Generally speaking, it’s fair to say that I am not a huge fan of American TV shows, especially sitcoms. Even more so if they’re about teenagers and have romantic elements. However, it’s not every day that you actually get a teen romcomzom. Which is what got me giving it enough of the benefit of the doubt to watch the first episode… That and the fact that it’s actually Canadian… which is where they filmed The X-Files, Canadia, which is what it is.

It’s as if Sam Raimi had just finished with the Evil Dead movies and all of a sudden was asked if he would like to be directing a season of Degrassi Junior High.

As your guidance councellor, which is what I am

Set in the amazingly obviously named town of Crowley Heights’ local highschool, Crowley Heights High (with school sports team “The Goats”), the series centers around Todd Smith, who is something of a wastrel with dreams of having a succesful heavy metal band with his one-armed best friend Curtis… Curtis is the drummer. After epically failing to get into the school’s battle of the bands comp (in fact, the only band not to get in), Todd is informed of The Book of Pure Evil by the three metal heads that seem to perpetually hang out in the school parking lot getting high, and how it can fulfil all of his dreams. Todd soon learns of the hideous power of the book by nearly killing his friend Curtis, and actually killing the current boyfriend of his love interest, the grunge chick with a’tude “Jenny” (who is searching for her missing, investigative journalist father), by making said jock bleed out of his hatch. As todd battles with the evil of The Book, the school Guidance Councellor, because that is what he is, Atticus Murphy attempts to take the book back to his enclave of Satanists…. And from there the series only gets more awesome.

Undead goth band "The Bram Stoker Explosion"

The story is actually somewhat a TV trope set by the original Scooby Gang… although instead of a hideous mask and a regular old guy hiding behind it, it’s usually just a satanic book. There are a number of amazingly good homages to both the standard teen drama, as well as the expanded ones for the currently cynical generation, including some wickedly funny references to shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and games like Portal, never minding the fact that the school does indeed seem to have a higher mortality rate than Sunnydale High.

Shows like this, even the ones written by cynics, tend to have some sort of moral lesson to be learnt at the end of the episodes. T&tboPE (you come up with a better acronym!) does away with all that and gleefully disposes of such, often by gorily disposing of those who would attempt to teach you that moral lesson. Not a single episode goes by without a decent helping of blood fountains. So much so in fact, that Janitor Jimmy (played by Jason “Jay” Mewes) asks students to just pass him his ‘blood mop’.

Not the best Necronomicon knock off I've ever seen, but for the sake of divulging any potential conflict of interest, we DO sell Necronominotebooks where I work

The production quality of the show is simply amazing. By filming in Manitoba (where the fearsome demon known as “Shambling Corporate Presence” came from!) with all of its generous tax incentives (something that seems to be pointed out in every press release, so we figured it was important) have left plenty of money for production values. The show has one of the masters of prosthetic and mechatronic special effects working on it: David Scott (Resident Evil movie makeupFX guy!). Whilst the premise of the show and some of the script writing are purposefully B-Grade, the show definitely is not, with spectacular performances from a crop of highly underrated actors such as Billy Turbull, Maggie Castle, Melanie Leishman, and Alex House… who ironically was in Degrassi: The Next Geenration.

And lastly, the amazingly fantastic heavy metal soundtrack that exists throughout the entire series, reaching its high point in a musical episode that puts others to shame.

But enough from me, here’s the ad:

And if you need to know more, check out the website.

You might also like to read:

1. A Nifty History of Evil
2. TV Programming isn’t ENTIRELY crap

1 Comment »

1. 

   The show’s Canadian, not American.

   Comment by Ted C. — April 4, 2011 @ 3:57 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment