Adam Beach Stars in Moose TV
Canadian Actor Leads A Showcase Original Comedy Series
Aboriginal actor Adam Beach is poised to take on a leading role in Law & Order: SVU this fall as Det. Chester Lake, but he hasn't forgotten his Canadian roots.
Fresh off an acclaimed 2006 performance in Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers, Canadian actor Adam Beach is poised to take on a leading role in Law & Order: SVU.
This fall he will play Detective Chester Lake, who was first introduced during a single episode last season. While the role promises to solidify his reputation as a star, Beach hasn’t forgotten his Canadian roots: this summer he is anchoring the comedic Showcase original series Moose TV on Thursday evenings.
Beach plays George, an ambitious young man with big dreams. Escaping a sketchy past in Montreal the prodigal son George returns to his remote northern hometown of Moose. George strives to get the people of Moose excited about becoming TV stars via their local station. He becomes an on-air host among such hit programs as Ernie Makes a Drum and Me and My Beaver, an innuendo-filled children’s show.
Along the way George encounters resistance from the straight-laced station manager Robin (Michelle Latimer), who may be falling for George’s roguish charm. Robin’s sister Alice (Jennifer Podemski) is the bad girl in town, while Clifford (Nathaniel Arcand) plays the straight man to George, calmly tolerating the antics of his childhood pal.
Like the long-running CBC dramatic series North of 60 or the comedy The Rez (both produced in the 1990s and both still playing in syndication) Moose TV takes place in an Aboriginal community and represents a rare opportunity for Canadian TV audiences to have access to multi-dimensional native characters that challenge viewer’s expectations.
In a recent episode, George’s estranged dad and local mayor Gerry (Gary Farmer) plays wilderness guide to a couple of rich, perverted German eco-tourists seeking an opportunity to have “intercourse” with Nature. In another episode, George is briefly excited to get involved with a film crew that comes to Moose from the south to do a tacky historical movie about pseudo-native culture.
As with CBC’s new sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, much of Moose TV’s comedy comes from a culture clash between a misunderstood minority and ignorant white people. The ignorance and misguided political correctness of the majority is deserving of ridicule, but the characters in both shows are also active in challenging and exploiting stereotypes.
Moose TV fits in to some of the trends of current TV, with a low budget approach to ordinary folks blended with the enduring popularity of the sitcom model. Featuring an underdog hero in George, supported by a cast of local eccentrics and sexy thirty-somethings, Moose TV has a lot of classic elements.
Some critics have accused it of featuring crude or sexist humour. Like Little Mosque, Moose TV suffers from criticism that it is politically incorrect or just plain not funny, but that is to be expected of a half-hour comedy that looks at racism of all things as a major source of laughter on top of the usual fare of cute kids and relationships.
George is a big fish in the small pond of a mainstream community, and the conflict (and hilarity) that ensues is the substance of the comedy. Moose TV’s leading man is full of crazy schemes: he’s irresponsible and self-absorbed, but like many flawed heroes, he may just have a heart of gold.
