Canadian TV

Lunchtable TV talk: Breeders & Workin’ Moms

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Parenting: the not-so-gentle letdown of expectations. There’s a reason the word for “baby carriage” translates to “consequence wagon” in some languages.

My great takeaway from both Breeders and Workin’ Moms is that, as Martin Freeman‘s character in Breeders says (and here I paraphrase): at every moment you would sacrifice your life for your child’s… but at every moment you also want to kill that child. I suspect that this frustration, which suffuses parenthood (not to be mistaken for the groan-worthy tv show, Parenthood, with which we’ve been threatened by a reboot) in general, and the direction of Breeders in particular, is common. While that very specific angst and tension of feeling was not as palpable in Workin’ Moms (again, it’s Canadian and feels Canadian), the thematic underpinnings are… essentially the same.

Workin’ Moms: Boobs out, poo on the delivery table

I won’t dwell too much on Workin’ Moms, as a matter of fact, because, while entertaining, it didn’t stay with me in the same way as Breeders. Sure, Moms offered entertaining “filler” and presented some of the things viewers expect from such a sitcom in, let’s say, the ‘modern era’: irreverent and frank discussion on sex drives and breast pumps; exhaustion; the pull of career demands pitted against family-life; the condescension among moms in mom groups; societal, marital, personal expectations about how and when you tackle different milestones in your post-partum life.

I’m glad this exists, and it’s not disappointing as long as you know what it is. It just doesn’t grab me because I don’t feel it’s charting new territory. Honestly, it doesn’t have to. It is reliably funny and awkward in ways both relatable and not-so-relatable. Still, this so-called modern era is populated by a whole lot of people who believe we should return to a time when you couldn’t say the word “pregnant” on network television, and this conservative thread should be countered by relatively realistic stories like Workin’ Moms.

Frankly, women should be well and truly tired of and pissed off by men trying to dictate what they can and cannot say or do. In fact they should also be pissed off by other women doing the same – Mrs. America is a glimpse into a world of smart women who actively work against their own best interests, or rather espouse a philosophy that restricts and limits the freedoms of others. Either way, no one wants their entertainment tastes and preferences limited artificially.

Anyway, apparently season 5 is on its way.

Breeders: Beleaguered and praying to David Bowie

I’m not a parent so the struggles of the main characters here aren’t mine. I can’t explain why this spoke to and remained with me as I watched it. One could argue that the exploration of parenthood and how it transforms relationships, life and everything in it is shallow and overly focused on the selfish frustration that often manages to escape. In that sense it does not tread any newer ground than Workin’ Moms.

Perhaps the difference here is that Freeman’s character, Paul, is more central to this story, managing much of the parenting and childcare while his wife forges on with her career, albeit burdened by tremendous guilt. Freeman’s Paul is explosive in his impatience with the kids, semi-repentant afterwards, and it is this that is new in this exploration. We get a deeper (although not deep) view into fatherhood in Breeders, both from Paul’s experience and the experience of the central couple’s fathers. In particular, Ally’s (Daisy Haggard) absentee father (Michael McKean) appears and stirs things up. Both Paul and Ally’s fathers, whether present in their upbringing or not, reflect a different kind of fatherhood – absent, hands-off, disengaged. Paul may let his temper get the best of him, but he is fully engaged, and it is not a picture of fatherhood I am all that used to seeing depicted onscreen.

Photo by Kyaw Zay Ya on Unsplash

Lunchtable TV talk: Pure and simple every time… or not

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An article about television recommendations gave a show called Pure its blessing. All I remembered about the description was that a character starts having wildly inappropriate (sexual?) thoughts; possibly something about a brain tumor. I noted the title and forgot about it.

Imagine my surprise then when the time came to start to watching Pure, and I was greeted by Mennonites driving buggies and speaking their own language (I was not expecting a partly subtitled show when my viewing began). It’s a Canadian production, and feels like it – as most Canadian shows do. Same sort of production values, same Canadian extras as usual. I can’t explain what makes a Canadian show Canadian (beyond just the abundance of Canadian vowels and pronunciation). This was not the Pure I was expecting.

I can’t say, having watched two brief seasons of the Canadian Pure, that it’s worth recommending. It’s kind of a different story from what television usually offers, but it feels as though it has missed an opportunity to tell a deeper story. I noticed the same recently in another Canadian show, Mary Kills People, in which a doctor helps terminally ill patients to end their lives. The premise held considerable promise for being able to tackle a challenging topic, but only ever touched briefly on the meatier moral issue, focusing almost entirely on the “the law and the outlaws both have you in their clutches” aspect of illegal assisted suicide. Never mind that assisted suicide has been legal in Canada since 2016, and Mary didn’t even begin until 2017.

Where Pure seems to miss a turn is in having too little time to dig into characters and the path the community’s new pastor follows that leads him to becoming a police informant, as drug trafficking has taken hold in his community. The story unfolded in a too-rushed way that made motivations feel forced and didn’t let all of the actions make sense.

In years past, Banshee had a take on the Amish/Mennonite criminal connection/drug trafficking underworld and the “outcasts” from this world. Even though it was not the central theme of Banshee, it rivaled what Pure managed in two seasons that almost completely focused on the community. The second season seems a bit better paced, and no one can argue with the addition of Christopher Heyerdahl to anything. But overall, perhaps the problem is twofold: Canadians have not yet mastered a six-episode storytelling pace (Brits seem best able to do this); both Mary Kills and Pure suffer from this; secondly, the only time we’d get to see Mennonite (or Amish)-related stories (think back to 1985’s Witness, for example) is when outsiders are involved, which would only likely be an insidious infestation by a criminal element. It’s an insular world, after all.

Photo by Doug Kelley on Unsplash

 

 

 

 

Lunchtable TV Talk: Motive

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TV is a lot richer in summer these days than it used to be – we got a few seasons of some exciting new stuff, whole seasons of Orange is the New Black and BoJack Horseman on Netflix and quite a lot of “off-season” (if you can really even call it that any more) filler to carry us through until fall. In fact, you could almost argue that spring and summer bring some of the best stuff now. There are no boundaries to prime release time for TV shows (and, as I have argued, can you even call them “tv shows” any more, seeing as how they may fit the format but aren’t broadcast on any network and can be inhaled one full season at a time?

Because of that, addicts like me are spoiled – and never have to go through the withdrawals that generally accompanied the dry season of summer. Still, though, nothing is so abundant that I don’t end up seeking out filler beyond the filler I was already watching.

That’s how I ended up watching Motive. My mom told me about it, and apparently had been telling me about it for some time since I still claimed never to have heard of it when it was heading into its fourth season. Maybe because it’s Canadian and didn’t last in its big US network broadcast slot (and was eventually moved to USA), it was not a big title. Nevertheless, just before the fourth season kicked off, I watched all three of the preceding seasons. Why? Reason one: nothing much else to watch that weekend while I was busy with other things; reason two: Louis Ferreira. Who is he, you ask? Well, the only reasons I know and like him: he was Colonel Young in Stargate Universe (the only one in that franchise I cared for, largely because of Robert Carlyle) and was in Breaking Bad. There are worse reasons for watching a show. Reason three: I liked the idea of already knowing the crime and finding out the motive.

Oddly, for a Canadian police mostly-procedural, I have been pretty entertained. I raced through and didn’t pay rapt attention, so I can’t cite plot points or anything particularly notable. But I saw a lot of standard Canadian-actor extras and Battlestar Galactica alums, which is also fun. I didn’t remember at first that the lead, Kristin Lehman, had been a key supporting player in The Killing, which was also good – I like her a lot better in Motive as detective Angie Flynn. In fact, I came to like her a lot, and it’s the easy chemistry between Lehman’s and Ferreira’s characters that make the show as watchable as it has been. That is, chemistry based on deep friendship and respect between colleagues, not sexual tension or something similar. You don’t see that much on TV. In very subtle ways, stuff about Motive is different, and is why I keep watching.

Photo (c) 2014 Michalis Famelis.

Lunchtable TV Talk – Reign: Historical fiction

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Most women my age – and probably a fair number of men, too – watched and maybe even loved the CBC/PBS miniseries, Anne of Green Gables. Megan Follows, while she has had a rich and long career since, will never quite shake her identity as Anne Shirley. And Gilbert Blythe, Anne’s academic rival, friend and eventual husband in the Anne of Green Gables series (a series of Canadian books set in Prince Edward Island, Canada that adolescent readers have devoured for the many decades since they debuted), had life breathed into him by Canadian actor Jonathan Crombie. He has appeared here and there in other things, perhaps most recently and notably in The Good Wife, but he has been tied all his life to his reputation-making role as “Gil”. Sadly, Jonathan Crombie passed away this past week at the age of 48, which plunges the hearts of “kindred spirits” of my age into “the depths of despair” – to use some of Anne Shirley’s over-the-top, verbose, well-loved language.

Ultimately, though, this was not meant to be about Crombie or his passing. (Or to question the “dying young” passing of Canadian actors who graced Canadian tv institutions. Referring here to the 2007 death of Neil Hope, who was “Wheels” on the original Degrassi Junior High.) Instead, I had just been watching this week’s episode of Reign, which sucked me in despite not being my style at all. In large part, I tune in week after week to watch Megan Follows’s regal, scheming performance as Catherine de Medici. Follows finally outshines her past, defining role as Anne Shirley and is the one reason I keep coming back to Reign.

This is not to say that Reign isn’t a decent show. I like these kinds of historical fiction programs in that they may not paint a full or accurate picture of historical events, but they breathe life into long-past history that may ignite curiosity in those non-historians among us. We might then make moves toward reading real history and finding out what in these programs (like Reign, The Tudors and Wolf Hall, to name a few recent entries) is true and not true. History brought to life, regardless of creative license employed for television audiences, can only pique interest and perhaps make history a more interesting subject for otherwise disinterested generations (each generation, at the risk of sounding like a cranky old person, seems less and less interested in history).

I am driven by my viewing of Reign to go back and read the history – and often enjoy the modern music pairings that make up the soundtrack. Occasionally an interesting person will turn up as a guest star – Amy Brenneman as Marie de Guise (a great piece of casting!), Yael Grobglas as Olivia (best known now as Petra on Jane the Virgin) and even Battlestar Galactica’s Helo (Tahmoh Penikett).

Considering all these factors, especially Megan Follows’s presence, now that I know the show has been renewed for another season, I will continue to watch (even if my mind is very much stuck now on Anne of Green Gables, Anne and Gil and Jonathan Crombie, resting in peace.)