TV shows come and TV shows go. Sometimes they come and go so fast you never realized they were ever there (The Ex List was an ex show after a month) while others die long before their time (alas, Pushing Daisies’ title turned out to be prophetic). But, to paraphrase George Costanza, some shows manage to go out a high note.
Bad Lieutenant: The Shield’s seven-season saga of justice corrupted reached its climactic conclusion earlier this week with Michael Chiklis’ Det. Vic Mackey, in all his bald, mountainous, morally bankrupt glory, finally facing judgement. Or at least he would have, had the bastard not sold out his partners and signed an immunity deal covering all of his sins, including the pilot-episode slaughter of a fellow cop in his crooked anti-gang Strike Team (modelled after the LAPD’s scandal-wrecked Crash Unit).
Critics are already calling it the best series finale ever, though that hyperbole is at least partly a reaction to creator Shawn Ryan delivering a dramatically satisfying conclusion rather than closing with a Sopranos-style gimmick.
As ever with this brutal cop show, the obvious narrative road was not taken and justice was (mostly) served.
Park Closure: Ricky, Julian and poor, sweet bespectacled Bubbles have been subverting Canadian television since 2001 with their Maritime mockumentary Trailer Park Boys. But after all their trials (literal and figurative), the tornado (not literal) is finally touching down in Sunnyvale trailer park.
The series wraps with an hour-long special “Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys,” and it’s as dark as the show has ever been. Set a year after last season’s big heist, their plans get derailed yet again by the ever-scheming (and ever-drinking) Lahey and his pot-bellied boyfriend Randy. Rum-and-cokes are swilled, cops are called, punches are thrown, guns are fired and Maestro Fresh Wes spins at a rec-centre dance featuring free moonshine, dope and baloney sandwiches. Oh, and J-Roc (Jonathan Torrens) steals one last scene.
The white-trash epic ends as you probably imagined it would — with the camera crew getting a shit-kicking. But don’t fret, Park fans, a second feature film, Countdown To Liquor Day, has already been brewed.
The King is Dead. Long Live the King?: After 13 seasons, Fox’s King of the Hill has been cancelled. Again. For the third time. And even that may not be the kicker. Though the cast — including Californication’s Pamela Adlon as the blissfully strange high-schooler Bobby — has voiced their final “I’ll tell you whut,” ABC’s hinting that it may pick up the show to pair it with creator Mike Judge’s upcoming cartoon The Goode Family.
King has long since stopped being pop-culturally relevant, if such a resolutely unassuming, middle-American show ever was. But Hank Hill’s simmering resentment over the end of his retro-vision of a propane-and-propane-accessories-lovin’ America never stopped being amusing.
TRAILER PARK BOYS FINALE AIRS DEC 7, 10PM ON SHOWCASE; THE SHIELD AIRS TUESDAYS, 10PM AND SATURDAYS, MIDNIGHT ON SHOWCASE; KING OF THE HILL AIRS SUNDAYS, 8:30PM ON FOX/GLOBAL.
Hey Ricky You’re So Fine
First thing you’ll notice in Ricky Gervais’ stand-up special, aside from the giant, lightbulb-encrusted letters spelling out his name, is that the British comic’s routine is razor-sharp. We’re used to seeing him as The Office’s David Brent or Extras’ Andy Millman, where the funny came from the characters’ pained and failed attempts at humour, but Gervais’ stand-up persona (and it’s still a persona) boasts an A-game. Or at least, an amoral one.
Though occasionally cracking cute — such as his hilarious routines on nursery rhymes and odd animal facts — Gervais mostly takes gleefully nasty shots at the fat, the autistic, AIDS, Nelson Mandela (“he hasn’t reoffended… which shows you, prison does work”) and Stephen Hawking (“he’s pretentious — born in Oxford and talks with that fake American accent”).
No, it’s not as funny as his cringe-coms, but it’s worth sitting down for.
RICKY GERVAIS: OUT OF ENGLAND — THE STAND-UP SPECIAL AIRS DEC 6, 10PM ON HBO CANADA.