Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Battle of the Blades : The CBC Hockey Figure Skating Show


Between Hockey and news the CBC has a lot of empty slots on its TV schedule. A variety of programming fills up the non hockey hours on our public broadcaster. It’s a showcase for East Coast comedians, sexless dramas about oil families, more East Coast Comedians and documentaries about Pierre Trudeau or the royal family. If only there was a way to feature hockey more then once a week.

In what is a programming masterstroke the CBC has decided to combine three television favourites into one stirring hour of television each week. “Battle of the Blades” will combine figure skating, hockey and judged reality shows in a fairly brilliant move for the Ceeb. All of Canada will be glued in to watch their favourite hockey stars clumsily learn a double axel, but most importantly learn about themselves. Both the hockey players and figure skaters will pursue a journey of self discovery and maybe they’ll get it on. They’ll have to overcome their fear of a triple lutz and of looking like a klutz.

This idea may remind people of the 1992 movie “The Cutting Edge” which featured an ex hockey player teaming with a figure skater to go for the gold and fall in love. Others may remember the 2006 Fox reality show “Skating With Celebrities” . This show featured ex celebrities team up with skating greats to go for the win and break up marriages. Most probably don’t remember as those two projects were utter failures. Hopefully they use the 2007 hit “Blades of Glory” as inspiration. Two dudes in sparkly costumes is comedy genius.

That looks better then the other offerings coming to the CBC this year. These include “Canada's Super Speller,"18 to Life," a comedy about a couple that gets married at 18, and "The Republic of Doyle," set in Newfoundland about a private investigator team who are father and son. Is every case going to be about who stole the welfare cheque? Also returning are other shows you feel guilty about not watching while you watch American TV.

3 comments:

Diavoli said...

You know what I love about the CBC, is that when they pretend that they have good programming. They put on people from Maple Ridge B.C. for their take on Federal Government spending, or ask a fisherman in Newfoundland "So when the fish coming back". They are very good at getting the little guy's perspective on big issues. The CBC should go the way of GMC, EXTREME MAKEOVER! Stop programming for 9 weeks in the summer, no skiing events in the summer right...

Chris Panting said...

Wow. Another mainlander makes a snotty joke about Newfoundlanders on welfare. Hilarious.

Editor In Chief said...

Its funny cause it's true.