aerovian

I stumbled onto this show quite by accident on the 'net a couple of weeks ago, as I don't have Discovery Canada in my cable TV lineup. As a Western Canadian who's driven the Coq countless times -- but never in winter -- I've been fascinated to see what a zoo it becomes when the snow flies, particularly for the semi drivers who must push through with their loads year-round in every kind of weather. Jamie and his crew are a pretty likable bunch who put up with demanding working conditions themselves, and unlike the similarly situated Ice Road Truckers series (another of my faves) there are no grindingly obnoxious characters to irritate. Just real guys doing real, honest, hard work and not being unnecessarily bitchy about it. Of course, their biga$$ trucks are fun to watch in their own right! I've just heard that the show has been picked up for a second season and am well pleased to hear it. Despite the show's very simple premise and lack of any serious twists and turns, it never seems to get boring or stale. This is just plain good entertainment for any fan of big vehicles and big men doing big jobs in the big outdoors.

I am a 100% anglophone who stumbled along with Parisian french for a few years in high school, so I am not fluent but I 'get' a fair part of the dialogue (I've actually been using this show to improve my comprehension and learn the Quebec idioms and accents.) I have to say this is a really delightful family sitcom, and while it is basically a series of short gags as another reviewer pointed it, it's thematically cohesive and extremely well done in all regards. And, it's very funny in a pretty wholesome kind of way (though granted some of the subject matter and dialogue would raise a few eyebrows in prime-time English-language TV.) All the actors are very capable, but Daniel Briere and Anne Dorval are particularly adept at portraying the challenges of parenting in a very realistic yet humorous way.

It's amazing what Quebec television industry manages to turn out with what I assume would be a fairly limited budget due to its relatively small audience -- particularly since you rarely ever see any more than the series' five main actors in the majority of the episodes. English Canadian TV producers could definitely take a lesson or two from Les Parent.

I'm in my fifties and have watched enough television programs and movies that nearly every fictional story I see is repetitively and transparently predictable. I know how it's going to turn out before the halfway point, because Hollywood just keeps regurgitating the same story lines and scripts ad nauseam. But when I watch Breaking Bad, I find virtually ZERO predictability. I am completely locked-in through every episode because the plot always manages to deviate from the expected. And yet it does so, for the most part, without seriously challenging rational beliefs. I think this show is an absolute masterpiece, and the kind of gem that is too rarely encountered in the garbage-filled thousand-channel morass that is television today. Breaking Bad should be considered the absolute benchmark for serial dramatic programming.