From Tom Conroy at Media Life magazine:

• ’18 to Life,’ and a punishing stretch, too
  “The rule holds true for the Canadian sitcom “18 to Life,” an amateurish series that is unappealing whether approached as a romantic comedy or as a naughty sex farce. One hopes that the CW, which is burning off the 12 episodes of this ill-advised acquisition in late summer, didn’t pay much, because the show’s producers seemed to have scrimped on directing, acting and writing.” Read more.

From Unreality Shout:

• Review: 18 to Life: Pilot
  “There’s always room in any network’s schedule for a good new comedy, but 18 to Life can be described neither as good, nor indeed, comedy. That said, there were some comedic moments in this Canadian born sitcom, but they died soon after birth, which really, this entire show should.” Read more.

From Kevin McDonough of South Coast Today:

• CW’s ’18’ closer to ‘Gilmore Girls’ than ‘Gossip Girl’
  “With so many Canadian imports arriving on American network television, I’ve devised a simple test to determine whether a show hails from north of the border. Do the characters look more like real people than supermodels? If so, look for the “Made in Canada” tag. Is the comedy writing a little less gag-driven than Hollywood fare? It just might be written by Canadians.” Read more.

From Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald:

• Review | ’18 to Life’: This teenage TV marriage no laughing matter
  “Of course, I could be wrong, and 18 to Life might not be the bottom of the television barrel, in which case you need to drive a stake through your TV’s heart, stuff its remote with garlic and bury them in an unmarked grave. If there’s something worse than a sitcom about what a laff riot teenage marriage is, you don’t want to know.” Read more.

From Mark A. Perigard of the Boston Herald:

• Newlywed Lame
  “What if a couple of silly twits from “Degrassi” decided to marry? The sitcom “18 to Life,” the latest Canadian import to sneak onto our airwaves, plays like a spinoff of the long-running Teen Nick series.” Read more.

From Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times:

• Television review: ’18 to Life’
  “Neighbors who are worlds apart. Youths who fall in love, ‘Romeo and Juliet’-style. The setup for this CW show isn’t anything new. Except, possibly, in its old-fashioned commitment to marriage.” Read more.

From Megan Angelo of the Wall Street Journal:

• CW’s ‘18 to Life’ Puts Spotlight on Teen Marriage — For Better or Worse
  “A lot goes down in the premiere of the new CW series “18 to Life,” the drama adapted from a Canadian hit. In the first scene, eighteen-year-old Tom proposes to Jessie, the girl next door. By the end of the episode, they’re hitched.” Read more.

By Diane Wild

At the Banff World Television Festival, actor Peter Keleghan (18 to Life) related the upside and the downside of being a Canadian actor.

Shooting a pilot in LA years ago, he was working with en executive producer who became a “mother figure,” as he said. She would ask about his family – he and his wife were expecting a child – and his new life in Hollywood. When it came time for the producers to decide if they’d pay the small fee to extend his contract while waiting for the pilot to be picked up, his agent was told they decided against it because “we heard from him personally about the auditions he’s going for and he’s not really close to anything, so we don’t think we’re going to lose him.”

“I was blown away that she used the information from me against me,” Keleghan said at the festival panel on Homegrown Canadian Talent.

“When I tell my American friends this story, they all say to me, ‘What are you, f***ing stupid? You don’t tell a producer your business.’ And my Canadian friends say to me, ‘Jesus Christ, that’s dreadful!’ And that to me is the difference between America and Canada, and that’s why I came back to this country.”

After the national pride applause and laughter had died down, Keleghan shared a national-pride-squashing anecdote.

After being recognized by a fan in his home country, another woman approached him to say, “Oh, you’re an actor? What have I seen you in?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he recalled telling her. “The Red Green Show? No. The Newsroom? No. Oh, Made in Canada? And she replied: ‘That’s the problem isn’t it? It’s made in Canada.'”

In our interview after the panel, where we talked about the state of the Canadian television industry, Keleghan turned the tables on me, asking: “Think of Jim Carrey or Mike Meyers. What would your mindset be if they came back to this country and starred in a sitcom or a movie?”

Continue reading TV, eh? interview with Peter Keleghan, Part 1: The good news and bad news on acting in Canada →