Little Mosque on the Prairie (CBC: Monday, 8:30 PM ET/PT) is not a show I normally watch, since it’s white-bread comedy with a mostly-brown cast.  Brandon Firla’s involvement with the show has intrigued me enough to give Little Mosque another chance.

After watching “Love Thy Neighbour,” I still find Little Mosque wanting.  I don’t care what Andrew Ryan tells me, the show’s not that good.

Reverend William Thorne (Little Mosque on the Prairie always goes for subtlety) is Mercy Mosque’s appointed enemy for this season.  Firla is wasted as the snobbish Anglican on a quest to Take Back His Church.  Amaar Rashid (Zaib Shaikh) and Yasir Hamoudi (Carlo Rota) try to outsmart Thorne, who’s full of radioactive smarm.

It should be noted that Amaar is the only man genuinely threatened by Thorne.  The worst Thorne’s capable of is stealing Amaar’s office for a while.  When Thorne begins to bathe himself in virgin blood, then he’ll be a genuine threat to the people of Mercy.

The show’s religious sentiments aside, Thorne is a cartoon villain.  While setting mouse traps, he says “…this should take care of one of my infestations.”  Ooh, subtle.  He’s almost as subtle as Dishonest John from the Beany & Cecil cartoons.  Maybe Thorne needs a pencil moustache, just to round the character out.

Adding Firla to the cast of Little Mosque is a bald-faced attempt to bolster sagging ratings.  Little Mosque isn’t making fun of religious hypocrisy by adding a condescending Anglican.  All Little Mosque does is refit Clark Claxton III from Billable Hours, in hopes of renewing its comedic tension.  Hell, the show admits as much.

Watching “Love Thy Neighbour,” I’m reminded of why I don’t watch Little Mosque on the Prairie.  The show simply isn’t funny at all.  Point blank, Little Mosque is an ethnic Corner Gas – quirky, bland, safe.  It’s the basic Canadian rural sitcom, but with burqas.

The ubiquitous Jayne Eastwood guest-stars as Mrs. Wispinski.  In one scene, she gives Amaar and Yasir cookies, but doesn’t tell them she made the cookies with pork lard!  HA HA!…PORK LARD!  No wonder Little Mosque is in its fourth season, with thought-provoking knee-slappers like that!

Little Mosque on the Prairie has been shedding a quarter of its audience with each passing season.  Brandon Firla isn’t going to stop the ratings slide, no matter how good he is.  I can’t see a life for Little Mosque past 2010, but then, This Hour Has 22 Minutes still exists.

When The Ron James Show (CBC: premiered September 25, 8:00 PM ET/PT) was announced as the replacement for Royal Canadian Air Farce, I wasn’t expecting much.  The verbose Nova Scotia comic has plied his trade in a series of decreasingly entertaining CBC comedy specials.

There’s also the matter of Blackfly, the Global series that managed two seasons – TWO SEASONS! – despite being a manky, Blackadder-baiting piece of shit.  While anything is better than more Royal Canadian Air Farce*, Ron James has that major failure under his belt.

As a bonus, The Ron James Show executive producer Garry Campbell was responsible for The Good Germany.  I’m well aware of the depths to which Campbell’s shows can plumb.

The Ron James Show doesn’t oversell itself – James does some monologues, appears in all of the sketches, nothing fancy.  There’s an animated segment called “L’il Ronnie,” which sucks, but is still better than the average Air Farce Alan Park segment.

The Ron James Show benefits from slick production values.  The opening credits alone look more expensive than an episode of Royal Canadian Air Farce.  Most of the sketches are of average quality, but none of them descend into Comedy Inc. levels of inanity.

The final sketch, where James experiences life as a slave on the Underground Railroad Weekend Experience, is a highlight.  It’s a fairly edgy sketch for an 8:00 PM show, what with blacks exploiting whites for cheap labour.  The Wendy Mesley voiceover cameo is a bonus.  I hope the writing gets stronger in future episodes, in order to counteract Rick Mercer’s gradual transformation into Shelagh Rogers.

I’m not going to recommend The Ron James Show on the basis of its one aired episode.  The real test is whether subsequent episodes improve on The Ron James Show’s initial outing.  I’m just surprised this show is anything at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather see Rob Pue with a show, but you know, Canada.

*Except for Comedy Inc.

Clarification regarding Part 1 of this article: Teletoon at Night is the weekday adult programming block.  Teletoon Detour is the weekend adult programming block.  There’s no brand simplicity at Teletoon.  [adult swim], whether it reruns shows (which it does, to death) or debuts new ones, is still [adult swim].

Teletoon’s adult programming block has gone from Teletoon Unleashed to Teletoon Detour, Teletoon F-Night, back to Teletoon Detour and now this split branding.  While I’m glad Teletoon found a classier name and image for its Futurama and King of the Hill reruns, why keep the Detour brand?  Stupid.  Pick one name and run with it, Teletoon.  At least the Thursday and Friday night films are a constant now, so baby steps.

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Xavier: Renegade Angel 1.1: “What Life D-D-Doth” | This show has a love-it-or-hate-it fanbase.  Either Xavier is the worst thing [adult swim] has vomited forth or a mindblowing trip that few have the capacity to understand.

Xavier is essentially Billy Jack with a beak, fur, backward-bending legs and six nipples, among other design flaws.  He is obnoxious to everyone he meets, his ego too big for one planet.  Xavier’s words sometimes echo, as if anything he says has any portent.

Hell, Xavier doesn’t have to make sense half the time.  Even if he did, he’s talking to unenlightened people, which he knows he is much better than.  The show is a complete mindfuck, which would explain how “What Life D-D-Doth” can work AIDS, the nature of reality and a bevy of bad puns into a…well, whatever the hell Xavier is, at any rate.

Before Xavier: Renegade Angel, PFFR was best known for MTV2’s Wonder Showzen.  I like Xavier: Renegade Angel better than Wonder Showzen.  That’s not an impressive feat, as Wonder Showzen episodes fail at humour nineteen times out of twenty.

Xavier is of similar quality to Wonder Showzen, but it’s easier to swallow at eleven minutes.  Believe it or not, Xavier: Renegade Angel is still better than Assy McGee and 12 oz. Mouse.  Painful rectal discharge is better than 12 oz. Mouse.

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Frisky Dingo 2.1: “Behold a Dark Horse” | Frisky Dingo’s first-season finale had nominal villain Killface plan to hurl the Earth into the sun with his Annihilatrix.  Thanks to malfunctioning couplings, Killface’s machine does not pull the Earth into the sun.  It actually pushes Earth a few feet away from the sun…just enough to end global warming, since Killface totally meant to do that.

Turning a negative into a positive, Killface becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.  The episode centers around him and Dottie Bunch mounting a run for the American presidency.  This involves Bunch spending Killface’s money on booze, a commercial set in a wheatfield, lots of fundraisers and a penguin named Baby Lamont.

Killface so deliberately cured global warming, the one issue he bases his campaign on.  He uses the penguin as the face of global warming, as the chick was trapped on an ice floe in the first season.  As this isn’t enough to interest voters, rapper Taqu’il (he of The Ballocaust fame) is chosen as Killface’s running mate.

For an eleven-minute show on [adult swim], Frisky Dingo is surprisingly plot-heavy.  Not many superhero parodies will use terms like “media buy” or delve into the minutiae of a supervillain’s life.  Non-fans will probably have no clue what the show is about, or why so much attention is paid to a naked, muscular alien interested in said media buys.

Frisky Dingo is much better than Sealab 2021, Adam Reed and Matt Thompson’s previous series.  Sealab 2021 trades in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force style of humour, where wacky shit happens just for the sake of entertaining stoners.  Frisky Dingo is more intelligent, has a unique look and doesn’t couch itself in the remains of a long-dead Hanna-Barbera show.  Baby Lamont alone is worth a watch.

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Aqua Teen Hunger Force 5.1: “Robots Are Everywhere” | I’ve watched this show off and on since its debut.  I used to like this show, but ATHF has lost me completely at this point.  There’s only so far this show can go without repeating itself.

In “Robots Are Everywhere,” Carl rents out the house Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad are normally tenants of to boxy robots.  ”Markula” makes an appearance.  The robots hump a lot, making babies.  Carl switches between disinterest and anger, as he often does.  It’s the typical Aqua Teen Hunger Force plot.  Making sense of this show is futile.

I understand this is a Carl-centric show, as the anthropomorphic foodstuffs have been captured by military spiders.  It doesn’t matter what happens in the episode, since it’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force and continuity is for pussies.  I just don’t enjoy this show anymore.  I feel the show lost something after Dr. Weird’s ass ate his hand.  After that, there’s nowhere else for Aqua Teen Hunger Force to go.

Warning: spoilers.

Teletoon has advertised the final seven episodes of Life’s a Zoo.tv (Teletoon: 10:30 PM ET/PT starting September 20) as “lost.”  No, Teletoon, they’re not lost.  You just haven’t aired them yet.  By that definition, the entirety of The Dating Guy and all [adult swim] shows on Teletoon bar Robot Chicken and Moral Orel are “lost.”  Showcase is airing “lost episodes” of The Foundation and Paradise Falls.  See where I’m going with this?

The channel recently kicked off Life’s a Zoo.tv’s “second season” by airing the seventeenth episode of the show.  Life’s a Zoo.tv is a reality show satire dependent on continuity, as Dr. D and Minou are not featured in this episode.  If Teletoon isn’t going to air the show properly, just keep it on the shelf.  Teletoon airs Moral Orel in sequence, but not its own shit?  Oy vey.

The episode is by and large a Chi Chi oriented episode.  Chi Chi (Stephanie Jung), the show’s overweight butt panda, becomes sick for some reason.  She shows signs of pregnancy, which explains the episode’s title.  Hilarity threatens to ensue, as the other castmembers bar Rico aid her through childbirth.  The ending, though I won’t spoil it, should be familiar to anyone who’s seen the “Cash” episode of The Young Ones.

Life’s a Zoo.tv’s basic tenets of Morreski (Stephen Kishewitsch) drinking, Ray (Mike Rowland) acting like a dumbass stoner, Jake (Kurt Firla) acting skeezy and Chi Chi talking stereotype broke English are maintained.  Rico’s (Francisco Trujillo) subplot is darker, as the homosexual crocodilian forces his egg to go through musical theatre.  He even puts a vest on his egg, such is Rico’s iron-clad grip on reality.

I’ve learned to live with the music video portion of Life’s a Zoo.tv.  In this episode, Joel Plaskett’s “Fashionable People” is shown.  To me, that’s a few minutes of torture.  I have never understood why Life’s a Zoo.tv needs music videos, as they are superfluous to the show itself.  I assume the videos are there to bring in revenue and fill time.

The second-season “premiere” of Life’s a Zoo.tv is average.  There have been more clever episodes, although Life’s a Zoo.tv has stuck to its general modus operandi of lampooning reality show clichés.  Writer Brandon Firla does what he can with the premise of “Chi’s Having a Baby,” but there’s only so much mileage one can get out of the “surrogate egg mothers” plot.

I doubt Life’s a Zoo.tv will be renewed past its initial twenty-episode order.  Unless Teletoon decides to renew the show, these last seven episodes will likely be Life’s a Zoo.tv’s death knell.  It’s been a surprisingly good run, all told – better than Station X, anyway.

TVShowsonDVD.com, acting on a tip by reader Katrina Willard, has posted the news that Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye will be on DVD by mid-October 2009.  The show, which aired on PAX (now Ion) from 2002-05 and on CTV from 2003-05, focused on deaf FBI agent Sue Thomas (Deanne Bray) and her training agent/line manager Jack Hudson (Yannick Bisson.)  The show’s unique selling proposition is Thomas’ ability to lip-read.

The TVShowsonDVD.com article doesn’t go into much detail, aside from the mid-October date on the official Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye Facebook page.  In sum, at least it’s out.

Reruns of Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye still air on CTV as perpetual filler.  Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye is an American-Canadian co-production with no distinct Canadian identity, but the show has its fans on both sides of the border.  Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye currently airs in America on AmericanLife TV Network and Gospel Music Channel.

Aside: The American version of Animal Planet syndicated Sue Thomas, F.B. Eye in April 2009.  In the show, Thomas has a hearing dog named Levi.  Apparently, that’s enough to fit the station’s modus operandi.  The show lasted two weeks on Animal Planet before being dropped.  Isn’t cable rot grand?

EDIT (September 22, 2009) | Clarification regarding Part 1 of this article: Teletoon at Night is the weekday adult programming block.  Teletoon Detour is the weekend adult programming block.  I apologize for the error.

Teletoon has changed the name of its adult programming blocks from Teletoon Detour to Teletoon at Night.  Sunday nights are a doggie bag – new episodes of Life’s a Zoo.tv, but nothing else of note.  Saturday nights are where the “stars” come out to “shine,” if I may “use” a “cliché.”

I’m glad to see Teletoon finally bundle its [adult swim] shows in a one-night package.  In this case, “new” is relative.  Those second-season Metalocalypse episodes are two years old by now.  G4 Canada is competing against Teletoon with its own [adult swim] package, which I hope spurred Teletoon to get its ass in gear.

As for the Sunday animation block, I hope Teletoon mounts a few new shows within a year or two.  If I remember correctly, The Dating Guy and the Teletoon Pilot Project shows have yet to see air.  I’d love to see Teletoon with a real [adult swim]-like roster of programs, not just reruns of Punch! and Clone High strewn waywardly across its schedules.  Failing that, at least bring back Captain Star.

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The Venture Bros. 3.1: “Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny” (10:30 PM ET/PT) | Despite its Jonny Quest-baiting origins, The Venture Bros. has become the best show on [adult swim] at this point in time.  The show has created a host of interesting and multi-layered characters, enough that the entire Venture family doesn’t feature in the third-season premiere.  Instead, Doctor Girlfriend and The Monarch are being interrogated by The Guild of Calamitous Intent.

There aren’t many truly funny moments in the third-season premiere.  All the same, “Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny” is worth it for the fleshing-out of The Monarch’s character – his status as Phantom Limb’s ninth Shadowman, the relationship with wife/former Phantom Limb second-in-command Dr. Girlfriend, the first attempts at destroying “arch-nemesis” Dr. Thaddeus Venture.  The Venture Bros. has entered the stage where secondary characters can carry whole episodes, enough that the backstories might be hard to follow for newcomers.

The Venture Bros.’ main strength – and it has many, from voiceover work to dense plotting – is in its animation quality.  It’s a low-budget, traditionally animated effort, but creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer have the 1960s cartoon style down to a fine art.  I’m actually surprised The Venture Bros. has kept up its quality for as long as it has.  It’s almost too good for [adult swim].

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Moral Orel 3.2: “Numb” (11:00 PM ET/PT) | Wow, Teletoon is airing the third season as originally intended!  As bad as Teletoon is in its scheduling, at least the Teletoon at Night block doesn’t pull stunts like airing new episodes of [adult swim] shows as an April Fool’s joke.

Moral Orel has much improved from its “I’ll beat up a heathen for Jesus” religious-hypocrisy-baiting days.  Actor Scott Adsit has admitted to Moral Orel’s first two seasons being formulaic by design.  It makes me wonder why Moral Orel didn’t flesh out its characters until its first two seasons had passed.

There’s the usual bit of shock humour in “Numb,” as Bloberta uses a jackhammer as a vibrator (albeit offscreen.)  She mutilates herself so she can see Doctor Quentin Xavier Potterswheel, appealing to a fetish of his.  Bizarrely, “Numb” is written in such a way that the craziness actually looks normal.  Moral Orel creator Dino Stamatopoulos guaranteed the show’s cancellation with episodes like “Numb.”

One realizes in “Numb” that Bloberta is in a loveless marriage, as shown in the episode’s final two minutes.  Moral Orel has been hinting for two seasons that everyone aside from Orel is screwed up, while the third season just blurts it out.  Having The Mountain Goats’ “No Children” top and tail the episode doesn’t hurt.  I actually like Moral Orel now.

Metalocalypse 2.1: “Dethecution” (11:30 PM ET/PT) | A lot of [adult swim] shows are focused on marketing.  I’m serious about this.  Frisky Dingo?  Basically Xander Crews (and in the second season, Killface) selling himself.  Metalocalypse?  The marketing of the world’s most successful band.

I don’t think I need to explain how Robot Chicken fits into this theory.  Just look at the crappy toys from your childhood and you’ll know.

As for “Dethecution,” I’m not sold on this episode.  It repeats the Metalocalypse formula.  Many people are brutally killed during a Dethklok concert.  Skwisgaar makes singulars words plurals.  Charles Foster Ofdensen lectures the bandmembers on how to conduct their affairs.  It’s the same jokes from the first season.  I like Metalocalypse, but I’m starting to see the holes in the writing.

The Tribunal is back, minus Cardinal Ravenwood, who was killed by Mr. Selatcia at the end of the first season.  General Crozier has nightmares relating to Ravenwood’s death, which is as far as the episode goes.  I’m not expecting Metalocalypse to wow me with a season premiere, but the most notable thing about “Dethecution” is that Metalocalypse’s theme song has become a running gag.

I can’t see all the episodes of the second season being like this.  ”Dethecution” is just boring as hell.  Nothing happens that hasn’t happened on the show before.  I await the return of Dr. Rockzo.