Intelligence fucking blows

I guess I should explain what I’m talking about, for those unacquainted with the depths of Canadian TV. Intelligence is a TV show on CBC about a big-time pot smuggler in BC. He ends up as an informant for the RCMP, but he uses them just as much as they use him. The show goes into his operation: his grow-op people, business partners, rivals, and others. The show also goes as much into the other side of the fence, showing intelligence and law enforcement people from both sides of the US-Canada border clashing and colluding to varying degrees.

Sounds interesting, right? Ed Brubaker sure made it sound that way when he gave the show a mention in the latest issue of Criminal (Criminal’s a decent crime comic, by the way, have a look if you’re into that kind of stuff). He said, “If you’re a fan of The Wire or The Shield, you need to track it down.” Like most Canadians, I make it a habit to stay away from Canadian-made dramas, so I hadn’t heard of the show -but I am a fan of both The Wire and The Shield, thus leading me to download the first season (and let me just say it was a total pain to find torrents with enough people still seeding). It was a major disappointment. Yes, the premise and the plots are fairly interesting, but the execution falls far short of the standards Brubaker compares it to. Where The Shield has crackling intensity, Intelligence has boring characters. Where The Wire has gritty realism, Intelligence has a bland atmosphere. In fact, if I had to describe the show in one word, that’s what I would use: bland. I’ve met enough government types to know that in real life they’re actually pretty bloodless and uninteresting, and the media probably makes drug smuggling more exciting than it actually is, but that’s the advantage of fiction. Take some fucking creative license, for God’s sake. The biggest crime when producing entertainment is not to make it entertaining. Even when a potential gang war pops up, the way it’s presented on the show is pretty bland and low-key. Actually, “bland” pretty much describes every this and every other drama made for Canadian TV. Maybe I’m not being entirely fair. I know the two American shows have much bigger budgets, which lead to better production values; the budget on Intelligence probably only amounts to The Wire‘s coffee expenditure. If the producers of Intelligence had access to the same kind of money, maybe they’d be able to create something as good. At the very least they wouldn’t have to keep setting so many scenes at night (which I suspect they’re only doing to take advantage of cheaper equipment rentals) and they could show more complicated set pieces and maybe an action scene or two. However, I keep thinking about Robert Rodriguez and how he supposedly shot El Mariachi with a budget of only sixty thousand dollars. Or think about the first Saw movie – shot for a hundred thousand, made tens of millions. I know there are differences between TV and movie production, but the point still stands that if the people in charge are good enough, they can find a way to make interesting fare while working within restrictive budget limitations.

(This raises the question, “Why aren’t the people in charge good enough?” This one is fairly easy to answer. The most talented and ambitious creative types overwhelmingly choose to go south, and not just for the money. The creative opportunities are just so much better, and you get to meet and work with some of the best minds in the industry. With those kinds of incentives, you’d have to be an idiot to stay behind in Canada. You do occasionally get a Cronenberg or an Egoyan, but they tend to be few and far between. Everybody else deserves to get stuck directing episodes of The New Adventures of Sinbad.)

What Intelligence reminds me of the most is MI-5, and what I was hoping the show would be like. MI-5 has the same premise, except it’s actually good (at least the first couple of seasons were, before they started trying to ape 24). The kicker is that British TV channels don’t actually have that much more money than its Canadian counterparts. I think it’s made by a private broadcaster, though, while the CBC is government-owned through-and-through. Maybe it’s true how they say that government work kills creativity? In any event, that’s another show Intelligence can be be unfavourably compared to.

I think I’ll have to revise my original title. Intelligence doesn’t fucking blow. Given what I imagine are a small budget and a limited talent pool, Intelligence works well enough with what it’s got. In other words, Intelligence is good for Canadian TV. And that statement tells anyone what they need to know about this show.

Sûreté du Québec forced to own up

A bit late, but I’ll put it up anyway: the Quebec police have admitted that the anarchist guys captured on tape were cops (see the Toronto Star for details). However, while they admit those three were indeed undercover agents, the SQ states that they were only found out because the men refused to participate in violence and that the reason one officer was carrying a rock was because a protester handed it to him. Needless to say, one only has to watch the video to know this is complete and utter bullshit. The crowd and the organizer was trying to get the police agents to leave and were trying to keep them away from the line of riot police. Hell, even Ottawa’s Chief of Police stated (before the SQ’s admission) that the conduct of the men on that video is highly suspicious. I really hope an independent inquiry is carried out because if this thing only goes to an internal review it will get quietly buried.

In honour of this event I’m introducing a new tag, “Fuck tha police;” I hope its use will be fairly self-evident. If you still think the SQ isn’t full of shit then I suggest you watch the video again.

(Incidentally, I couldn’t figure out how to type those accents in the SQ’s name and had to copy and paste it from elsewhere. This is also the reason why I keep calling them the SQ.)