Monday, February 16, 2004

"But the mainstream prostitution base, you know, they're -- I mean not literally, they're you and me."

As the Sex Slaves of America controversy careens forward (Jack Schafer responds to the initial NYT article by Peter Landesman, interviewed here on CNN), Canada's media producers weighed in on the issue last night, with an episode of The Eleventh Hour (CTV's paltry response to CBC's far more wickedly intelligent and humourous "The Newsroom") entitled "Cowboy."

When five women die in a mysterious blaze, Dennis goes after the head of a Russian sex slave ring; Isobel and Kamal meet a seriously disfigured boy set to receive a face transplant.

I was bored, I watched it, God help me. There's nothing more pathetic than watching a Canadian television show try to steal the maniacal neo-Godardian East Coast camera work feel of "Law & Order" or "NYPD Blue" as well as the dry CBC cynicism of "The Newsroom" and fail miserably at it. Seat-of-the-pants journalists, sexual tension in the backroom, exploitative journalistic practice, and a dead cameraman at the end.

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