How Letterkenny puts the mythos of the Canadian dirtbag to bed
Season two of Letterkenny opens with a bit of alphabetic acrobatics as our heroes Wayne (Jared Keeso) and Daryl (Nathan Dales) run down what transpired after the season-one-ending fight that left Wayne on the asphalt. The systematic descriptions of Wayne’s ensuing victory cycle through a thesaurical torrent of choice phrases— “Punched the prick out, played the peasant, pushed proper pugnacity on the pinhead, left him praying for peace while Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers†is one of the cleaner vignettes – and amount to a distilled dose of the incredible verbiage that is the absolute best thing about Letterkenny. Continue reading.
As revealed last night during TSN’s 104th GREY CUP broadcast, Season 2 of CraveTV’s smash-hit original comedy LETTERKENNY launches Christmas Day with a brand new six-pack ready to stream. That’s a great day for binging on appies and TV, bud. In keeping with tradition, CraveTV released this beauty of a Season 2 cold open today.
Created and co-written by Jared Keeso of Bravo’s hit Canadian Screen Award-winning original drama 19-2, Season 2 sees the return of hick-with-a-heart-of-gold Wayne (Keeso) and the rest of small-town foes The Hicks, The Skids, and The Hockey Players.
Season 2 of LETTERKENNY proves all is fair in love and politics with a power struggle in the Agricultural Hall, the Hockey Players getting knocked down a peg both on and off the ice, and some interesting inter-group romantic tanglings.
Already confirmed for a third season, LETTERKENNY is produced by New Metric Media in partnership with DHX Media. Season 3 is set to begin production on another six pack on location in Sudbury, ON in 2017. Season 1 is currently streaming on CraveTV.
LETTERKENNY revolves around the dustups Wayne and his buds get into with their small-town Ontario rivals. Back to cause a whole lot of ruckus out of a whole lot of nothing, The Hicks, The Skids, and The Hockey Players get at each other about the most mundane things, often ending with someone getting their ass kicked. Wayne, his best bud Daryl (Nathan Dales, Goon: Last of the Enforcers), Wayne’s free-spirited younger sister Katy (Michelle Mylett, FOUR IN THE MORNING), and Wayne’s buddy, Dan (K Trevor Wilson, JEFF ROSS PRESENTS: ROAST BATTLE) are all Hicks. McMurray (Daniel Petronijevic, 19-2) is a Hick but has been outcast due to his inability to relax. He also runs the Agricultural Hall with his loving wife Mrs. McMurray (Melanie Scrofano, WYNONNA EARP). Dylan Playfair (HATERS BACK OFF) and Andrew Herr (Mr Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story) reprise their roles as Hockey Players “Jonesy†and “Reillyâ€. Tyler Johnston (MOTIVE) stars as lead Skid, Stewart, and Stewart’s “Sideskid†Devon is played by Alexander De Jordy (19-2). Evan Stern(RoboCop) stars as Third-Skid-in-Command, Roald. Lisa Codrington (COPPER) returns as Modeans bartender, Gail, and Jacob Tierney (The Trotsky) as the Christian leader Glen.
Season 1 of LETTERKENNY continues to reign as the biggest debut of any series on CraveTV since the premium TV streaming service launched in 2014, with more CraveTV users watching LETTERKENNY than any other series or title on CraveTV. LETTERKENNY is based on the Internet sensation Letterkenny Problems, a series of shorts which have raked in more than 21 million views.
LETTERKENNY is produced by New Metric Media (What Would Sal Do?), in partnership with DHX Media in association with Bell Media, with the participation of Canadian Media Fund, OMDC Tax Credits and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund. Jacob Tierney is executive producer, director, and co-writer. Patrick O’Sullivan and Mark Montefiore are executive producers for New Metric Media.
I think that both Crave TV and Shomi had to expect it would take a few years to grow. Netflix has had six years. It’s an expensive game to get into but it’s a necessary one. People are cord-cutting because they are finding stuff for free online and getting free TV streaming devices. I’ve said it before, but the only thing keeping me from cord-cutting is that I’m only allowed 20GB a month of data thanks to my only option of satellite Internet and my desire to watch Winnipeg Jets and the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Olympics. I’m actually thinking of moving to a nearby town that has unlimited Internet access, so I’m seriously considering it. If TSN releases an app of their own, I’d go with that for sure. Maybe TSN could somehow integrate with CraveTV? That would be an attractive feature, the ability to stream games. People would for sure go with it. I have Netflix Canada (I got tired of trying to keep switching it to Netflix U.S.) but truthfully, after having it for a while, you eventually watch most of what you want to watch on it, you need supplementary stuff so that’s why I had Shomi too. I actually subscribed to Shomi to watch specific shows, but stayed because I saw other shows I like. CraveTV has more shows I like, though. I’m still waiting for it to be made available on Xbox Live. —Alicia
Hulu have locked themselves out since they sold most of the shows to CTV/Global/City. In the States, CBS and The CW are doing their own streamers which somewhat have the same problem. You can sense Amazon is circling here. In addition to the links, they already do things with Prime that Netflix never will and smaller U.S. channels like Starz with Outlander and USA Network with Mr. Robot don’t have the resources to launch here directly themselves, they already sent their shows to Amazon UK. It’s only a matter of time. They just upped the minimum free shipping to $35. You know they know Canadians consider Amazon Canada overpriced and inferior and Prime Video would only help them. The thing is, can/would Rogers/Shaw just sell over the shows to Amazon? They’d recover some of the loss but they aren’t always known for doing things like that.
HBO and Showtime are much longer, depending on how long the recent deals with Bell are but eventually I don’t think they’d renew it rather than just stream directly to Canada themselves. The only funny bit is Bosch being an Amazon show on CraveTV somehow; though I believe Netflix officially launched in Australia while a local channel had Orange is the New Black and they just waited out the contract before putting it on Netflix Australia, so something like that could happen perhaps. —DanAmazing
Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg.david@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.
Link: CraveTV ’continues to grow’: Bell CEO
The president and CEO of Bell Canada is expressing confidence in his company’s streaming video service even as a competitor in the Netflix-dominated field prepares to shut down.
“There’s no change in the status of CraveTV,†George Cope said in an interview Tuesday with The Canadian Press. Continue reading.
Link: Why shomi failed and why CraveTV is next
The Canadian streaming scene will get a little darker come the end of November, when Shomi closes its virtual doors. Unless, of course, someone else comes along before then to fill the void, but that’s a post for another time.
In the meantime, we’re left to puzzle out what happened to what was supposed to be Netflix’s biggest competitor in Canada. Continue reading.
