Death Comes to Town: The Kids Have Grown Up... Really? That's the cleverest title I can come up with??

The latest work from the Kids in the Hall (who, I must admit, I love unconditionally... so I’ll try not to be too biassed in my review) is a mini series about murder in a small town. Not to nit-pick, but the population of the fictional Shuckton is that of a small city. (You know I was in Germany once and apparently it’s a Canadian thing to classify a town/village/city according to population? Maybe it was just differentiating between a town and a village...) But for a murder mystery, it makes sense to have a larger population because otherwise it would be far too easy to find the killer.

ANYWAY. The series itself. The Kids, though older now, and not quite as slim as they used to be, are still in fine form as they slip into multiple characters- in fact, they show growth in their abilities- there’s a realness when they play characters who are approaching the middle of their lives that wasn’t present when they played similar characters on their self-titled show.

The show follows an assortment of characters (most of them played by the Kids with their usual top-notch abilities to play multiple ages, genders, and casts of life) in the aftermath of a murder- Death has literally come to town.

If you were a fan of KITH from before, you’ll like this. If you weren’t a fan, well, chances are this won’t win you over. They’re keeping with their specific style of humour, complete with the friendly town abortionist.

I’ve always loved KITH’s willingness to let an awkward scene play out. To not avoid the awkwardness, but let humour come out of how awkward and weird the situation is. Other people might be ready to start up a game of Russian Roulette, but I’m laughing it up and having a great time. Maybe it’s because I’m an awkward person, but I like awkward moments in my sketch comedy. Likewise, it works in a KITH mini-series.

So I was a little biased. I’m willing to forgive a few weak moments because of the humour I know the team is capable of, and also some moments are that much funnier because I’m familiar with and a fan of KITH. All in all, Death Comes to Town is good fun to be had on a Tuesday night.

18 to Life: Makes me Long for the Death Penalty...

18 to Life, CBC’s latest sit-com, sounds good if you just hear the premise. (Well, maybe not that good, but at least good enough for proper sit-com hijinx to ensue.) Two 18 year old kids decide to get married, much to the chagrin and disappointment of both sets of parents. Hilarity will supposedly come out of the crazy schemes others will do to keep these two apart, and with the kids realizing the realities of marriage.

And then you watch the show. You cringe, you yawn, and you wonder when the jokes will start. You wonder who’s responsible for how the amount of suck. You truly want to know, because there is the need to have someone to blame.

Can we blame the actors? Not really, because most actors need good material, right? In fact, the actors playing the dads (Alain Goulem and Peter Keleghan) are trying their best to make this work- with a few successes, I have to say. But the kids? The stars, the characters who are the main focus of the show’s plot? They just don’t have the acting chops to make the dialogue work. (And, I might mention, very few actors can truly make wretched dialogue sound good.)

So it’s the writers? Again, even though I’ve been blasting the lack of jokes, the weak dialogue and terrible plots, I’m hesitant to lay full blame on the writers. Who knows what the network and producers demanded of them? Because I feel that something as lousy as the pilot of this episode would never have gotten approved, yet it seems plausible that the network bought something and then worried about it and modified it and meddled with it in an attempt to make it appealing to their family audience... and failed.

The pacing is bad, their reasons for getting married in the first place are lame and since when does being married mean you can not go to a concert with your friends?! (Seriously. Dude breaks plans that have been in place for months because he’s married. Apparently, when you get married you give up those tickets you already paid for and all fun time is over.) The plot and how the characters deal with it is so predictable that even if the situation was comical to begin with you still want to change the channel instead of watching it play out.

The next bit of news is either good, or extremely bad: the CBC has this thing about wasting money, in that it doesn’t want to admit any money has been wasted so instead of cutting their losses and cancelling this sitcom fail, they’ll keep it around for a long time. What’s good about that? Well, it gives the actors, writers, producers- everyone involved in the show, time to settle into their roles and make the show (hopefully) better. I, personally, would rather they just cancel and let another Canadian sitcom have a turn, but if that’s not going to happen I hope that this show at least improves...

Maybe I Should Give This Thing Some Direction...

So I've been immersed in this one year college program where I'm studying writing and producing for television, which has made me look at the TV I watch more critically. It also has me reading reviews more often- if I don't like an episode of some show, or if I'm a big fan of a certain TV show/movie/book, I immediately go to the Internets to see how other people feel. You know, because it's a nice feeling when you see other people share your opinions and you can get righteously indignant when they disagree with you.

However, I've noticed my favourite site for reviews doesn't touch Canadian programs. Ever. The shows don't even get a mention when they remind readers what's on each evening. I can't blame the site, because it's American and why should an American site go out of its way to report about Canadian stuff?

But I want some Canadian content, and I think I'll just do it myself. Canadian programming: Emily C.'s new topic of conversation.

Until I get bored/forget about this thing/can't stand Canadian stuff.