Top 10 Canadian TV shows of the decade

I am not GLUED to the TV set but will make time to watch......

5. Corner Gas (2004 – 2009)
With the success of Brent Butt’s half-hour comedy about wacky small-town Saskatchewan residents, we saw how Canadians can step into the breach and do things the U.S. isn’t doing—in this case, rural comedy. The show also took techniques that had become common in U.S. single-camera comedy, like sudden cutaways and flashbacks, and brought them into the Canadian mainstream. It was about a place where life moves slowly, but it helped Canadian shows move a lot faster.

3. Trailer Park Boys (2001 – 2008)
One of the most influential and successful comedy shows of the era, this mock-documentary show about a bunch of beer-swilling lowlifes premiered in 2001, leading to a seven-season run and two films. In mining comedy from the adventures of people who are basically horrible, it preceded shows like It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and it was doing fake documentary comedy before Arrested Development and The Office made it cool again.

6. The Hour (2005 – )
Though The Rick Mercer Report was the ‘00s most obvious answer to The Daily Show, George Stroumboulopoulos comes closer to matching Jon Stewart’s appeal: a comedian and “personality” performer conducting interviews with many serious, earnest people. After years of interviewers who were totally serious and earnest themselves, or talk-show hosts who only interviewed second-rank entertainers, seeing “Strombo” chat it up with James Cameron or Barbara Walters demonstrated that Canadian talk shows could successfully follow the U.S. template.