{"id":7723,"date":"2014-02-26T23:54:07","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T04:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7723"},"modified":"2014-04-22T20:54:46","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T00:54:46","slug":"tv-best-laid-plans-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7723","title":{"rendered":"TV: Best Laid Plans (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>B<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"BestLaidPlans_2014\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ Transfer: n\/a\u00a0\/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: CBC Home Entertainment – EOne \/ Region: 0 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: April 22, 2014<\/p>\n

Genre: Comedy \/ Political Satire<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Skilled political speech writer Daniel Addison is blackmailed by hs party manager to run a “stealth” campaign in which a cranky candidate must lose, but things go very wrong when Angus McLintock strangely acquires grassroots popularity.<\/p>\n

Special Features: 3 making-of featurettes – “From Book to Screen” + “Great Characters, Great Cast” + “On Location in Ottawa”<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Based on the novel by Terry Fallis<\/a>, this 6 episode CBC series follows the surreal events which push a skilled but poorly respected speechwriter to make a deal with his abusive boss and agree to run a loser candidate in a small Ottawa riding to fend of threats of an unwarranted RCMP investigation of fiduciary impropriety.<\/p>\n

Jonas Chernick is very affable as Daniel Addison, the brilliant wordsmith charged with running a \u201cstealth\u201d campaign for Liberal candidate Angus McLintock (flat-out brilliant Kenneth Welsh), a recent widower and professor who agrees to be the token candidate in exchange for Daniel agreeing to take over a political sciences class populated by doe-eyed brats.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Daniel\u2019s biggest challenges come from trying to ensure his candidate stays out of the media limelight, but things come to a head when his over-achieving team of supporters (students and highly motivated seniors) demands their hero make a proper public appearance at a rally to prove he does indeed exist. Worked into this crazy quilt is Daniel\u2019s cheating and very bitchy ex-girlfriend Rachel (lithe Sarah Allen), and young Lindsay (Jodi Balfour), the pretty daughter of Muriel (Barbara Gordon) who leads Team Angus\u2019 senior wing.<\/p>\n

Character actor Ron Lea plays a strangely anachronistic beat reporter \u2013 his gear is comprised of pen, paper, wrinkled clothes, and hat in an age of digital recorders and camera-friendly wardrobe \u2013 and Sonja Smits (Traders<\/strong>) has a small role as the Prime Minster. Eric Petersen (Corner Gas<\/strong>, Street Legal<\/strong>) is stuck with a one-note grumpy senior who\u2019s highly possessive of longtime unrequited love Murial, and Raoul Bhaneja does his best to transcend the volcanic behaviour of Daniel\u2019s invective-charged boss Bradley. Also woven into the large cast is Philip Akin (War of the Worlds<\/strong>) as Lea\u2019s editor, and Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall<\/strong>) as the Liberal\u2019s bonehead leader, George Quimby.<\/p>\n

With such a solid team of actors and writers (Susan Coyne, Jason Sherman, and author Fallis), it\u2019s disappointing that the cast has been directed to behave \u2018quirky\u2019 in every scene, exaggerating dialogue delivery & physical reactions in that cartoon tenor that made the CBC\u2019s Little Mosque on the Prairie <\/strong>so grating. Having major and minor characters act at the same pitch level feels terribly strained, and there\u2019s only a handful of roles that truly deserve such behavioral oddness. Co-director James Allodi hails from the network\u2019s Mosque<\/strong> series, which may explain the homogenous nature of the cast\u2019s \u2018quirky\u2019 performances. Peterson also channels a visible dose of Corner Gas<\/strong>\u2019 cranky Oscar Leroy, and when the show allows for some sobering drama \u2013 Angus\u2019 eulogy to his late wife \u2013 things become piercingly maudlin, but amid the series\u2019 obvious flaws Allodi and co-director Peter Moss manage to extract several choice comedic moments from the scripts.<\/p>\n

Daniel\u2019s periodic addresses to the camera work well because it pushes the entire narrative to a kind of loopy political satire, if not a fanciful daydream, with the audience brought in as participants. Daniels\u2019 acumen for creating good P.R. and recognizing disastrous choices also pays off with a few cultural references, such as his reaction to a news piece in which Quimby wears a hairnet identical to the ill-fated cheese factory visit of Bloc Quebcois leader Gilles Duceppe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trevor Yule\u2019s music tempers the actors\u2019 physical performances, and Gavin Smith\u2019s cinematography really brings out the beauty of an idyllic sunny Ottawa. Although broadcast in HD on TV, the series is currently available only as a 2-disc DVD set from CBC \/ EOne, augmented with a trio of making-of featurettes.\u00a0Given Season 1’s finale ends with Daniel\u2019s most feared outcome for his candidate becoming a reality \u2013 the curmudgeon is sent to Parliament on behalf of his kooky constituency \u2013 green-lighting a second season might ensure the commercial viability of a neat 2-season Blu-ray set in 2015.<\/p>\n

The CBC\u2019s website contains teasing deleted scenes which didn\u2019t fit the pacing of their episodes, but they also feel like redundant bridge material that was shot purely for the web, which is fine, because it gives the curious some material to sample before delving into the series during a rebroadcast, or via the site\u2019s online streaming.<\/p>\n

Strained quirkiness aside, Best Laid Plans<\/strong> is a healthy self-deprecating poke at Canadian politics with appropriate doses of ridiculousness.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2014 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Official Website<\/a><\/p>\n

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Vendor Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"—New movie releases on iTunes<\/a>\"\"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0B<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on the novel by Terry Fallis, this 6 episode CBC series follows the surreal events which push a skilled but poorly respected speechwriter to make a deal with his abusive boss and agree to run a loser candidate in a small Ottawa riding to fend of threats of an unwarranted RCMP investigation of fiduciary impropriety…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2574,18],"tags":[2545,2550,2547,2548,2549,2546],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-20z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7723"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8528,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7723\/revisions\/8528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}