The news that Sort Of will be over after this upcoming Season 3 also brought information on how this show will be delivered in Canada and the United States.
We were puzzled by many CBC decisions about the fall schedule, such as not announcing an actual fall lineup. There was shame in having a new Fox show in a key CBC timeslot but not enough shame to cancel running the program.
Sort Of has aired on CBC in the fall and Max shortly afterward in the States. CBC Gem gets exclusivity for Season 3 of Sort Of for awhile at least. 2 episodes are available each week starting November 17 with the series finale set for Friday, December 8.
CBC (Canada) and Max (United States) will air the 8 episodes from Season 3 in winter 2024.
We will have more thoughts on the whole amazing series from Bilal Baig and Fab Filippo once we see Season 3. We want to note that Canadian films have risen up to cover these communities in recent years. Soft was a little intense but delightful in many ways.
There are a lot of poorly written films that involve straight people doing lame things, so other audiences should have that right. That said, those audiences deserve more content such as Sort Of and the Canadian film Soft and less of Canadian films such as Something You Said Last Night and Solo.
If you are new to Sort Of or didn't think this was "my kind of show," start with Season 1 and you will be pleasantly surprised. You can catch Seasons 1-2 now on CBC Gem in Canada and Max in the United States.
Canadian film review: Soft
Canadian film review: Something You Said Last Night
You can watch the final season of Letterkenny on @CraveCanada December 25th and on @hulu December 26th if you want to.
— Letterkenny Problems (@LetterkennyProb) November 2, 2023
From @newmetricmedia. pic.twitter.com/a1dJ44bI3i
Letterkenny will bow out after Season 12, coming up on Christmas Day on Crave in Canada and Hulu in the United States. The show gave us a viewfinder to see multiple elements of Canadian society. An English Canadian show that celebrated French speaking Canadians and Indigenous people. Rare indeed.
Having 12 seasons is noteworthy and Jared Keeso, Jacob Tierney, and the whole cast and crew should be understandably proud. Bonnie McMurray could have a spinoff. Just thinking out loud.
Shoresy gets a Season 3 though that will not air until 2024.
We have an all-Canadian starting lineup for Citytv's new show Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent.
- Detectives: Aden Young and Kathleen Munroe
- Supervisor: Karen Robinson
- Deputy Crown attorney: K.C. Collins
- Forensic pathologist: Nicola Correia-Damude
- Tech expert: Araya Mengesha
The consensus is that the Canadian cast has considerable Canadian and American content on their CVs. Karen Robinson, who is best known to us, might have the fewest non-Canadian credits.
Robinson played a similar role in Pretty Hard Cases. Munroe played a detective in Birdland but will play a more conventional detective on this show.
Tassie Cameron is the showrunner. Cameron co-created (with Sherry White) Pretty Hard Cases (CBC/Freevee) and was the head writer and executive producer on Rookie Blue (Global/ABC).
Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent has 10 episodes airing on Citytv in winter 2024. We have no word on a U.S. home at some point. NBC/Peacock is a logical pick given the Law & Order shows on NBC. The CW is always an option.
Speaking of Cameron's old show, you can watch Season 3 (the final season) of Pretty Hard Cases on CBC Gem and Netflix in Canada. Freevee in the United States will finally show Season 3 — all 10 episodes — on November 29.
Canadian film review: Birdland
Canadian TV notebook: Fall 2023 premiere dates on both sides of the border
Speaking of the CW and Canadian TV shows, Wild Cards will be a part of the CBC lineup in winter 2024 and air sometime next year on The CW. The "crime-solving procedural with a comedic twist" features Vanessa Morgan and Giacomo Gianniotti, Canadian actors with plenty of cred south of the 49th parallel.
We weighed in a bit on the Canadian comedies running on the CW. Son of a Critch is a very good show. Run the Burbs and Children Ruin Everything are very similar and air back-to-back in the States yet on rivals (CBC vs. CTV) in Canada. Both shows are good; we have a preference with Run the Burbs because the children are better defined as characters and people than the kids on Children Ruin Everything.
Both shows are good at giving love to secondary characters featuring Ali Hassan and Samantha Wan (Run the Burbs) and Ennis Esmer and Nazneen Contractor (Children Ruin Everything).
The comedy block switched over from Monday to Thursday nights in late October on the CW.
Your humble narrator didn't have much hope for the CTV dramas running this fall on the CW. The Spencer Sisters is sufficiently campy for a low-key watch. Stacy Farber is underappreciated and Lea Thompson is surprisingly good. Their chemistry together helps.
Sullivan's Crossing has a few problems. Getting Maggie Sullivan (Morgan Kohan) out of Boston and back to Nova Scotia should have been so much simpler. The first 15-20 minutes of the pilot episode (the Boston part) was such horrendous television that a weaker person would have given up completely. As a parallel example, Lidia Bennett (Jennifer Finnigan) is in a similar path that was handled much smoother and more realistic on Moonshine (CBC/CW).
The fake drama conversations between Maggie and her lawyer are so terrible that you can fast forward past them. Maggie's boyfriend Andrew (Allan Hawco) is another problem, and not just because he is on CTV (ha ha). We love Hawco but he seems creepy here, which isn't necessarily bad. We know television is full of long gaps in age with a much older man and a young woman. Lynda Boyd, who plays Maggie's mother, was Hawco's stepmother on Republic of Doyle but that was a lot less creepy.
Also, feel free to mute the theme song. The lyrics are bad like poetry you would write if you were really stoned and not talented.
When the show is in Nova Scotia, the program isn't that bad. We were concerned about the American actors Chad Michael Murray (Cal Jones) and Scott Patterson (Harry 'Sully' Sullivan) and they have been fine. Our new favourite couple is the Cranebears: Frank (Tom Jackson) and Edna (Andrea Menard). TV rarely shows a really good couple and they are that couple (pictured above).
The Nova Scotia shots are gorgeous. We love that the U.S. has 2 over-the-air dramas filmed and set in Nova Scotia (Diggstown should have been the third). We think Moonshine is the much better Nova Scotia import to the CW but Sullivan's Crossing is pretty good, as long as the story stays in Nova Scotia.
2023 CBC television upfront preview
CBC will have a Season 2 of Plan B but with a different cast. Season 1 featured Karine Vanasse and Patrick J. Adams while Season 2 will have Vinessa Antoine, Vincent Leclerc, and Sarah Booth.
The Radio-Canada version, the original, is in Season 4 with the same story. Antoine became a big deal when she was the first Black female to be the star in a Canadian TV drama (Diggstown). We know Leclerc more from the Denys Arcand Canadian film La chute de l'empire américain | The Fall of the American Empire. Leclerc did appear in both the English and French language versions of 19-2. We know Booth from Three Pines, where she did well with a small part.
The release does not list a debut timeframe for Season 2 on CBC.
We saw the Season 1 pilot on CBC Gem during our time on Canadian soil. Strong potential there.
Jessye Romeo as Robyn Loxley on Robyn Hood also qualifies as a Black female in a starring role on a Canadian over-the-air drama. Robyn Hood aired on Global TV this fall.
CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage
CanadianCrossing.com television coverage
CBC Gem has a separate area within its umbrella called CBC Comedy. We saw a lot of CBC promos for CBC Comedy during Hockey Night in Canada games.
There are few outlets on the U.S. side to pick up a Citytv feed. The Toronto and Montréal signals might have a small audience in different parts of New York state. CKVU-DT-2 out of Victoria, Channel 27, might get to Port Angeles, WA.
You can find your local CW station in your area for our American readers.
Let us know about a cool Canadian TV show we may not know.
photo credits: Sort Of/CBC; Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent/Citytv; Sullivan's Crossing/CTV
Twitter capture: @LetterkennyProb
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