I’m kind of surprised that it ended so soon. I thought that it would end up with him hunkered down in a piece of woods and the cops tightening the cordon around him and letting him sit and wait until hunger drove him to surrender or worse. A lot of other people thought that it would end in suicide by cop.
So happy to be able to leave the house again.
Glad they managed to resolve it without any more shots fired.
Yes, very much so. Had the potential to get even worse.
Must have been very stressful, Cyros. Glad you and your family are safe.
Thanks Northern Piper. It didn’t bother me much but my wife was pretty stressed. Glad its over and things can start to get back to normal for most of the city.
My thoughts go out to the friends and family of David Ross, Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, and Douglas James Larche whose lives will never be the same again.
Looks like something happening in Dartmouth, NS. Is June shaping up to be lockdown month?
Glad they got the Dartmouth one before he killed anyone.
I don’t think the point was to obscure the Canadian identity of the show, but that a good show is primarily about the show’s central characters and them, not the setting. The problem with so many Canadian shows is not that they happen to be set in Canada, but that they aren’t very good.
It is remarkably self-evident how little an international audience cares about where a show is set; Canadians and Americans both seem to love “Downton Abbey,” set in England, and the British were obsessed with “Friends,” set in New York City. Millions loved “Breaking Bad” despite having little interest in New Mexico, a state even most Americans are barely aware is part of the Union. The few Canadian shows to make an impact south of the border, like “Degrassi Junior High,” did so because they were quality programs. Degrassi was, for its time, a very innovative and original show, and of generally higher quality than most teen-oriented shows. The fact that it was set in Toronto was never hidden but was incidental to the show, just as you could have set Breaking Bad more or less anywhere and had pretty much the same show.
This just strikes me as being, well, weird. What does it even mean? Why do I have to be explained to myself? You can explain OTHER PEOPLE to me, but Muslims living in small town Saskatchewan are just as foreign to me, in any practical sense, as people who live in Albuquerque, NM. I’ll watch the show if it appeals to me, and if it doesn’t, I won’t. What distinguishes “Little Mosque on the Prairie” from “Breaking Bad” is that the latter had outstanding writing, acting, and direction, and the former was watered-down, government-issue pablum.
It cannot be emphasized enough; the reason so many people are disinclined to watch CBC shows is not that they are about Canada, but that they stink. It would not matter a whit if they were about Canada if they were GOOD. There’s no reason Canada couldn’t produce a show like “House of Cards,” “The Wire,” or for that matter “Modern Family” if it was willing to allow talent to produce interesting shows, allowing the bad to die ratings death and good to succeed. And in fairness, some Canadian shows that are decent - Corner Gas was quite amusing, and Trailer Park Boys was original - do succeed.
I’m not sure if the early report was accurate. Hopefully it was just a case of jumpy nerves from the Moncton shootings.
I agree with you, writing comes first and that’s why people tune into TV. If you have an uninteresting show, no amount of Canadian content will save you; however, when I think back to all the quirky Canadian shows that I did enjoy in the past few/many years…[ol]
[li]Billable Hours[/li][li]Spliced![/li][li]Todd & The Book of Pure Evil[/li][li]Chilly Beach[/li][li]Republic of Doyle[/li][li]Kenny vs. Spenny (yes, don’t judge me harshly)[/li][li]ZeD[/li][/ol]I noticed that they seem to have short lifespans except the CBC ones (or the bare-bones pseudo-reality show Kenny VS Spenny). That’s kinda why we have the CBC, to provide Canadians with a way to get stable funding for Canadian produced content and provide a Canadian audience for that content. I will agree that the CBC has been doing this basic job pretty crappy for the past few years (Was it sooo hard to let “The Rick Mercer Report” stay on Monday’s?!? and who the hell loved “Sophie”?), but in the end I DO want this job done…
My favourite independent podcast (Canadaland with Jesse Brown) covered this story with the depressing title “Canadian Television is Doomed.” I hope people hear will check it out. Jesse is a former CBC radio One presenter all his content is quite good.
Small error, the actual Canadaland show I meant to link was “Why won’t the CBC defend itself?.” My bad.
Parents of Justin Bourque say they tried to get help for him before the shootings: http://ww2.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/08/justin-bourques-parents-sought-help-for-troubled-son-but-police-couldnt-do-anything
Lost Girl, which is right now shooting Season 5, is Canadian made, has developed an international audience, and takes place in a magical version of Toronto where it never seems to snow. Quality show, doing quite well, and didn’t require CBC money to survive.
Billable Hours was very funny! And Todd and the Book of Pure Evil was awesome—I’m a proud supporter of the upcoming animated conclusion to the series. 
Yeah, I’ve watched a few episodes but the sexy-bisexual-succubus thing really didn’t catch on with me (surprisingly, cuz I’m quite easy to pander to). I do keep hearing so many good things about Orphan Black though; which, while it is 100% Canadian, has had all/most references to Canada sucked out of it. [
](Orphan Black - Wikipedia)Ah well, C’est la vie.
I salute you sir. Billable Hours was great and I enjoyed Brandon Firla as the smug Clark Claxton way better than his role as the priest in Little Mosque on the Prairie.
I chipped a few bucks to TaTBoPE also, as it was clearly cancelled way before it’s time. In fact, my ideal show would involve giving Chris Leavins a whole wack of money and just watching whatever comes from that. “Who’s an awesome guidance counselor?”
On a not unrelated note, Clone High might be coming back as a movie. Talk about being killed before it’s time, that hilarious show got just one season.
Just thinking about a Clone High movie improves my mood… Wesley.
THE SECOND COMING OF ROB FORD
[Or, the Ontario and Toronto Elections are Upon Us]
Turning and turning in a widening gyre
The mayor cannot find his own car door;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mediocrity is loosed upon the world,
The bribe-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
Confidence in government is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are just as fucking useless.
Surely no revelation is at hand;
Surely nothing good is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image filled with purple Jesus
Troubles my sight: in a waste of crumbling infrastructure;
A shape with bloated body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Crack pipes and empty bottles roll.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That both municipal and provincial elections
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Honest Ed’s to approve condos?[[enthusiastic applause!]]
Bravo!
A Queen’s man, eh?
They may say that, but Allison’s address was conspiculously given as Scarborough, all the license plates are Ontario, and they show the CN Tower in the background every so often. If they really wanted to not make it be the GTA, they could be more obvioius about it.