A second season of Producing Parker is in the pipeline.  This item was mentioned by the Channel 56 blog, and confirmed on Breakthrough Films & Television’s website.

The show, originally set to debut on Canwest’s now-defunct E! network, debuted on TVtropolis this May.  Reruns currently air on Global and TVtropolis.  This entry will be updated as more information becomes available.  As of this writing, news is limited to “Producing Parker 2: until 2011.”

I assume this item has been up since October, as this Google cache mentions Breakthrough’s non-broadcast Gemini Award wins.  Producing Parker 2 was then in production “until 2010.”  I guess no one bothered to notice until this week.  I don’t know.

I’m not sure what to think of this.  Producing Parker is aired on TVtropolis far too much, sometimes in odd timeslots.  ”Twat” references and bare breasts at 6:00 PM on Sundays?  I understand cable channels are lax on censorship, but that’s bizarre scheduling.

The only Canwest specialty channel appropriate enough for Producing Parker is Showcase Diva.  While I’m not a big fan of Producing Parker, it deserves a better home than TVtropolis.  The show’s better than Bob & Doug, but so is colonic irrigation.

I’m surprised Producing Parker is a more-than-single-season wonder.  Are CanCon regulations keeping this show alive, or is there something to Producing Parker that I’m missing?

I know, CBC’s midseason 2010 lineup is day-old news by now.  Weirdly enough, the news is still current.  Odd, that.  Program highlights from CBC’s Winter 2010 schedule:

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New Shows

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town | Tuesday, January 12: 9:00 PM
18 to Life | Monday, January 4: 8:00 PM
Republic of Doyle | Wednesday, January 6: 9:00 PM
Best Recipes Ever | Monday, January 4: 3:00 PM (weekdays)

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Miscellany

The Border will end its current season January 7 and 14 in the Thursday 9:00 PM timeslot.  Doc Zone will move to The Border’s Thursday timeslot starting January 21.  Frankly, I like Doc Zone much better than The Border.

Marketplace will debut its 37th season Fridays at 8:30 PM, after a rerun of Tuesday’s Rick Mercer Report.  The Nature of Things will move to Thursdays at 8:00 PM by January 7.  Steven and Chris will return with new episodes, starting January 4 at 2:00 PM.

There will be a few specials.  Test the Nation: IQ will air Sunday, January 24 at 8:00 PM.  Gordon and Leah Pinsent’s Love Letters will air in the timeslot the following week.  Keep Your Head Up Kid: The Don Cherry Story, a miniseries, will air March 28 and 29 at 8:00 PM.

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CBC’s midseason prime time shows sound better than usual, in that I don’t automatically hate any of them.  There’s no sure-to-fail idea like MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives or The One.  There’s no surefire hit, but not everything on CBC can be Dragons’ Den or…ugh…Battle of the Blades.

I “love” the comments at CBC.ca’s site.  Life with Derek is a “never heard of canadian drama”?  Life with Derek was on Disney Channel for four seasons, and that’s in the Hannah Montana/Jonas/Wizards of Waverly Place hypermarketing-to-tweens era.  What an obscure show.

Also, nothing’s good on CBC Television save hockey, Canadian content is shit, yammer yammer yammer.

The trailer for 18 to Life isn’t that bad.  It’s certainly more engaging than Little Mosque on the Prairie.  Peter Keleghan plays his patented WASPy Dumbass^™ character, but 18 to Life doesn’t seem forced like Republic of Doyle.  Watch some trailers and judge for yourself.

Principal photography for Pure Pwnage will finish on December 3, 2009.  It began October 21, if show co-creator Jarett Cale’s Twitter account is accurate.  Pure Pwnage, founded in 2004 as a web series, will make its television debut on Showcase early in 2010.

The show is based around Jeremy/teh_pwnerer (Cale), a 26-year-old hardcore gamer/social fuckup.  To continue living in his mother’s basement, Jeremy must get a job.  Brother/filmmaker Kyle (Geoff Lapaire) documents Jeremy’s journey, as Jeremy tries to fux0r life.

Joel Gardiner reprises his web series role as FPS Doug.  Also in the cast are Melanie Scrofano, Simon Wong and Eli Goree.

Pure Pwnage’s showrunner is Derek Harvie (Testees, The Tom Green Show.)  Catherine Tait (Chilly Beach) and documentarian Ron Mann are executive producers, with Davin Lengyel co-producing.

I haven’t seen the web series, so I can’t comment on whether Pure Pwnage went shit midway through its run.  All I care about is whether the television show will be better or worse than Cock’d Gunns.  This better not be the Hotbox-sized disaster of 2010.

Warning: spoilers.

Kenny vs. Spenny (Showcase: Friday, 9:00 PM ET) is gloriously dumb and offensive.  The reaction to the show ranges from “entertaining trainwreck” to just “trainwreck.”

Granted, Kenny vs. Spenny isn’t dumb by accident.  Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice know exactly what they’re doing.  Kenny is the devious, cheating frat boy, while Spenny is the sanctimonious fair fighter.  The show works due to the relationship between the two protagonists, The Odd Couple meets jackass.

I can’t even review “Who Can 69 the Longest?,” Kenny vs. Spenny’s sixth-season premiere, properly.  I just spent twenty-odd minutes of my life watching two people huddle themselves in a well-known sexual position.  How can you review that objectively?  Not that I review anything objectively for URBMN, but still.

This is one of those Kenny vs. Spenny episodes where both Kenny and Spenny are in pain.  Spenny even tries to give the audience pain, with his didactic global warming speech.

“Who Can 69 the Longest?” reaches another level when the Kenny vs. Spenny crewmembers, figuring the show’s latest stunt is boring, abuse Kenny and Spenny any way they can.  The two are thrown into a skydiving simulator, stuffed into a hearse and doused with a fire hose, among other things.

One rarely sees the crew take it out on both participants.  Kenny still lobs random potshots at Spenny despite the crewmembers abusing them.  I wasn’t sure if Kenny vs. Spenny still had the ability to be audacious.  ”Who Can 69 the Longest?” put that theory to, uh, bed.

“Who Can 69 the Longest?” makes me wonder if the rest of Kenny vs. Spenny’s sixth season will be tame by comparison.  I wasn’t laughing much at this episode, yet I won’t soon forget it.  I’m just amazed an episode titled “Who Can 69 the Longest?” doesn’t feature a sex act, yet isn’t flagrantly false advertising.  Only Kenny vs. Spenny could get away with such a blatant bait-and-switch.

Cra$h & Burn (Showcase: premiered November 18, 9:00 PM ET/PT) bases itself around insurance claims adjuster Jimmy Burn (Luke Kirby), as he patrols Hamilton, Ontario’s city streets.  The show is sold as “The Office meets The Sopranos,” according to show creator Malcolm MacRury.

I appreciate that Cra$h & Burn is set in the Hammer, but its high concept shouldn’t work.  Insurance isn’t normally seen as a sexy profession.  This is Showcase’s first hour-long drama, so Showcase’s reputation in this genre will be defined by how well C&B does.  It’s not a good start so far.

Cra$h & Burn’s first episode is rather paint-by-numbers.  Luke Kirby is okay as Burn, a guy from the streets trying to make it in the world of insurance claims adjusting.  He’s about to be married, giving girlfriend Lucia Silva (Leela Savasta) a $2,000 diamond ring.

Burn might also lose his job at Protected Insurance in a round of cutbacks.  Yeah, like that’s going to happen in the first episode.  Burn’s chief antagonist is insurance fraud, personified in Cra$h & Burn by former Russian mobster Pavel Korkov (Steve Bacic).  Burn is the lone “good guy” in a cutthroat business, though Burn has help from mentor Walker Hearn (Clark Johnson).

Dan Duran is the Man From Protected, appearing in a fake commercial segment at the beginning of the show.  Duran doesn’t appear on the show very long, but he’s the best part of Cra$h & Burn.  C&B could be his most lucrative dramatic television gig since RoboCop.

The main problem with Cra$h & Burn is that, despite ganking from The Sopranos and The Office, the show is relatively tame.  This is Showcase, the home of Kenny vs. Spenny, Trailer Park Boys, Paradise Falls and other near-the-knuckle fare.  Cra$h & Burn should be pushing harder than it is, considering the channel.

Cra$h & Burn has a bit of simulated sex, some swearing, and even projectile vomiting, but it’s farfetched.  The show’s a throwback to 1990s lightweight Canadian dramas, Due South with more peeing.  Shit, pair Burn with a straight-laced Mountie and his wolf-husky hybrid, and you’d have Due South.

Cra$h & Burn has the potential to rise above a mediocre pilot.  The show’s not going to last if it’s constant Burn Against Corruption.  Not every drama in this country needs to be Intelligence, but Cra$h & Burn could be a little less cartoonish.  At least it’s not The Listener, which is hardly an endorsement.

To promote TVOntario’s four-part documentary series Empire of the Word, author Tish Cohen will serialize a work of fiction on TVO’s Twitter account from today until November 25.

TVO will debut Empire of the Word November 25 at 10:00 PM ET, as part of The View From Here.  TVO will make each Empire of the Word episode available online following broadcast.  The show is hosted by Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading.

I’m not impressed with the work posted on TVO’s Twitter account thus far.  The main problem with serializing something on Twitter is the nature of “lifestream” services.  The most recent post goes first, followed by the second-most recent, and so on.  The story reads backwards on a Twitter page, unless one goes to the trouble of reading the posts in reverse chronological order.  In addition, a post unrelated to the story interrupts the story’s flow.

I figure TVO is doing this intentionally.  Given Empire of the Word’s focus and the way it’s being promoted, it wouldn’t surprise me.  At any rate, TVO has a far better grasp of Twitter than Margaret Atwood.  If Mondoville doesn’t have disdain for this stunt, TVO must be doing something right.