Peak Season has recently been picked up by VH1 for American consumption.  The reality show follows the daily lives of twenty-something Whistler, BC residents.  Peak Season will air on VH1 nightly at 11:30 PM ET/PT, beginning Sunday, February 14.

The show is referenced by VH1 as Peak Season: Vancouver.  Why not call the show Peak Season: Whistler?  I know Vancouver is host city for the XXI Olympic Winter Games, but the title’s inaccurate.

I’d like to congratulate the show for making the big American sale, but I don’t watch MTV Canada.  I have no way of comparing Peak Season to The Hills, Laguna Beach or Jersey Shore, as I’m opposed to the MTV reality show house style on principle.

Good on MTV Networks for bringing Peak Season Stateside, I guess.  I just wish I could give a damn about the trashy shows Peak Season emulates.  I’m sure I’ll get a few nasty comments my way for this post, but this is like Fuse airing Keys to the VIP.  Canada can do better.

Wolf Canyon (APTN: Really Real Films, 2009) is a bit too generic to be on APTN.  The show is set on a reservation, and Lorne Cardinal plays a role on the show.  Despite this, Wolf Canyon feels like you could rip the “native” decals off and still have the same show.  This is Kevin Sorbo’s show, pure and simple.

Sorbo plays Rick Denham, a washed-up alcoholic actor.  Denham replaces former star Johnny Wilkes, who has found “greater” success as the star of an independent film.  Denham is also director Quincy Paul’s (Matty Finochio) estranged father.

Lorne Cardinal plays Hoyt Talbot Jr., the out-of-it stuntman.  Diane Wesson-Smythe (Nikki Payne) is the executive producer/Amy Poehler soundalike.  Carol Van Gleason (Barbara Tyson) and Samantha Hollis (Jessica Harmon) are the female cobreasts.

Denham and the other crewpeople try to stave off boredom while shooting on the Horse Head Lake First Nation reserve.  Wolf Canyon sets up a troubled production, somehow remaining in syndication despite itself.  Executive producer Allan Harmon cameos as a production executive who has technically cancelled Wolf Canyon, although the cancellation order is buried by the end of the pilot.

Wolf Canyon is a confusing mix of Corner Gas and 30 Rock.  It’s not as funny or biting as it should be, going for a broad gag every so often.  Sorbo playing a drunk asshole is surprisingly effective casting, but Wolf Canyon lacks a distinctive voice.

I’d rather see a full-on pisstake of cheap, syndicated Canadian television.  Shows like Beastmaster, Painkiller Jane and Blood Ties deserve the Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire treatment.  Wolf Canyon’s show-within-a-show deserves more air time, as the pilot barely scratches its surface.

Wolf Canyon’s second episode is currently being written, as APTN mulls whether the show will earn a full season.  Kevin Sorbo has his cadre of fans, so this show’s a lock.  I’m not sure if failed pilots even exist on APTN.

Little Britain USA (Comedy Network: premiered January 20, 2010, 10:00 PM ET/PT) is the HBO portover of Little Britain, a BBC sketch comedy series.  For those not familiar with Little Britain, the show is a sketch comedy travelogue, focusing on many recurring characters each episode.  Matt Lucas and David Walliams play almost all of the main characters, while some guy in a scarf narrates.

Among the figures of fun are Welsh homosexualist Daffyd Thomas, “paraplegic” Andy and caretaker Lou, morbidly obese Bubbles DeVere and chav Vicky Pollard.  Each character has a catchphrase and/or marketable personality trait.

I’m not going to describe Little Britain beyond this point.  It is to British comedy what The Red Green Show is to Canadian comedy.  Although characters change often, most Little Britain sketches end with a catchphrase uttered and a British stereotype lampooned.  It’s essentially the same show every episode, a tradition which is carried over to Little Britain USA.

I have viewed Little Britain’s first three series.  The first series focuses on eccentricities, keeping the shock humour to acceptable levels.

By the third series, the show falls into dreary-as-shit repetition.  Daffyd Thomas says “I am a gay” and acts like a poseur.  Marjorie Dawes makes fun of fatties and picks on the token Indian.  Carol Beer acts rude, coughs, and says “computer says no.”  Every.  Single.  Episode.  Hell, I haven’t even touched Maggie Blackamoor and her vomitous reactions to progress.

I want to like Little Britain USA, but again, same jokes with the same punchlines.  Lucas and Walliams go through the motions way too often, despite the inclusion of new characters like Phyllis (Walliams) and Mr. Doggy.  Want to see a sheriff (Walliams) get sexually aroused over guns?  It’s here, whether you like it or not.

There are a few clever bits in Little Britain USA, like Mildred (Lucas) talking to Connor (Walliams) about all the drugs she’s put into her body over the years.  On the flip side, there’s a sketch about muscleheads Mark and Tom being muscleheaded.  Oh, their genitals are tiny.  Full-frontal nudity and pantomimed anal sex ensue, not that those things translate into hilarity.

The thing I most hate about Little Britain USA is its overloud laugh track.  Lucas and Walliams’ material can stand on its own.  Why have the canned laughter?  Do people need to be prodded into laughing every time Andy gets off his wheelchair and pisses in the pool?

Fans of Little Britain will no doubt like Little Britain USA.  It’s a well-known formula in a different flavour, like Coca-Cola with Lemon.  I can’t get into Little Britain USA for this reason.  Lucas and Walliams are capable of better material.

Instead of adapting Little Britain for American audiences, Lucas and Walliams should have blown the show up and began anew.  They’ve gone as far as they can with the Little Britain format.  At least Tom Baker doesn’t suck on this show, but we all know that going in.

‘da Kink in My Hair, Trey Anthony and Ngozi Paul’s Afrocentric Global dramedy, will have its first season out on DVD January 26, 2010.  Paradox Entertainment Group and E1 Entertainment will put the set out.

I came across ‘da Kink’s first season DVD on January 20, buried here.  Even Air Farce compilations are listed before ‘da Kink in My Hair.

Global gave ‘da Kink in My Hair the college try for two seasons, to disappointing ratings.  The series averaged around 250,000 viewers its first season.  ‘da Kink dipped below 200,000 viewers its second season.

I’m amazed Global stuck with ‘da Kink in My Hair for as long as it did, despite low ratings.  ‘da Kink always came across as a show Global would greenlight to fill a diversity quota.  It should have been on a specialty channel from the start.  ‘da Kink is a show about Jamaican hairdressers.  If that doesn’t scream “niche audience,” then I don’t know what a niche is.

As of tonight, Toronto has CityTV’s only local nighttime television newscasts.  The Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary newscasts have been junked as part of a restructuring effort by Rogers Media Inc., CityTV’s parent company.  CityTV’s Toronto flagship will shed CityNews at Five, CityNews at Noon, CityNews Weekend and CityNews International.

Among on-air personalities, CityTV Toronto will lose CityNews at Six anchor Anne Mroczkowski and CityNews at Noon anchor Laura DiBattista.  In Calgary, Breakfast Television’s Aisling Slattery has been let go.  CityTV has cut sixty jobs in total.  CityTV uses the “restructuring” euphemism to describe its layoffs.

CityTV is the only Canadian broadcast network not to be part of localtvmatters.ca, so its shedding news jobs is not a hypocritical stance.  That doesn’t mean I like what CityTV is doing.  I’m not sure if CityTV thinks much of its CanCon, between this and losing Less Than Kind.  At this point, OMNI airs more distinctive CanCon.

On a lighter note, CTV PR’s Twitter account briefly razzed the CityTV layoffs.  CablePulse 24, which CTVglobemedia obtained from CHUM Limited in 2007, has expanded Live at 5 and added Live at 5:30 to its schedule.  Yes, CP24 is more CityNews than CityNews.  There’s something unsettling about that.

Cashing In, a series set around a casino and the First Nation community that houses it, will begin its second season March 2, 2010 on APTN.  The show will air 8:00 PM ET on APTN East, and 8:00 PM MT on APTN West.

Cashing In aired on APTN and Showcase in March 2009.  Showcase has bowed out of airing Cashing In’s second season, leaving APTN to go it alone.  Cashing In’s second season will have thirteen episodes, a luxury compared to last year’s six-episode run.

Cashing In’s USP is that the aboriginals running the North Beach Casino are, by and large, financially successful.  This talking point formed the basis for an article in The Walrus.  Canada is weird this way.

Cashing In is well-shot and at least competently acted.  The main problem with the first season is that it tries to tell too many stories in too little time.  Cashing In doesn’t click like it should, given its premise.

Cashing In is mislabeled as “dramedy.”  From what I’ve seen of the show, it’s more-or-less light drama with a few comedic moments.  People just call Cashing In a dramedy due to its thirty-minute time slot.

The show has never been a must-watch for me, but Cashing In has the potential to be better in its second season.  If nothing else, Eric Schweig is good in both this and Blackstone.  He needs to be more exposed in Canada.