Sun. November 20

CFL Playoffs

CBC starting at 1 pm

After taking a shot at Mark Lee last week, I feel like I should apologize. The man is clearly the best the CBC has to offer football fans. This was made clear to me as I suffered through the West semi-final listening to the verbally incontinent Steve Armitage. 

The on-field product this week should be better with elimination of Saskatchewan and Calgary. Toronto versus Montreal should provide an explosive prelude to the later BC/Edmonton matchup. That game could be an instant classic or a total dud, depending on whether or not any of the four capable QBs bring their game to BC Place.

Mon. November 21

The Secret 

Mulroney Tapes

CBC 8 pm

A two-hour program on the gory details of Peter C. Newman’s attempt at humiliating  Brian Mulroney. The Mother Corp. doesn’t do a very vibrant sell-job on this piece, describing it as a combination of the audio tapes, transcripts and face-to-face interviews with Newman himself. It sounds like a show made for radio, to be honest. Anyone who really cared enough about what Mulroney thought of Kim Campbell and Lucien Bouchard has either bought the book or read the lurid feature reports in Maclean’s. No doubt there are enough devoted CBC viewers who will revel in another opportunity to watch Mulroney dragged through the mud.

Mon-Thursday

The Daily Show

CTV 12:05 am

Jon Stewart and his crack team of writers have managed to maintain a consistently funny program that strikes a chord with audiences. This is evem more impressive considering the  loss of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell, two of the show’s more hilarious “correspondents” and the show’s long tenure as a pop culture phenomenon. Stewart, of course, can turn a dud into a belly laugh thanks to delivery alone. The interview segments are always more entertaining when Stewart matches wits with pundits and politicians.

Mon-Thursday

The Colbert Report

CTV 12:35 am

Like a large stick of cotton candy on a summer’s evening, The Colbert Report is full of sweet promise but ultimately unfulfilling.

Colbert’s holier-than-God studio personality is perfect in small doses, say, for instance, in the spots he would routinely do for The Daily Show. Unlike with Stewart, it’s just Colbert and the audience for the majority of the show, save for the interview segment, which is routinely solid.

The concept of the show, to follow up a fake news with a fake pundit, is sound. With certain alterations to the format, The Report (pronounced rappor, by the way) could really take off. Just like the screaming eagle does in the show intro.

Arrested indeed

Fox has pulled the November episodes of Arrested Development, presumably making way for hotter properties during sweeps. The show returns in December.