The CBC is moving jPod to Friday @ 9pm…and giving the old Tuesday @ 9pm slot to one of its other new shows: MVP.
Both shows have shown drastic losses in viewership since their premieres, but MVP seems to be in worse shape, with only 50 000 viewers in recent weeks. I’m sure the schedulers believe it’s the result of being exiled to a graveyard slot…
…actually, it’s probably due to the fact that MVP sucks the will to live…even the will of small insects!
MVP is Canada’s hockey version answer to the mega-UK television hit Footballers Wives. The main difference is that, across five seasons, the UK show was outrageous, fascinating, in your face, shocking, hilarious, extremely well written and full of actors working their tails off.
MVP is none of these things. It’s a boring, ridiculous, poorly acted, dully written piece of garbage that should never have seen the light of day. But CBC, determined to create shows that appeal to an American-ish audience – yearning for vapid & mindless entertainment – is pulling out all the stops in order to make it a success. If you need any proof of this, look at its other two gargantuan new shows: The Border (which desires so badly to be 24 that it makes 24 look like a Shakespearean masterpiece), and Sophie (a sitcom that makes nails-across-a-blackboard sound like an aria).
jPod is the only new CBC series with intelligence, wit, charisma, fine writing, superb acting, and a joie-de-vivre that leaves all of these other shows in the dust. But we’re not talking about the CBC from 1960 to 1995, which was a master scheduler of distinctive all Canadian programming. Gone is the network that managed to give the nation Wojcek, King of Kensington, Seeing Things, Street Legal & Road to Avonlea. Now we have a network that is so determined to ambulance chase the program stylings of American networks, it manages to screw around with the scheduling of shows such as Doctor Who and Torchwood in order to accomodate mind-numbing pap! And make no mistake…MVP is so wretched, it gives mind-numbing pap a bad name.
So jPod is to be dumped into the Friday night death zone…at a time when no one from its ideal demographic age group will be around to watch it. It will die a useless, unnecessary death…sacrificed to the ambitions of network executives who think good television is jerky-cam-action, and plenty of moodily-lit, T&A on display.
Meanwhile, MVP gets a better slot…and will still end up on the cancellation pile. It is complete and utter bollocks! It is lowest-common-denominator gobshite that has risen to the surface, like (ice-covered) pond scum…and it’s self-immolation will consume a beautiful, innocent piece of television in the process.
So watch jPod while you still can…and when you next see MVP…throw something vile at the TV screen!
