Twitch City
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Twitch City was a Canadian sitcom produced by the CBC. The series aired as two short runs in 1998 and 2000. The series also aired in the United States on Bravo, and in Australia.
Set in the Toronto, Ontario neighbourhood of Kensington Market, the series is about Curtis (Don McKellar), a television addict who refuses to leave his apartment, and his friends Nathan (Daniel MacIvor), Hope (Molly Parker), and Newbie (Callum Keith Rennie). McKellar was also one of the show's creators.
The show's surreal humour was popular with critics. One Australian television critic actually called it the best television show ever made. The show was never a mainstream ratings success in Canada, although it had an extremely devoted cult following. In Australia, however, it was a smash hit.
In the first episode, Nathan is sent to prison for killing a homeless man with a can of cat food. (The homeless man was played by Al Waxman, who had been the star of the 1970s sitcom King of Kensington, although the producers claimed that they did not intend for the homeless man to be seen as the same character.)
Throughout the series, Curtis and Hope's ongoing attempts to find a new roommate provide one of the show's major plot threads. In one episode, Curtis rents Nathan's room to a mysterious businessman who uses it to store drugged cookies; in another, Hope unwittingly rents it to two Nazis she mistakes for a gay couple. (That episode includes a Nazi rally which features all four members of the rock band Sloan among the extras. At the end of the episode, the two Nazi roommates renounce Nazism and promptly kiss each other, vindicating Hope's judgment.)
Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney also starred in the series as Rex Reilly, the Jerry Springer-like host of Curtis' favourite TV talk show. (McCulloch played Reilly in the first series, and McKinney played him in the second. The show's explanation for this is only revealed near the end of the series, when Curtis reads a passage from Reilly's autobiography about the host's on-air head transplant.)
Guest stars on the series included Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom McCamus, Valerie Buhagiar, Charmion King, Kenneth Welsh, Hugh Dillon, Stefan Brogren, John L'Ecuyer and Joyce DeWitt. DeWitt plays herself as a guest on The Rex Reilly Show, meeting lookalikes in an episode devoted to the theme "I Look Like Joyce DeWitt". (Reilly, at one point, asks DeWitt about the enduring popularity of Three's Company, to which she responds, "It's the writing.")
In another episode, the world is taken over by cats.
The show was directed by Bruce McDonald and produced by Shadow Shows and Accent Entertainment in association with the CBC.
Twitch City episodes
Season One (1998)
Six episodes were produced and aired in 1998. They aired in two separate blocks of three consecutive weeks, separated by the network's coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympics.
All episodes in this season are titled for the theme of the Rex Reilly episode Curtis watches.
- "I Slept With My Mother" (January 19)
- "My Pet, My Hero" (January 26)
- "I Look Like Joyce DeWitt" (February 2)
- "People Who Fight Too Much" (February 23)
- "I'm Fat and I'm Proud" (March 2)
- "Killed by Cat Food" (March 9)
Season Two (2000)
In the show's second season, seven episodes were produced. The CBC aired them over four consecutive weeks, airing one episode the first week and then two each for the remaining three weeks.