I love Life but I'm tired of memorizing lines

Sigh...for the past hour I'm been trying to memorize a monologue for my drama class and I've gotten tired of repeating the same thing over and over so for a quick break, I ventured online to my blog to talk about one of my favourite new shows--Life.

Life is just about the most awesome new show of the season. Seriously. Damien Lewis is a fantastic actor who plays a fantastically-written character named Charlie Crews. It's one of the only shows this season that I've actually watched every episode of on the same day it aired (normally I DVR my shows and watch them periodically).

Life, for those of you who are as yet unaware, is about an L.A. cop named Charlie Crews (Damien lewis) who has just been let out of prison after 15 years locked in--it's been proven he didn't commit the triple murder he was convicted of. He's been given a wealthy multi-million-dollar settlement and instead of living the life of leisure and luxury, he's opted to rejoin the L.A.P.D. (Los Angeles Police Department), this time as a detective. The L.A.P.D. aren't so sure they want him back on the force, and Charlie's new partner, Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi) is ordered to keep a watchful eye on him so that they can gain a reason to kick him out. Dani, who was recently suspended after a drug addiction, is reluctant to rat her partner out, and with each episode, becomes more and more attached to Charlie, though she won't admit it.

The major thing that makes this show great, is the character of Charlie Crews himself. Charlie is full of quirks, attitudes and sensitivities, all caused by his fifteen years of being a former cop, stuck in a high-security prison with inmates who hated cops.

The show does have a murder-of-the-week subplot, but there are ongoing story threads as well, namely the one where Charlie digs deeper and deeper to uncover the conspiracy that put him in prison all those years ago. There are also the relationships he develops amongst the people around him, including Dani, his lawyer Constance Griffith (Brooke Langton), his financial manager and former white collar fellow convict Ted Earley (Adam Arkin), his ex-wife, who divorced him after he was convicted of murder, and his former partner, Robert Stark (Brent Sexton).

There is plenty in this show to keep viewers entertained, and if you haven't yet tuned in, do so. It's worth your time, trust me.

Now...back to memorizing my wonderful monologue.

My complaint about the lack of Canadian hour-long dramas

What irks me is that in the current television season--the fall of 2007--there are very few new episodes of Canadian dramas set to air. And by dramas, I mean hour-long scripted series ( I don't count sitcoms and reality shows as "drama" like the Cancon execs whose job it is to ensure homegrown drama makes the networks' schedules do). From the four major networks, there are only five Canadian hour-long dramas set to air. CBC is going to be airing the first season of its new family drama Heartland and the second season of its crime world drama Intelligence. City TV is going to be airing its new shows Across the River to Motor City and Blood Ties (which also aired this summer in the States with a successful run). CTV is going to air its second season of the ski resort mystery series Whistler. Global TV is the only network without an hour-long drama on its fall docket--I wonder how that got past the Cancon regulators...

So, my point, of course, is that while, if you go by ratings, it is the hour-long dramas which garner the best ratings on both sides of the border, Canadian networks scarcely produce any. Canada did, during the 90s, have several successful hour-long dramas of its own. Shows such as Street Legal, North of 60, Traders, Neon Rider and Road to Avonlea got well over a million viewers per episode. So what the hell happened to make networks think producing drama was a waste of time? Sure, hour-long dramas cost more money to make than sitcoms and reality shows, but really, the hour-long dramas bring in better advertising revenue, don't they? Someone please explain this to me!

Show Review - Back To You

[pilot episode aired Sep. 19 on Global TV]

First of all, I will admit to not having high expectations for this show. I'm not big on this type of sitcom and I was never a fan of either Frasier or Everyone Loves Raymond, the two shows which Kelsey Grammar and Patricia Heaton, the two stars of Back To You, each respectively starred in. I expected to be bored, but I watched it anyway. And I was bored, all the jokes were corny and the storyline was predictable. This is one situation comedy that I won't be watching in the future.

The show is about a news anchor named Chuck Darling (Kelsey Grammar) who returns to the news station he worked at in the 90s after he is fired from a national newscast for an incident that appears relentlessly on YouTube. His new co-anchor, Kelly Carr (Patricia Heaton) is also his old co-anchor from his old days at the station, and is anything but thrilled at his return. Yada yada...I couldn't care less. I'm not surprised that I hated it.

So you ask, why did I watch it to begin with? Well...just to give me leverage when I insult it while having conversations about the show with other people. They'll ask me if I've even seen an episode of the show, and I can say "Yeah, sure I did, I gave it a chance and it sucked." This is a boring predictable typical sitcom, the type American networks have been spinning this past decade. Give me a good 80s or early 90s sitcom any day...

Commentary - Global TV's lack of Canadian content this fall

All I could do was roll my eyes and sigh as I read Global's fall lineup a couple months back. With only one scripted series--a sitcom called Da Kink In My Hair--on their fall roster, I noticed immediately that there was a major lack of Canadian dramatic content. Not that I was surprised or anything...after all, Global has a history of getting around the Cancon rules (rules? Ha!) by calling non-scripted series "dramatic programming" and completely Americanizing the dramas and sitcoms they do air. This past summer, a show called The Best Years aired. It was Canadian-produced but the characters and setting were in Boston, U.S.A. It's kind of a slap in the face to Canadians when networks use their Cancon money to create American shows. Basically the message that comes across, is Canada isn't good enough to have a show set there. The same can be said of the now-cancelled Falcon Beach, which tried to hide the fact it was Canadian--they set that in New England as well. I've listened to the logic used by Global to explain why they do that. It's claimed American viewers don't want to watch shows not set within America. However, I want to point out that Da Vinci's Inquest, Degrassi: The Next Generation and Instant Star all have Canadian settings and show many things that are Canadian, yet they are big hits south of the border. I think Global needs to get off its highhorse if you know what I mean and start showing some Canadian (and not Americanized) shows. I've been hearing that a Canadian drama called Search and Rescue will debut sometime midseason on Global but there's not much known about it. Hopefully it won't be another Global muckup.

News Article Commentary - Da Kink In My Hair

I was just at the TV, eh? site where they've posted Global TV's press release on their new series called "Da Kink In My Hair". TV, eh?, for those who don't know, is a site which posts news articles from around the web and they occasionally do podcasts as well, talking to Canadian TV industry insiders. I check out the site on a daily basis for news on the Canadian TV scene.

Well, anyways, today, as I've just said, they posted a press release on Da Kink In My Hair. It's Global's only Canadian fall show--the rest of their shows are from south of the border--something that hasn't escaped the notice of many who support homegrown television shows, I might add. Da Kink In My Hair is a 13-episode sitcom set to premiere on October 14th. It's based on an award-winning play I've never heard of by a playwright named Trey Anthony. It's set in a beauty salon in Toronto's Caribbean community, and centres around a group of zany characters.

I will at the very least, give this show a chance, but honestly, I'm not sure if it's a show I'll like. I'm not much of a sitcom person (I prefer dramas instead) and the title is kind of a turn-off--I realize that it's probably a cultural phrase, but still the title just doesn't appeal to me. Also, I'm not sure if the Toronto setting appeals to me either. I've never been to Toronto, but the people I've met from Toronto (mainly online) seem to be big bashers of Western Canada so maybe right now I have a distrust of anything Torontonian. Please tell me I'm wrong--there's nice people from Toronto, right?

Even with my above complaints, I will give this show a chance--after all, it is Canadian...right?