Made In Canada - The TV Guide Review
CBC, Monday at 8:30 ET/PT
Premise:
Made In Canada satirizes the corporate side of show business, in the same way that CBC's The Newsroom (1996-1997) poked fun at television news.
Rick Mercer (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) is Richard Strong, a young, ambitious and unscrupulous script reader at a "fictional" Canadian entertainment company known for making bad TV shows. Strong's climb up the ladder is deliciously vicious. But as he destroys careers and reputations, he makes sure audiences stay on top of it all. He turns to the camera often to explain what's really going on behind the double-speak. "The information is dense," says executive producer Gerald Lunz, "and one of Rick's high suits is to connect with you, the viewer, to tell the tale."
Pedigree:
Brought to you by many of the same people who create This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Made In Canada was written by Mercer and Mark Farrell (The Newsroom). Gerald Lunz and Michael Donovan are executive producers.
Assets:
This is Mercer doing what he does best - satire with a smirk. He's surrounded by a cast that keeps up the pace, namely Leah Pinsent (More Tears) and Peter Keleghan (The Newsroom). Filmed in the funky offices of Halifax's Salter Street Films (a look Lunz calls "creative gone corporate"), the series refreshingly skewers its own bosses as well as other entertainment rainmakers. The bite of this six-part satire is as deep as its PR-hyped bark.
Liabilities:
There's a chance jokes may be too insider for anyone outside Canada's entertainment industry. Still, according to Mercer, the show is not about people viewers don't know. "It's as much about an office structure and office politics as it is about show business," he says. Lunz adds: "Trying to get ahead, being looked over... these things are going on in the Department of Fisheries as they are in Alliance."
Bottom Line:
Airing after This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the show's fans (around one million of them) should stay tuned even if they don't know, or care, about people like Robert Lantos and Michael MacMillan.
RATING: 9 (OUT OF 10)
DEBUT: OCT 5