That Was Wonderland

CBC Television has announced the cancellation of the critically acclaimed dramas Da Vinci's City Hall and This is Wonderland. For those of you scoring at home, this page never watched Da Vinci. The Art imitates Life element in the series never really grabbed me. The show jumped the shark right after the episode where Da Vinci tells the Bus Riders Union to go f**k themselves and then gets appointed to the Senate.

However, this page very much enjoyed This is Wonderland. Some of you who are regulars to this page know that this page has struggled with mental illness for some time. Those of you who didn't know probably could have guessed by this page's tendency to slide into sarcasm, profanity, and fits of self-righteousness. This is Wonderland is the first TV series I've seen that shows the Mentally Ill as people who need to be understood and assisted, not pitied and patronized. In fact, 'Wonderland' is the only series I've seen that has a practicing psychotherapist among its recurring cast members.

It's also the first TV series that allowed that gave audiences an honest look life in Urban Canada: a world that this country's smug, holier-than-thou baby-boomers see nothing of from the windows of their SUV's as they bitch along in traffic on our overcrowded expressways . The much-revered 'Corner Gas' doesn't talk about things like mental health, addiction, prostitution, poverty, or the lack of grocery stores in the inner city. That's not to say it's bad television: it's damn good, funny television, I'm just not sure that I'm laughing with or at the good people of Dog River. Remember, the show's creator, Brent Butt, is a no-good big city stand-up comic from Vancouver.

There needs to be drama on the small screen that talks about important issues in such remote corners of Canada as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. You know, the people that told Stephen Harper and the Conservatives to go f**k themselves in the election a few weeks ago because we didn't vote for them. The CBC cites low ratings as the reason for canceling 'Wonderland' and 'Da Vinci', but this page calls, to use a popular term in the new government caucus, bullsh*t. The reason these shows were cancelled is because the CBC's new political masters must be soothed for the imminent reckoning over the network's budget, and what is more soothing than making stories and characters that make Myron Thompson and Stockwell Day squirm simply go away?

George F. Walker, Cara Pifko, Michael Riley, Michael Murphy et al...take a bow for saving some of us from commodified crap like Canadian Idol and showing the has-beens with the Royal Canadian Air Farce the true meaning of wit. You will be missed, at least until all the episodes are out on DVD.