Musings from Lot 12

I do not watch a lot of TV anymore as I find a lot of what passes for entertainment bores me. I tend to watch news and public affairs. A good historical documentary every now and then but not too much else. However, I do listen to the radio a lot, almost exclusively CBC. I pay attention to what CBC puts on the radio. Lately I listened to a lot of chatter on CBC shilling two new productions on CBC TV. The first was a 2 part movie called The Dragon Boys, a story about the "realities" of Chinese gangs on the Canadian west coast. I watched it Sunday and Monday night. I have no idea how realistic it is but it was, I thought, a good production. It held my attention, it had more twists and turns then the highway through the Rogers Pass. It covered bullying and racial stereotyping. It was violent, brutally violent. I liked the show.

Then there was "the other show", Little Mosque On The Prairies". Boy did they shill this one. Everybody, including the kid on the set who gets the coffee was interviewed earnestly on virtually every show that CBC radio produces. They have been playing clips on TV for weeks. They even covered CNN's coverage of the show as a news item the other day. Well last night I was parked in front of the tube at 8AM, Rick Mercer was on followed immediately by LMOTP. All through Mercer an annoying little box kept popping up telling us how long until LMOTP. Every commercial break showed the same trailer for LMOTP and ended with 16 minutes until LMOTP starts , 10 minutes etc etc). It was really getting up my nose. Well my expectations were, sadly, met. The only good laughs (?) are in the trailers. The set looked like the production company spent about $5.27 on it and the lines were so predictable and lame. This could have been a great one. But unless chapter two is immeasurably better than chapter one this one is a big dog, a piece of crap, a huge disappointment IMHO. I'll give it 5 minutes next week and thats it. Too bad.