Canwest Broadcasting and Lone Eagle Entertainment have announced an English-Canadian version of Wipeout.  The Endemol Group format has contestants run obstacle courses that aren’t cribbed from Takeshi’s Castle and Sasuke, oh no.  No further details about Wipeout Canada have been announced, aside from a 2011 airdate.

This isn’t the first version of Wipeout to hit Canadian shores.  Wipeout Québec, which debuted in 2009, currently airs thrice-weekly on V.  This has previously been mentioned by Steve Faguy, who points out the basic flaw in the Wipeout Canada press release.

I have a feeling Wipeout Canada will be cut-rate, given Lone Eagle Entertainment’s game show past.  The company is going from You Bet Your Ass, Inside the Box and Game On to Wipeout Canada.  Wipeout is a far cry from dinky podiums and a slumming Stewart Francis.

Wipeout Canada is a better fit for GameTV, which needs higher-profile shows than Love Handles and, uh, Supermarket Sweep.  GameTV is such a quaint channel.  Reruns of The Mad Dash and Just Like Mom sound far more appealing than a second season of Carlawood.  Maybe it’s just me.

Playback Online reports that CityTV has renewed Conviction Kitchen for a second season.  The Cineflix Productions show debuted on CityTV September 13, 2009.

Felons appearing on Conviction Kitchen (note the title’s double meaning) try to establish a high-end restaurant in three weeks, with no prior culinary experience.  Marc Thuet is co-owner/executive chef, while Biana Zorich is his business partner.  The show is at once a social experiment and promotion for Thuet’s businesses.

According to NOW Magazine, Conviction Kitchen‘s second season will shoot in Vancouver this April.  The show airs in America on Discovery Networks’ Planet Green.

I normally don’t post news about reality television, but Conviction Kitchen is surprisingly good for its genre.  The show’s emphasis is on how a restaurant is actually run.  Thuet stuns, kills and skins a sheep in the first episode.  Conviction Kitchen does not go for the glamour.

Knowing CityTV’s track record, I give Conviction Kitchen its sophomore season before it’s thrown onto the junk heap with The Collector, Blood Ties, Less Than Kind and Ed the Sock.  I have no idea how Murdoch Mysteries remains on that network.  I’m assuming a blood pact with Baal.

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.

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.

The Conventioneers (BiteTV: Tuesdays, 9:00 PM ET/Saturdays and Sundays, noon ET) is the first BiteTV series I’ve ever reviewed – indeed, seen.  I am familiar with Jason Agnew through his work with Live Audio Wrestling, but The Conventioneers is a blank to me.

The Conventioneers tries to make The National Job Fair & Training Expo in Toronto interesting, with marginal success.  While Matt Chin and Jason Agnew aren’t bad hosts, the humour is at times forced.  This might be due to the choice of venue, since it’s The National Job Fair & Training Expo.  Such buttoned-down affairs aren’t normally the place for weirdos – not the obvious kinds, anyway.

The Conventioneers is best when Chin and Agnew embarrass themselves for the sake of the show.  Sadly, all “Job Fair” offers is Chin dancing at a New Brunswick-style ‘kitchen party’ and harassing a registered nurse.  The demo reel attached to the screener I received looks much more appealing, as it has Chin “rebranding” the CHIN Picnic.  The show’s always more fun when Chin gets kicked out of a convention.

I don’t think The Conventioneers is malicious in its presentation.  Chin and Agnew are obnoxious at times, which should be expected on a show like this.  The killer segment that would make “Job Fair” good just isn’t there.  The New Brunswick kiosk?  The man representing said kiosk is a PR jockey, but he’s not selling a bullshit product.

“Job Fair” isn’t the best introduction to Chin and Agnew’s brand of industry-based prankery.  Making fun of the recession, which may or may not have ended as per the stock jockeys’ drunken ramblings, is a good idea.  The episode just doesn’t work for me.  The Conventioneers could have picked something less low-key, like a multi-level marketing seminar.

The Conventioneers isn’t something I’d watch every week, but it does its job.  It’s a low-budget show with a novel idea, annoying high-strung fans and tight-assed business people on purpose.  At the end of the day, it’s hard for me to hate the show.  I’m sure it’s not eating government funds like Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town and Shattered are.

As an aside, how many people actually go through the Canada Television Fund/Canada Media Fund Broadcaster Performance Envelopes to see how much certain shows cost the Canadian taxpayer?  It’s genuinely interesting reading.  This doesn’t take federal and provincial tax credits into account, but wow, does Canada ever fund a lot of documentaries.  If The Conventioneers costs more than the Dunce Bucket pilot to produce (i.e., if the show costs more than $75,000 an episode), something’s gone horribly wrong.