Wonder no more.
Why must humanity always disappoint me like this? It's with much sadness that I announce that This Is Wonderland is coming to an end after March 15, after two wondeful seasons and into a strong third. The CBC cancelled it, citing the usual "low-ratings" as executioner.
This coming on the heels of the demise of Arrested Development, diminishes the bright spots of the TV landscape further so that we're left with such fine programming as THIS and THIS.
This is Wonderland, the story of public defender Alice Douray and the characters of the Canadian court system, was not only good because of its characterizations of the lawyers and clients, but also because the cases rarely involved high profile murder, extortion, kidnapping, etc. Instead, you're treated to an overburdened justice system dealing with elderly junkies, the mentally ill, a homeless preacher, school bullying, etc. In essence, as real-life cases as you're going to get.
While I can only hope that Season 2 and 3 will be out on DVD (following Season 1) at some point in the future, I don't envision a Family Guy-esque comeback for this show. Like Arrested Development, it was smart, funny, engaging, and killed WAY before its peak. I have no idea what CBC will replace it with. I mean, it's not like there's a plethora of good Canadian drama waiting in the wings.
Who needs to develop our own Canadian drama scene when we can just have more Ron McLean, "Movie Night in Canada," or "Hockeyville," yet another reality TV show. Because, we're all about original programming over at Front St.
4 comments:
A few things on this subject:
1. I stand by my argument that several people have heard many times before, that the North American television market and broadcasting is designed to beat good shows to death.
It is extrememly difficult to write, act and direct an excellent dramatic series with 20 new episodes a year for a run of 3, 4, 5, 6 years. Yet this is what networks want.
Even the best of shows can generally only stay good for 1-3 seasons. Then they die a slow and painful death as they become increasinly pathetic (*cough* The West Wing).
Television shows are written with open ended narrative arcs in an attempt to fit these demands, but in doing so they lose the all important unity of time, and often unity of theme and space fall by the wayside also as a result.
Some of the best shows on television are ones that were written with a specific time frame in mind: i.e. Twitch City.
In my opinion its far better to kill a show while it is still good rather than to wait for it to kill itself.
This doesn't mean I'm not dissapointed about the cancellation of This is Wonderland, but as I've said before, I'm glad its going off the air leaving me wishing for more, rather than leaving me regretting wasting 15 hours of my life watching the last season.
2. No new dramatic talent at the CBC?! You don't keep up with your CBC viewing well enough. Starting March 7 Ken Finkleman has a new show staring Don McKellar called "At the Hotel." Finkleman has proven himself at producing outstanding and wickedly satirical dramatic comedy. What's more, he produces shows whith an intended limited life, and this new one is no different (see above point about unity of time). And McKellar, as we all should know, is one of the best Canadian actors out there. I'm looking forward to this one.
3. On This is Wonderland, Alice's last name is spelt "De Raey." She spells it out for the record in the first couple of episodes of the first season.
Okay, so Finkleman's new show does not star Don McKellar, I'm not sure where I got that from, maybe McKellar's making a guest appearance.
But anyway, At the Hotel should be good.
Yeah, that was totally me. I'm a Don McKeller junkie...I see him, I assume he's the star. I blame Stina for this disorder.
Agreed on the time/space part. I think that's what I enjoyed most about Babylon 5. It's campy in many, many areas, but I respect the fact that J. Michael Stracynski (sp.?) wrote the show with 5 seasons and one long story arc in mind. It's satisfying to see various plot threads be completed.
That being said, It would be best in an ideal situation to give the creators a season's worth of head's up so that they could write the following season with a closing arc in mind. Again, a pipe dream, I know.
At The Hotel was totally left-field for me...I had no idea it was even coming until you mentioned it, Matt.
As for Alice's last name, I honestly couldn't tell you why I thought it was spelt Douray. But it definitely wasn't me just sounding it out...it may have been because it sounds very similar to the Habs' player Souray's (sp.) name? I don't know.
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