I also enjoyed Wild Roses when it was on the air, but that wasn't so much 'Canadian' as it was 'Albertan,' so I can imagine why it may not have done so well.
And Due South was freakin' awesome.
My brother's really big into The Shield.
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I think that are actually a lot good Canadian TV shows when you sit back and think about it. If you have kids, then most of the shows we watch with the kids are Canadian: treehouse and YTV have a lot of can-con and CBC also runs a good kids CBC string in the mornings.
I also have to laugh that Dragons Den shouldn't be included as Canadian because it was Japanese first. I suppose 3/4 of the US programming is also un-American? Survivor, Big Brother, American Idol and a boatload of other highly rates very popular shows came from elsewhere.
Canadian shows like Corner Gas, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Flashpoint , etc don't get made without some funding. Before this thread becomes the usual "I hate CBC" thread I also want to point out that a lot of channels both cable and otherwise run Canadian shows that are decent quality and wouldn't be made save for the pittance of government funding they receive.
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Yeah, Republic of Doyle (? - spelling/name) on CBC is also supposed to be pretty good, although I have not watched any of it. So is Heartland or something or other, I think its on Sunday nights. Filmed in Alberta I think? Not sure, but its on a ranch or something or other.
Heartland (filming in High River yesterday!!), Flashpoint, Being Erica and Mantracker are Canadian productions viewed in Canada but also syndicated internationally . . . and generally unabashedly Canadian.
We have well-recognized technical crews and a myriad of locations as well as ample government assistance providing inter-provincial competition for productions . . . . . and our actors seem to thrive elsewhere if the work isn't here.
So, it seems to revolve around the production choices of management.
The Canadian television market by itself would have trouble supporting a certain monetary level per episode whereas being able to syndicate internationally does provide that revenue stream.
Flashpoint is one example of a CTV production picked up and supported monetarily by CBS. But now CBS has apparently dropped it so CTV is left with the decision - not made yet - of whether or not to continue with it.
I thought Wild Roses on CBC, about Calgary oilmen/ranchers, was a bit of an outrageous hoot but it was cancelled rather inexplicably after Season one. But I would bet this was cancelled because it was probably costly per episode and wasn't able to achieve international syndication to help support it.
Cowperson
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ditto with Flashpoint
I might be in a very small minority, but I always liked "The Border" on CBC as well. I wish I didn't watch the finale as the show was cancelled after it left off with quite a cliff hanger. Besides, I loved the British MI6 agent, Charlotte, on that show
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Is the ratio of crap per capita ratio really that much higher in Canada vs elsewhere? That’s the real question. If the crap:quality ratio here is 95:5, what is it in the US and abroad?
Could it be that we only produce enough Canadian content to end up with one or two good Canadian productions a year?
That's my take on the situation for sure.
With how many hundreds of programs available in the US, the ratio of good to bad can't be that much worse than what we have here.
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It was about an NHL team in Hamilton struggling to survive, that was left under the management of an Americanized player agent trapped in Canada. He also saw ghosts of famous dead hockey players. And there was lots of hockey too.
Sure wish they'd release that on DVD. But I guess the market of hockey fans just wasn't big enough - which indicates the scale of the problem. I mean if this country can't even support what was a pretty good drama about our national passion... what "Canadian Content" possibly could pass muster?
I loved Beachcombers, and Due South as well. Obviously Kids in the Hall, and This Hour has 22 Minutes (and later the Rick Mercer Report). The multi episode documentary "The Struggle For Democracy" was a fun watch back in the day. But none of them was the cash cow (or even pig) that I guess would justify most opinions of "success".
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Last edited by Flashpoint; 06-17-2010 at 08:23 AM.
It was about an NHL team in Hamilton struggling to survive, that was left under the management of an Americanized player agent trapped in Canada. He also saw ghosts of famous dead hockey players. And there was lots of hockey too.
Sure wish they'd release that on DVD. But I guess the market of hockey fans just wasn't big enough - which indicates the scale of the problem. I mean if this country can't even support what was a pretty good drama about our national passion... what "Canadian Content" possibly could pass muster?
I loved Beachcombers, and Due South as well. Obviously Kids in the Hall, and This Hour has 22 Minutes (and later the Rick Mercer Report). The multi episode documentary "The Struggle For Democracy" was a fun watch back in the day. But none of them was the cash cow (or even pig) that I guess would justify most opinions of "success".
Oh god, that show was good for the first year, then after that it was 90210 on skates.
They had one really good episode where Calgary was playing in Hamilton and they had a suicidal man in the rafters who was threatening to jump when Calgary scored.
Of course Calgary got shutout.
I think the main hockey player character ended up married to Torri Speillings breasts
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If CTV and the other Canadian networks actually invested back some of that money they make (millions upon millions) by simply buying and reselling American shows we can already get from the American networks, then they might actually produce more shows like this and something we as Canadians might tune into.
This is the key- and I look at the private Canadian Networks (CTV and Global) as the issue. They produce 7 hours per day of news, add in another 5 hours of "Feed the Children" and they have their Cancon which allows them to show US programming in Prime Time.
What I watch more often are the specialty channels; which having been forced to produce their own Cancon have come up with some good shows. Most of the Canadian shows on HGTV are good; same with Discovery Channel.
But the private networks aren't even trying; which is why what they do produce is crap.
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Surprising no mention of The Nature of Things. Internationally renowned series, probably Canada's most important piece of programming. Did anyone see the Nature of Things on intuition? Fascinating.
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It's a travel show but 'Departures' is probably one of the best in the travel genre. I believe it is an all Canadian production.
'Wild Roses' was a guilty pleasure that my wife and I indulged in, too bad that it didn't make the cut past the first season.
Despite the crap that gets turned out we have a lot of great assets to work with, for those Battlestar Galactica fans the majority of the actors on the series were all Canadians. We just need to give our people the right shows and production quality and I'm sure we could make some more big hits.
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I think a large part of the problem is that they keep ramming these rural shows down our throat. That's not Canada anymore, most people live in large cities. Trying to push Canadian culture as a culture that doesn't really exist anymore is silly.
Also, CBC comedy is just too simple and boring. Corner Gas was awful, I don't know who found that show funny, certainly not the internet generation. And then they gave those two people from it another show.
If you compare the best US drama and comedy programming, it is embarassingly better than the best contemorary Canadian TV. Just look at some of the classics cable channels alone in the US have produced in the past decade:
The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Dexter, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Breaking Bad...
Now, I wouldn't expect that Canada as a much smaller country would be able to produce as many great shows, but we seemed plagued by Canadian or regional stereotype-laden programming as if we wouldn't be able to understand a character unless it was a single-dimensional cardboard cutout (Wild Roses and Corner Gas anyone?).
Best show Canada ever produced was the orignial Degrassi. It's been downhill from there.
I'm just kidding!
