like all things American, that they lack the ability to appreciate their own cultural products! Before you dismiss me as some knee-jerk patriot, you should know that I am American who happens to live in Canada. (Continued…)
Oscar Fellini
posted 11/10/09 @ 8:51 PM EST
And don't forget Being Erika. It, along with Flashpoint (which is head and shoulders above most of the cop dramas on the American networks) have received great reviews south of the border. (Continued…)
Anh Khoi do
posted 11/10/09 @ 11:24 PM EST
Your article doesn't make any mention of shows that were acclaimed in Canada and abroad like the dark cop drama "Durham County" (which is better acted and more interesting than most American cop dramas), "Being Erica", the family drama "Terminal City" (the acting and the story was as good as what you saw in "Six Feet Under"), the espionage drama "Intelligence" (which was compared to "The Wire" and "The Sopranos" despite being cancelled), "Minuit, le soir", "Aveux", "The Tournament" (a rather funny hockey comedy) and many others I've omitted to mention. (Continued…)
Chris
posted 11/11/09 @ 11:16 AM EST
While I agree with some of what you said, Durham County and Slings & Arrows could compete with anything on American television.
Stewart Clamen
posted 11/11/09 @ 1:10 PM EST
You say that Canada couldn't compete with "Sesame Street", but a substantial fraction of the kids shows televised (on PBS and Nick) in the US are of Canadian origin (e. (Continued…)
Jess Bennett
posted 11/11/09 @ 3:46 PM EST
You can't compare current American shows to Canadian shows from ten to twenty years ago.
Your article also cites archaic examples, but gives no context. (Continued…)
Micky Gee
posted 11/11/09 @ 8:38 PM EST
I am a producer of Canadian tv. Have you forgotten that Canada has 1/10th the population of the US??!
That means 1/10th money, talent pool, eyeballs, advertisers and everything else needed to create great tv. (Continued…)
LDOG
posted 11/13/09 @ 1:14 AM EST
Excuses excuses Micky Gee. Population should have no effect on creativity and execution. Clearly the problem with Canadian television is that its producers are simpletons like you. (Continued…)
kaycee
posted 11/15/09 @ 9:43 PM EST
So, because you haven't found a Canadian show that you enjoy this means that by definition Canadian television isn't any good. Of course we don't produce television shows like the Americans do - there's a good reason for that - we're not Americans. (Continued…)
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