Warning: spoilers.

Showcase’s reboot has its good and bad points.  While Showcase has gained positive publicity with the announcement of the Pure Pwnage television show, it also has a bad habit of stockpiling shows.  The Foundation (Showcase: premieres September 13, 10:40 PM ET/PT and September 16, 9:00 PM ET/PT) is one such show, originally set to debut last season.

The Foundation has a strong pedigree.  Co-creator/executive producer/director/writer Michael Dowse is responsible for FUBAR and It’s All Gone Pete Tong.  Mike Wilmot, a constant in Dowse’s films, is a decent standup comic.  The premise – not-for-profit charity run by dumbass failed real estate developer – should birth the mirth.

The Foundation is the first Canadian show I’ve seen in a while that does exactly what it says on the tin – nothing more, nothing less.  It’s a black comedy with an unsympathetic antagonist in Michael Valmont-Selkirk (Wilmot), a man who likes to profit from charitable works.

Valmont-Selkirk is a dunce about ideas more complex than enriching himself, which is where Chief Financial Officer Barry Anderson (Martin Sims) comes in.  Executive Vice President Cynthia Dollard (Rebecca Northan) is the token competent at the Selkirk Foundation, initially in the dark about the charity’s true motives.

Sylvie Boucher stands out as Marnie Mathers, The R.J. Selkirk Foundation’s well-meaning chief spokeswoman.  She is revealed in the first episode to have multiple sclerosis, of which she is in the early stages.  It’s hard to escape the fact that The Foundation uses Boucher’s character for laughs, but the show isn’t making fun of MS.  Mathers is merely a pawn in Valmont-Selkirk’s game.

The Foundation‘s first episode revolves around a girl named Chara (Juliette Gosselin), the dying cripple of the moment.  She suffers from necrotizing glomerulonephritis, although Valmont-Selkirk and company dumb this down to “super bad kidneys.”  Chara wants to meet Apollo (Paul J. Spence), a “rock opera” star.  His rock opera looks like The Phantom of the Opera, if it had robots and sexy girls.

By the end of the episode, Apollo has become The R.J. Selkirk Foundation’s new spokesman, a way to get Mathers to switch jobs and make the Selkirk Foundation more salable.  I admit I’m spoiling parts of “The Face of Hope,” but Apollo’s a recurring character, so what can you do.

CBC.ca oversells The Foundation as “the funniest thing to hit Canadian TV since we met Ricky, Julian and Bubbles.”  It isn’t.  If Hotbox has taught me anything, other than how liking a show people hate fucks with my credibility, it’s that the oversell doesn’t work.

Don’t get me wrong, The Foundation is a worthy show.  Compared to recent Showcase offerings, it’s great.  Improving on Cashing In, the third season of Paradise Falls (gah) and G-Spot is not much of an accomplishment, but there’s no reason for Showcase to promote The Foundation as weakly as it has so far.  Who schedules a season of five episodes, anyway?

The Foundation has its weak spots – Apollo isn’t much of a character, and the show can stand to be more outrageous than it already is.  All the same, I’m interested to see how the show’s next four episodes play out.  I’ve a feeling The Foundation is not long for this world.  Prove me wrong, Showcase!

I liked Part One of Rise Up: Canadian Pop Music in the 1980s a lot more than I did either part of This Beat Goes On: Canadian Pop Music in the 1970s.  Although the general Shakin’ All Over/This Beat Goes On formulae are repeated, the first half of Rise Up has tons of genuine hits – Men Without Hats’ “The Safety Dance,” Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” The Parachute Club’s “Rise Up,” Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night,” Bryan Adams’…well, Bryan Adams, Triumph’s “Magic Power”…can I stop now?

There isn’t much proselytizing on Rise Up.  The name-checked bands, with few exceptions, are important to Canadian music history – The Pursuit of Happiness, Slow, hell, even Gowan.  I don’t understand why CBC continues to sell me on the merits of Jane Siberry, and I’m not convinced that Daniel Lavoie should have been featured on Rise Up.  Still, it’s the first hour and no one’s even mentioned k.d. lang, Cowboy Junkies, Blue Rodeo, Mitsou or Alannah Myles.  That has to count for something.

The 1980s music videos make Rise Up entertaining.  There’s the odd bit of concert footage, like Triumph at the 1983 US Festival, but the videos really sell the documentary.  It’s amazing how important these things were seen as being in the 1980s versus their actual quality.

Take Gowan’s video for “A Criminal Mind.”  The video’s production values are excellent for the era.  Shit, Canadian voiceover legend Len Carlson kicks off “A Criminal Mind” like he’s pitching for Kraft.  The video’s content?  Uh, something about a blue-skinned supervillain.  Oh, and white goop.  It was the 1980s.  Videos just needed to be back then.

MuchMusic’s role in promoting Canadian music is bigged up, but not as much as one would think.  While much of Rise Up is based around music video culture, MuchMusic is grist for Rise Up‘s fast-moving mill.

MuchMusic’s greatest accomplishment is in its aesthetics – the open-concept “sets,” live-to-air on-camera fuckups, the “throw it in” approach to the channel.  It would be easy to say the Internet killed MuchMusic, but the channel really died the moment it became a lifestyle channel.  Ren and Stimpy is as good a suspect to blame as any.

The weakest part of Rise Up is its lack of variety relative to This Beat Goes On.  Canadians should be familiar with Payola$’ “Eyes of a Stranger,” 54-40′s “I Go Blind” and The Pursuit of Happiness’ “I’m an Adult Now.”  Exceptions are made for Dalbello, Slow and The Box, but Jian Ghomeshi doesn’t start referencing Skinny Puppy or Nomeansno.

In fact, an argument can be made that Skinny Puppy are worthy of mention in Rise Up – in the days before Sarah McLachlan, Skinny Puppy made Nettwerk Records.  Few bands in industrial rock have their international profile.  Maybe they appear in Part Two, I don’t know.

Rise Up contains few surprises for the hardcore Canadian music fan, but I like it.  I don’t even mind hearing how Slow predated the grunge sound by a few years.  Having a Michael Barclay book named after one of the band’s songs screams “HELLO, I’M AN OVERUSED REFERENCE.”  Hopefully, Rise Up‘s second half will be as good as its first half.

As a bonus, here’s the debut of MuchMusic on August 31, 1984.  Warning: features darkies and chroma key.

The main draw of SPACE’s Star Trek Labour Day marathon is the debut of remastered Star Trek: The Original Series episodes.  This includes the Canadian television premiere of the remastered Star Trek: TOS pilot, “The Cage” (SPACE: September 7, 10:00 PM ET), which recently entered syndication after forty-four years.

It took me a few minutes to get used to the remastered Star Trek.  I do like the old, primitive Trek effects, but “The Cage” does look good in its tampered form.

There are a few effects that ring false, such as the opening transition from the ship to the bridge.  The effect is too modern for a forty-four-year-old pilot, but its inclusion amounts to a few seconds of television time.  Overall, the CGI is subtle enough that it doesn’t detract from the pilot.

Vina (Susan Oliver) is the only survivor of a scientific expedition that crash-landed on Talos IV.  The native Talosians engineer events that force USS Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) into a holding cell with Vina.

The Talosians have developed great illusory powers, using them to tempt Pike into mating with Vina.  The Talosians, underground survivors of a nuclear holocaust, are breeding a slave race to repopulate their planet.

“The Cage” is a very good unsold pilot – a bit portentous, as Star Trek episodes of the 1960s are.  ”The Cage” contains most of the classic Star Trek elements – disguised social issues of the 1960s, good character interaction, a bit of sex appeal, and at least one over-choreographed battle.

The predictable plot – Captain Pike fights a race of highly evolved, emotionally detached aliens – is overshadowed by Pike’s guilt over a failed mission on Rigel VII.  ”The Cage” is standard sci-fi improved by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s concise dialogue.  Alexander Courage’s music score is excellent, making “The Cage” more exciting than it really should be.

It’s easy to see why “The Cage” didn’t sell NBC on Star Trek.  Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock is a bit excitable, which doesn’t play to Nimoy’s strengths.  As much as I like Majel Barrett-Roddenberry’s Number One, she’s superfluous to the action, as is most of the crew.  ”The Cage” is all about Captain Pike, from his desire to become a slave-dealer to his imprisonment on Talos IV.

John Hoyt is excellent as Chief Medical Officer Phillip Boyce.  He should have been retained for Star Trek: TOS‘ second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”  Jeffrey Hunter’s histrionics as Captain Pike are a bit hard to take, not that Star Trek ever mastered understatement.

I’m not surprised Star Trek was almost completely recast.  ”The Cage” possesses little talent depth beyond Hunter, Nimoy, Hoyt and Barrett-Roddenberry.  As wooden as William Shatner is as an actor, the man can connect to audiences in the way Hunter can’t.  Folding Number One into Spock was the best thing to happen to Leonard Nimoy, as it defined Spock’s character and gave Captain James T. Kirk a dramatic opposite.

“The Cage” isn’t on the level of the best Treks.  There’s a bit too much talk, the pilot relying far too much on Hunter’s talents.  All the same, “The Cage” is good television.  You can’t say that about Star Trek: TOS episodes like “The Way to Eden” or “And the Children Shall Lead.”

The Tudors‘ third season available in Canada November 2009.  Phase 4 Films will put this out on both DVD and Blu-ray, while Paramount Home Entertainment drags its ass on a DVD-only release.  Point goes to Phase 4 Films.  I think some parallel importing will occur here.

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Sanctuary first-season DVD artwork and commercial spot.  There’s also a press release shilling the set, but big deal, it’s a press release.  The set’s being promoted on Syfy, so the show has cornered the American market.  People just seem to like Amanda Tapping.

It’s too bad Sanctuary didn’t receive more Gemini nominations this year.  Stupid sci-fi ghetto, I hate it almost as much as the animation age ghetto and the professional wrestling ghetto.  Sanctuary‘s first-season set will sell like a mofo, believe me.  It needs to, the way E1′s pimping it out.

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Thomas Spurlin of DVD Talk reviews “Season One” of Blood Ties.  He likes it.

I should take the time to point out that Tanya Huff linked to URBMN in her LiveJournal a few weeks back.  She is the author of the Blood Books, which Blood Ties is based on.  It seems like every time I talk about Blood Ties I’m linked to by its fans, not that I’m complaining.

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Jeffrey Kauffman of DVD Talk reviews “The Complete Season” of Total Drama Island.  He likes it.

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Kenny vs. Spenny‘s fifth season out on DVD November 24, 2009 through Video Service Corp.  This season features the Who Can Smoke More Weed? and Who Can Piss Off More People? competitions.

I’d like to say the end is near for Kenny vs. Spenny, but it’s coming back for a sixth season.  I’m surprised Kenny vs. Spenny survived the Showcase reboot.  Mind you, so did Paradise Falls, but only on account of stockpiling.  Nowadays Showcase feels Howie Do It is worthy enough to grace its airwaves, as the pussification of Showcase begins.

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Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…‘s first season out on DVD and Blu-ray November 10, 2009 through VSC.  Quite frankly, I’m surprised this show is out on DVD.  The press bumf claims the show received “terrific ratings and reviews on CTV,” never mind that the ratings went potty halfway through the run.   Press releases don’t need to be 100% truthful.

I have seen an episode or two of Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…  Costello is a decent interviewer, even if the show is low-key chat.  Having said that, if you can’t break half a million viewers with The Police, the show isn’t a mass-audience hit.  I’m tempted to say Sundance Channel and Channel 4 are keeping this baby afloat for a second season, just like The N won’t allow Degrassi: The Next Generation to die a richly deserved death.  There are worse shows out on DVD, I guess.

Oh, and mumble mumble Chop Socky Chooks press release.

Canadian punk kicks off the second part of This Beat Goes On (review of Part One here.)  The Demics, The Viletones, D.O.A. and Teenage Head are given mention, which doesn’t surprise me.  The still-active Subhumans get one clip and aren’t mentioned by name, which does.

Cleave Anderson of the Battered Wives is interviewed, yet the Battered Wives aren’t talked about at all.  There weren’t that many notable Canadian punk bands of the 1970s, so what gives?  Anderson’s more famous as the original drummer for Blue Rodeo, but the Battered Wives did open for Elvis Costello.  That has to count for something.

Covering Teenage Head is like including roast beef in a roast beef sandwich.  If a generalist Canadian rock documentary doesn’t mention Teenage Head, something has gone wrong.  Where the hell are the Forgotten Rebels in the documentary, anyway?  The band’s only been around for 32 years, but they didn’t cause a riot at Ontario Place.  Notoriety sells, I guess.

As for Rough Trade, I don’t want to hear how incendiary “High School Confidential” was for the fiftieth time.  I’m not taking away from the song’s importance to the lesbian community, but it’s a tired point.  O/Rough Trade were around for twelve years before “High School Confidential.”  Hell, “All Touch” charted higher than “High School Confidential,” yet “High School Confidential” is Rough Trade’s signature song.

This Beat Goes On immediately goes south when Neil Young is tagged as a punk forefather.  The plaudit doesn’t do Neil Young justice.  The man has never played to trends, but can Nicholas Jennings and Gary McGroarty at least mention Harvest, On the Beach and/or Tonight’s the Night?  This Beat Goes On limits itself to Rust Never Sleeps material, which is a shame.

As for Nash the Slash, it’s great that he’s being talked about, but no FM?  Black Noise was reissued five times in Canada and twice in the United States!  Granted, three of those times were due to Passport Records’ inability to stay solvent, but FM’s 1970s output is worthy enough for This Beat Goes On.

This Beat Goes On has a bad habit of believing the 1970s ended in 1980, thus working in songs like The Kings’ “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide.”  The art of combining two songs into one isn’t new.  The Guess Who famously did that with “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature.”  This Beat Goes On has producer Bob Ezrin claim “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide” as one of the first intentional two-for-one singles, but it’s not like The Kings spearheaded a trend.

Ezrin is still a hell of a producer, though.  He should have been featured on This Beat Goes On.  The man worked with Alice Cooper, KISS, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel.  In the 1970s, he was money.

I could have done without the Burton Cummings/Dan Hill/Gino Vannelli troika of easy listening.  Sure, they’re culturally relevant to the documentary.  So is Claudja Barry, and Jian Ghomeshi doesn’t talk about “Boogie Woogie Dancin’ Shoes.”  Murray McLauchlan and Stan Rogers are given almost too much airtime, but their works are more interesting than watching Cummings pussify himself.

Rush and April Wine are held off until the end of the documentary.  Max Webster are given mention, as are Streetheart (in passing), but where the fuck are Chilliwack?  The band’s previous lives as The Classics and The Collectors are featured on Shakin’ All Over: Canadian Pop Music in the 1960s.  Chilliwack had a few hits in the 1970s – “Crazy Talk,” “Lonesome Mary” and “Fly at Night.”  The big hits “My Girl” and “Whatcha Gonna Do (When I’m Gone)” were to come, but those are being saved for Rise Up: Canadian Pop Music in the 1980s.

Loverboy shouldn’t even be in this documentary.  Loverboy formed in 1980 and are synonymous with the 1980s.  That’s like talking about Saturday Night Live in the 1970s and focusing on Eddie Murphy.  Lead singer Mike Reno was in Moxy for a cup of coffee.  Why not just talk about Moxy?

I realize this review is full of “where are Random Band X” questions.  This Beat Goes On is as deep as the after-effects of a bong hit by design, but the second half of TBGO underlines my problems with it.  For a documentary about the 1970s, the early 1980s are referenced far too often.  The punk section’s history is too cleaned-up, ignoring a few notable bands.

Two hours isn’t enough time to cover ten years of music.  This Beat Goes On is the sort of documentary that works better as a miniseries or limited series.  I wonder why CBC hasn’t plumped for that idea yet.  Maybe the music rights issues are too thorny.  I’d rather watch that show than a sitcom version of Men With Brooms.

I taped Killer Comebacks (TVtropolis: premiered August 31, 9:30 PM ET/PT) out of habit – it’s a premiere, and it kicks off TVtropolis’ 2009-10 fall season.  As it turns out, the show is so bad I have to talk about it.  Killer Comebacks may not be a good show, but it makes for one hell of an article.

Killer Comebacks‘ debut covers Neil Patrick Harris’ career.  The show starts to go south almost immediately, as narrator Glenn Kay mouths lines like this:

“Neil Patrick Harris – so good, he influenced popular culture!”

No fucking shit, Killer Comebacks!  You can say the same thing about Bill Cosby, Ted Danson, Tony Shalhoub and John Kricfalusi.  You can say the same thing about any key figure working in the television industry.  I don’t think Nardwuar the Human Serviette could read that line convincingly.

The show can’t even get basic facts right at times.  Here’s a screenshot that really bothers me:

Seriously.  Maud.  This isn’t obscure television knowledge, Killer Comebacks.  Bea Arthur’s arguably more famous as Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls, and this graphic appears for three seconds of Killer Comebacks‘ 22-minute airtime, but come on.

Do you like inaccuracies?  Killer Comebacks does!

“Doogie Howser, M.D. was a genuine, but short-lived, television phenomenon.  Cancelled after its third season…”

The show lasted four seasons.  It was hardly short-lived.  Breaking the Neilsen top thirty twice in four seasons does not equate to “television phenomenon.”  In two sentences, Killer Comebacks has become unintentional comedy gold.  I’m sure Killer Comebacks won’t make a similar mistake.

“Out of work after just three seasons of Doogie Howser, M.D.…”

Good job, Killer Comebacks.  Say, you want more funny lines?

“…like Paul Verhoeven’s 1988 cult hit, Starship Troopers.”

Wow.  Just…wow.  I don’t expect much from a TVtropolis filler show, and Killer Comebacks manages not to meet my limbo-low expectations for it.  I wonder how Glenn Kay felt reading that line.

Killer Comebacks commits the grand crime of not having anything to say, whatsoever.  Make or Break TV at least gave the viewers a few name actors and a working knowledge of how television is sold.  This show is just bread for the celebrity worship gravy train.

The level of failure in Killer Comebacks‘ debut is amazing.  Even the final closing credit reads “Executive in Charge of Production for Canwest Broadcasting;”  If Canwest doesn’t care about the quality of its shows, neither should I.