caretaker

I won't watch Arctic Air, it is bad, R of Doyle is better, (but I don't watch it either) and when it was running Due South was actually pretty funny till they changed the actor playing the American detective. I can't watch many of the primetime programs that make up the bulk of programming. Too stock, too predictable, and in some cases it's thinly disguised propaganda. I take to comedies more easily. Almost all actors in fictional series are prettier than the characters they portray would be in real life - that's television. The Nature of Things, Nova, and the investigative docs like W5, Marketplace, etc (depending on subject) can be good. Some of the specialty cable channels which I don't get, (History and A&E) used to be great but now have degraded programming to the point that I wouldn't want them. I get 28 channels in the basic cable package and at least twice that many on satellite in BC, and still sometimes there's nothing on.

januarymix

januarymix

GREAT Canadian musician:

Leonard Cohen, pure legend.

caretaker

Is this supposed to be in the Celebrity Croakers thread?
Cohen is a poet who also sings, but I think he's probably done more for other artists and the music world as a whole than for himself. All the notoriety he's gotten in the last 20 years is well deserved, (the 70's and 80's he was overshadowed by new trends, but retained his folk following), but I never liked his singing that much. I've worked in a music venue for the last 32 years and seen a lot of tremendous talent, some artists who were already iconic and some who were just emerging, and now many of our new acts are coming into their own as internationaly known musicians. We gave Colin James his first job in '79 or '80 playing bluegrass on his mandolin when he was 14 on the Communicart Tour travelling through the province in a van full of drunken puppeters. Lately I like Serena Ryder and Little Miss Higgins, oh, and the Sheepdogs, who had a hell of a party here after Grey Cup.

beckiwoo

I'm guessing due to the fact Canadian TV appears to not be that great and knowing that a lot of American TV (especially the comedy shows) are trash (I'm not counting stuff like homeland, prison break, breaking bad etc in this) then Iplayer and 4od are lifesavers in entertainment out there - especially for the comedy programmes

dbd33

It's a bit misleading to talk about "Canadian TV". Most of the channels are American and those that are local closely follow the American style, often setting the show in an American city that looks just like a Canadian one. Canadian TV is like Scottish TV, there are a few local news programs and one or two series set locally but, for all practical purposes, the TV is from another country.

We watch American TV programs, most recently Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire, by renting the videos.

beckiwoo

In that case I will be using bbc Iplayer and 4od and just catching up with the decent American drama series

caretaker

If you want to know what shows are on anywhere in Canada, (cable or satellite), it isn't hard to look up if you have a location or postal code to enter. Those 'decent American dramas' on primetime are wasted on me though. Not worth an hour out of my life.

Jingsamichty

I watched Klondike last night on Discovery. What a load of rubbish.

januarymix

This has gotta be one of the most upbeat threads here

januarymix

Yes, maybe not much of a singer per se, but I love his songs, and he's a great person to boot.

dbd33

Weren't the The Sopranos and The Wire shown in primetime? They were as good as any TV drama has ever been, I expect there'll be another good one along eventually.

Atlantic Xpat

House of Cards. The recent Neflix remake with Kevin Spacey. Excellent. Now available on DVD for those of you with rural internet connections who can't get Netflix.

januarymix

I watched the whole Season 1 on a plane trip recently.

caretaker

Don't know The Wire, but Sopranos was HBO so didn't hit regular cable here, and yes it was good, I thought so anyway. Every night there are multiple series on about cops and robbers or spies vs terrorists or corporate intrigue or hospital romances and I dodge them. Obviously most viewers don't agree (that's what ratings are about), so it must just be me being overly critical. I grew up with television - it came to Saskatchewan in 1954 same as me so I've been sitting in front of it for nearly 60 years and no doubt I've seen the good and the bad.