So long, Trailer Park Boys! (Series finale - 6/10/07 - Open Spoilers)

Cafe Society
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Well, it looks like we’ll be bidding a fond farewell to Ricky, Julian, Bubbles, and the rest of the crew.

I know TPB threads are very few and far between on the SDMB, but I decided to start one so I could say goodbye to one of my favorite shows.

I kind of had a feeling that they’d wrap everything up in a nice and tidy package just like they did in the sixth season when they thought that one would be the last.

I’m sad to see it go, but then, they did seem to be running out of ideas. I mean, there are only so many words you can preface with “shit” or “cock” and make them come out funny, and there are only so many dope growing/smoking/smuggling plots that you can crank out before you end up with… well, The Swayze Express and Sebastian Bach.

I wouldn’t call the season bad, per se, just not up the the standards of the others. I’d say the best thing I got out of the final season was the fact that I now preface activities by saying “I’m gonna rock a” (e.g. “I’m gonna go rock a piss. Back in a minute”). For some reason, I love that phrase. :smiley:

Your thoughts on the last episode (and season, for that matter) of Trailer Park Boys?

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The last time someone started a thread on this, I tried to take an interest. I asked what channel it was on, and was told by the OP that he watched it on his microwave window. After that, the thread got weird. Not falling for that again.

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Eh? I must have missed that thread. At any rate, TPB was a mockumentary (think “This is Spinal Tap”)-type show that ran for seven seasons on Showcase, a Canadian cable channel. Here is the show’s official site.

It aired for a little while on BBC America, which is where I discovered it, but their censoring of the pretty much constant foul language found in the show ruined its chances of success on basic cable in the States.

After I found it, though, well, let’s just say that since I live in a country where four-letter words that everyone knows by the time they’ve reached elementary school are taboo, I may or may not have sought the episodes out via means that are not allowed to be discussed on this board (or perhaps I drove six hours each way to Canada every week to watch the show - who knows? :D).

It’s also worth noting that you can rent DVDs of earlier seasons on Netflix or buy them on Amazon.

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Forgot to add: the show also spawned the motion picture Trailer Park Boys: The Big Dirty, which was a huge hit in Canada, but was unfortunately never released in the U.S.

The movie is meant for first-time viewers and the continuity strays from the show, which had already finished filming the sixth season by the time it was released. While the movie was good, it paled in comparison to the series.

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I started watching the show in about the fifth season and enjoyed it. I had watched it a few episodes earlier, but it just seemed too crude, sort of like the first time I watched South Park. But eventually the humor of the show and the characters won me over. I had to make sure to watch it when my wife wasn’t in the room so there wasn’t a constant stream of rolls eyes comments.

I wasn’t sure that the series had come to an end, although it is pretty clear the last show ties off all the loose ends. One thing that I liked about season 7 was that it was in wide screen HDTV format. I agree it may be hard to go forward with this show as they have covered all their money making schemes and trips to jail, and it would just get repetitive. The movie was also great but the jumps in continuity were a little confusing.

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Liberal is talking about my thread where I tried to get a discussion going as to whether or not the show was fizzling out. All I ended up doing was confusing Liberal :slight_smile:

I’m also glad to see it go. I remember when I first got into it, it was so amazing. Every episode was hilarious and the characters were hilarious. Just describing show plots to people made me laugh uncontrollably.

This season, it’s just so meh. I think the loss of Cory and Trevor and less screen time for J-Roc hurt the show too.

It’s been a great show while it lasted and I think further seasons would be just too much. I’d hate to see it go down the tubes!!

Netflix finally has the movie on their site, but just as a “coming soon” type movie. It’s in my queue, but on hold.

Have you seen any of the episodes on DVD? I just got Season 4 (because there’s a few commentaries on it with the actors out of character) and the DVDs look weird. Seems like they shot the shows in digital then made them look more “film-y” for tv then put the digital versions on DVD. Being shown in crystal-clear digital video isn’t that great for the boys. lol

For anyone who hasn’t seen this, I highly recommend it as one of the best shows of the decade so far (seriously - and I watch a lot of TV!!) It’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen before with an amazing concept and incredibly good writing.

Long live TPB! (in our memories only :wink: )

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Yeah. I kind of figured that either somebody who smoked way too much of Ricky’s pot (I’m looking at you, Randy! :)) had to have posted something that bizarre, or that it was a typical Liberal misconception. :smiley: (No offense, Lib!)

Well, to answer your question in the linked thread, the actors who played Cory and Trevor were upset with the fact that their characters had become pathetic laughingstocks, so they quit.

My reaction: WTF? Have they ever been anything but that?

“Heeeere, Cory, Trevor, Cory, Trevor!”

I haven’t seen them (God, they’re expensive for the number of episodes you get!), but I’m sure I’ll end up buying them anyway, if only for the commentary and better quality, even if that ends up being a bad thing.

This. This is what made TPB so great. On the surface it seems vulgar, crude, lowbrow, and a million other negative adjectives. Watch it on a long-term basis, however, and you start to peak beneath the surface and see how brilliantly the characters were fleshed out over seven seasons, at how well they stayed true to their original personalities.

Plus, the show is eminently quotable. For years, every time someone has pissed me off, I’ve given them the double-middle-finger-salute and said “Knock, knock, boys!,” even if the subject of my wrath had no idea what the hell I was talking about. :smiley:

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My favorite catch phrase is “smokes.” Every time I try to bum a cigarette I try to do it like Ricky but NO ONE ever gets it.

I can’t believe those guys who played Cory and Trevor got upset over how the characters “looked” on TV. That was the CHARM of their characters! Personally, I thought those guys were great actors because they were able to portray those pussies so well. Now I just think they’re jerks.

What do you think about the Phil and Jacob Collins story lines in this new season? I was not too impressed. Although I did appreciate some of the Genesis jokes!

I haven’t watched the finale yet…so if you can try not to spoil it for me :stuck_out_tongue:

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None taken. My typical misconceptions are a vital part of my endearing charm. :slight_smile:

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I think it would be kind of hard to “spoil” the TPB :cool:

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Yup, I’ve also tried that one to no avail. The best occurrence of that in the entire series was in the third season episode entitled “If I Can’t Smoke and Swear, I’m Fucked,” where the ever-confident and cocky Ricky demands a smoke from the attorney who’s prosecuting him. That one had me falling out of my chair. Really, I think the third season was probably the best of them all.

I’ve only actually met one other person in this country (okay, I don’t get out much, but still…) who’s ever even heard of the boys, let alone seen the show, so I ended up introducing a lot of friends to it. Only one of them didn’t end up a fan, and that was a girl who watched about three-quarters of the first episode and gave up.

My sentiments exactly. For a show with a cast comprised almost entirely of amateur actors (Lucy and Sarah were especially bad), those two really mastered their characters. Who cares if said characters weren’t desirable?

I detested Jacob (especially after… well, you’ve seen the second-to-last episode, I take it?), but I always had a soft spot for Phil(adelphia) Collins. And I did get a kick out of the fact that the other son was named Thomas (Tom Collins mix). Took me a couple of episodes to pick up on that one. As for the story line itself… meh. The show probably would have been better off without it.

Well, I did write “Open Spoilers” in the title, but then… uh, I didn’t give any real spoilers, did I? Conky’s phone call at the end of episode nine made me pretty nervous, but, well… you’ll see. :slight_smile:

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I only got to watch TPB while it was on BBC America, which means I am woefully under-qualified to speak to its wonderfulness. I think we only got to see one season. :frowning:

Thanks for letting me know I can rent it! I’m whittling away mr.stretch’s reasons for not having Netflix and I can add this to the pile. He loves TPB.

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I love how most of the seasons end with the boys going to jail. What other show does that?

I did feel that they had kind of run out of steam by the sixth season and they ended it on a nice note. But then the movie came out. Then the seventh season. I kind of hate for it to end, but then again I prefer for it to go out while it’s still working. As preposterous as the situations could get sometimes, the fact that the dialogue and characters had such veritas made even the craziest premises credible. I mean, I’ve never met the sort of person who would not only find a gun in his utensil drawer but fire off a couple of rounds into the ceiling to see if it still worked, but I’ve known people of a eerily similar ilk.

Lahey’s gag wasn’t going anywhere. He couldn’t get any drunker or gayer. It was still funny that Randy never put on a shirt or that Julian always had a mixed drink in one hand. It’s also funny that for Ricky straightening out his life meant settling down and concentrating on growing dope.