The Movie Network and Movie Central have recently announced their 2010-11 production slate, with three renewals, three new series and two original films.  Renewed shows include Living in Your Car (second season), Call Me Fitz (second season), and Less Than Kind (third season.)  Call Me Fitz is an odd renewal, as the show hasn’t even debuted yet.

New shows and original films include:

Just For Laughs: Funny as Hell (working title), which is essentially the Just For Laughs gala with digital shorts bunged onto the side.  On the plus side, Jon Dore’s the host, so his wraparound segments might actually be entertaining.

Skins, a Canada/UK remake of the E4 series about teens surviving their two years in sixth form.  Yes, this is the show that will air on MTV.  Toronto will stand in for Baltimore.  Isn’t that great?

The Yard, a Whizbang Films series sold as The Sopranos on the playground.  I assume this is an adult-oriented series, considering Michael Mabbott’s pedigree and the fact that it comes from the production company behind Cra$h & Burn.  I’m cautiously optimistic about this one.

Sleepyhead and Scaredycat, two feature-length Canada/UK co-productions.  The films are adaptations of Mark Billingham’s first two Tom Thorne detective novels.

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Call Me Fitz is set to debut September 2010.  All other new shows will debut sometime in 2011.  All returning shows will air their new seasons in 2011.  No word on whether the shows will air on TMN/MC or HBO Canada.

The only new all-Canadian show in TMN/MC’s 2010-11 production slate is The Yard.  Why isn’t Skins set in a Canadian city, anyway?  Are Canadian teens all that different from American teens?  Also, why Just For Laughs?  Does Canada need to see abbreviated versions of well-known standup acts that badly?

At the same time, I like TMN/MC.  The premium-cable duopoly helps, but The Movie Network and Movie Central have launched a number of successful shows over the years – ReGenesis, Durham County, Living in Your Car, The Outer Limits (1995), Slings and Arrows and Sanctuary.  That’s not a bad legacy.

I like the 2010-11 production schedule – there are four new shows for 2010-11, a few returning shows, and no obvious burnoffs.  Add in some returning shows, including Durham County, and that’s as stable as television gets in Canada.

That said, I hope The Yard is as good as its premise will allow it to be.  The idea sounds fun, and more in keeping with how kids actually act.  Hell, Disney’s Recess is just kids reacting to totalitarianism.  How far off the mark could The Yard be?

Carlawood (TVtropolis: second season premiered Monday, May 31, 11:00 PM ET) is one of those shows that still exists, for some as-yet-unexplained reason.  The show must have its fans, yet a 1.3/10 on IMDb tells me a different story.  Carla-centric shows get the worst ratings on IMDb.  I’m not surprised.

The first episode of Carlawood‘s second season has Carla look for a new assistant.  Helpfully, there’s a graphic on-screen that says “Carla’s New Bitch.”  She goes through an aggressive trainer, a party animal and other people Carlawood tries to sell as eccentric.  Seriously, why is this so important to the show?  So she’s getting a new assistant?  Who gives a shit?

Carlawood tries to imbue the most mundane situations with high drama.  Carla has complications regarding her green card.  Carla trains for a five-kilometre run.  Carla needs a new publicist.  I know it’s a reality show, but nothing happens on Carlawood.  I said this when the show debuted, and it’s just as true now.

I don’t pick on Carlawood for easy page views.  I am genuinely baffled as to why Collins deserves a reality show, and why Carlawood demands a second season.  Collins comes across as self-absorbed and a bad shill.  Carlawood is trying to mimic Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List, except that Kathy Griffin is a genuinely caustic, interesting personality.  Collins just wants to play Ron James and sell a book.

I’d be fairer to Carlawood if it wasn’t such an infomercial for Collins’ interests.  I only watch shows like this when I plan on reviewing them, and Carlawood angers me every time I see it.  The woman comes across as superficial as Hollywood itself.  Is she fronting for the camera?  I don’t know, and I don’t care.

In the end, I don’t blame Carla Collins for Carlawood‘s faults.  She has to earn a living.  No, I blame Canadian television for being so conservative.  Canadian television is much, much more likely to buoy established talents than take chances on the unknown.  King Kaboom dies while Carlawood eats up screen time.  It’s as much a fact of life as breathing and nocturnal emissions.

GlassBOX Television has recently announced its acquisition of CTVglobemedia cable channel travel + escape, for “an undisclosed sum.”

This is the latest CTVglobemedia channel to be offloaded.  SexTV and Drive-In Classics were previously sold to Corus Entertainment in 2009, becoming W Movies and The Sundance Channel in the process.  The CRTC has not yet approved the sale of travel + escape to GlassBOX.

GlassBOX made a successful pitch to the CRTC last year for TREK TV, which treads travel + escape’s current ground.  t + e is a canny acquisition by GlassBOX, since it’s the first channel GlassBOX won’t have to build from scratch.

travel + escape has a long history.  The original broadcasting licence slotted t + e as Travel TV.  CTV Travel launched on September 7, 2001.  On October 30, 2006, CTV Travel was rebranded travel + escape, as part of an effort to appeal to a younger audience.

To be honest, travel + escape is one of CTVglobemedia’s bastard children.  I’m amazed it still exists.  OLN duplicates much of what t + e does on a larger cable platform.  It will be interesting to see what GlassBOX does with its new acquisition, assuming the CRTC approves this deal.

This comes on the heels of CTVglobemedia’s relaunch of two of its cable channels.  CourtTV Canada will become Investigation Discovery, while Discovery Civilization will become Discovery Science.  It’s nice to see CTVgm clean house, even if everything it does right now is to modernize the Discovery brand in Canada.  I wonder if CTVglobemedia will let go of TV Land and/or BookTelevision next.

Television is once again in its summer phase, with all the reruns, reality shows and all-purpose filler your heart rejects.  Upload Yours (The Comedy Network: debuted Thursday, June 3 at 10:30 ET/PT) carries on this yearly tradition in style.  It wouldn’t be The Comedy Network without its usual bit of cheaply-produced CanCon.

Upload Yours‘ debut features the works of Josh Rachlis, Pot of Coffee, Lars Classington, Jeff D’Silva and Perrodue5.  Kelsey Anonsen performs some scats, earning four segments for some reason.

Josh Rachlis’ “An Inconvenient Proposal” is Upload Yours’ best sketch so far.  It’s a white boy rap, but Rachlis forms the rap around his hard-on for An Inconvenient Truth producer Laurie David.  His Upload Yours clip is well-edited and professional, if a bit obsessive over Larry David’s ex-wife.

Maybe it’s just me, but an 11-minute show shouldn’t have three white boy rappers.  Too many segments are wasted on one man’s deliberately bad attempt at scatting.  This is what Upload Yours considers a dynamite first episode?  Seriously?  Upload Yours‘ debut has very little variety.

I don’t have anything against the people who submit clips to the Upload Yours website.  At least Upload Yours brings forth some people not generally seen on The Comedy Network, but I’m not stupid enough to think UY is anything more than time filler.

What can I really expect from a site where the best-rated clips are termed Monster Balls?  Screw Funny or Die’s straightforward ratings system.  This is The Comedy Network!  They need to base popularity on testicle size!  Eh, at least TCN’s not reviving Popcultured…this year.

The first episode of Ed the Sock’s This Movie Sucks! (CHCH/CHEK/CJNT/Silver Screen Classics/Movieola: debuted May 29 at midnight ET/PT) is strictly amateur-hour, not the best of comebacks for Ed the Sock.  The show promises a celebration of bad movies.  All This Movie Sucks! celebrates in its initial outing is how half-baked it is.

Ed and Liana K are flanked by Ron Sparks, Andrew Young and Charlene Zacks.  Ed makes with the insults.  Liana throws popcorn, while Sparks and Young lob token wisecracks.  Bride of the Gorilla is screened, largely free of Ed’s cutting wit.

This doesn’t play to Ed’s strengths, since Bride of the Gorilla is boring as hell.  Raymond Burr is cursed by a witch doctor, becoming a gorilla mentally and/or physically.  It’s a weregorilla film that half-asses on the monster itself.  Bride of the Gorilla cries out for a riffing that never comes.

I don’t know what to make of Charlene.  She’s gap-toothed and awkward.  I’m not even sure if she’s acting.  Charlene and Ed play off each other, not that it makes This Movie Sucks!‘ debut more watchable.

This Movie Sucks!‘ debut goes for a Dinner and a Movie-type format, the worst format a show like this could pick.  Ron Sparks is almost completely wasted.  Even Ed the Sock creator Steven Kerzner states how bad the first episode is in the closing credits, calling TMS!‘ debut a “beta test.”

This touch-and-go approach to show creation is almost gone from North American television.  This Movie Sucks!‘ debut should have been better thought out, but this is CHCH in the Channel Zero era.  You can painfully see the feeling-out process firsthand.  At least This Movie Sucks! is honest about its own shittiness.

Here are the first four minutes of This Movie Sucks!, from CHCHnewsfan’s Youtube account.  I wonder if Charlene Zacks will appear on This Movie Sucks! in the future.  She might be to TMS! what Beeper is to Mystery Science Theater 3000.

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The second episode of This Movie Sucks! has Ed and Liana K embrace the Mystery Science Theater 3000 house style.  The riffing on TMS! isn’t nearly as clever as on MST3K, but it’s adequate enough.  After TMS!‘ first episode, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Wraparounds for the second episode have Ed and the gang attend Anime North 2010.  Ed explains that the studio shoot for this episode is so terrible, they’re scrambling to fill time.  Young and Sparks are still around, yet Zacks is nowhere to be seen.  Thirty minutes of airtime have also been excised.

Attack from Space is the target of Ed and Liana’s riffing.  The “film” stitches together two Super Giant short films, The Artificial Satellite and the Destruction of Humanity and The Spaceship and the Clash of the Artificial Satellite.  Super Giant is redubbed Starman for American audiences.

The dubbing is of 1960s standard.  Dialogue is heavy.  A narrator neatly delineates the plot – well, as much of it as he can, considering Attack from Space‘s ill-thought-out nature.  We’re talking about a film where Starman’s wings flap in the vacuum of space.  Attack from Space deteriorates from there.

I hope future episodes of This Movie Sucks! use the second episode’s format.  Riffing is familiar Ed the Sock territory, a fact Fromage viewers well know.  Young and Sparks should also be riffing, since they’re comedians, but the show’s format is not yet etched in stone.

The Anime North footage is an excuse for Liana K to cosplay.  There are some half-decent moments, like when Ed tries to sell conventioneers on the wonders of Everyburger, pork jerky and Cream Collon.

The fans are initially put off by odd examples of Japanese food culture.  That’s so much better than Ed the Sock constantly referencing an overexposed YouTube clip in the first episode.  Come on, Cream Collon!

I hope This Movie Sucks! improves from its second episode.  For one thing, CHCH isn’t going to turf TMS! for more badly-dubbed martial arts films.  TMS! might as well be the best damn Mystery Science Theater 3000 ripoff it can be.  What does This Movie Sucks! have to lose?

As a bonus, here’s a poor-quality clip of Ed the Sock at Anime North 2010.  Watch as Cafe Delish gives love to a dessert tray.  It’s otakuriffic!

Not much to report on Day Two of Canwest’s upfronts, except that I talked briefly to Natasha Dunkley at the video presentation and pilot screenings.  Dunkley is the publicity coordinator for Canwest’s dramatic channels, which includes Showcase.

According to her, The Drunk and on Drugs Happy Funtime Hour will air in the winter of 2011, with no date yet specified.  This pretty much confirms what Metro Halifax reported on May 28.

As for whether Testees or Pure Pwnage will get second seasons, that’s apparently up to the production teams to decide.  Testees fans will have longer to wait for a second season, almost a year after FX’s John Landgraf stated that the show would continue airing in Canada.

It’s tough to speculate on Testees.  Either the show is dead, or it’s the male comedic version of Paradise Falls.  Both scenarios are possible in Canadian television.  The industry is funnier than Derek Edwards.