This Life closes out stellar first season
Is the CBC paying for this site? The show was painfully boring and poorly produced. Our standards for television are higher now, and a show with stylistic sensibilities in line with early ’90s television is not acceptable or even watchable. This Life is abysmal, nobody watched it, the opening scene is offensive to anyone who’s actually experienced illness, and it should never come back. —Tim
I disagree with Tim.
I live with illness. Both parents died of cancer, both were rare complicated cancers, and one involved a clinical trial. I have a rare illness classified the same as cancer, open to many, many clinical trials, of which I’ve had to decide whether to participate.
My siblings were five in total (similar to this show) and as dysfunctional (more probably) as portrayed in this series.
This is very real and done very well. It’s not easy to have a show about cancer or life and death issues involving kids, adults, families, lives going on at the same time, and what it does to everyone. This show does it all very well. Maybe not perfect but pretty close from my experience.
And if you’re not interested in cancer or illness and prefer a good drama that has a nice balance of life, comedy, drama, sadness, ease, with good acting, watch it. The cancer angle is light in the first season and so many other stories in life are handled well, very interesting modern day life stories both for the kids and the adults. —Carrie
My wife and I are very much enjoying this series. A very refreshing take on a non-vanilla family. I hope we get a Season 2. —Dave
The Top 10 Most Irritating Canadians of 2015 (TV-related)
Why does John Doyle always have to focus on the negative? Why didn’t he count down the Top 10 Canadian people or institutions that did great things in Canadian TV? Here is a list that I can come up with off the top of my head:
1. Murdoch Mysteries for surviving and becoming a cult-like show.
2. CBC for continuing to survive the tax cuts and still delivering quality shows like This Life and X Company.
3. Bell Media (yes, Bell Media) for at least trying to offer some sort of Canadian content. Out of all of the private companies, Bell offers at least one CanCon program every season.
4. The creators and cast of Sunnyside on City. One very funny show. Give it a chance to survive.
5. The Marilyn Denis Show for not trying to disguise itself as an American show. Any show that doesn’t try to disguise itself as an American show.
6. The Degrassi franchise (although I haven’t seen it in years) for constantly reinventing itself and living so long.
7. The new Dragons on Dragons’ Den. They have reinvigorated that show.
8. The cast and writers of 22 Minutes. It seems funnier this season. The Christmas episode was great!
9. Every actor doing corny commercials trying to make a living as an actor in Canada. It ain’t easy.
10. TV, eh? for giving Canadians a place to go to see what’s new in CanCon. —Denis
Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? greg@tv-eh.com or @tv_eh.
