Since there is no Lost this week, I would like to recommend an alternate viewing option that will knock your socks off. And maybe even your pants. But not your underpants--it's not like that. Of course, you could use the time to read a book. But you probably won't, so how about this brilliant televised event of the past:
Slings and Arrows
Leave it to the Canadians to come up with something so good that goes so unnoticed. This is one of my favorite shows of all time. The show centers around Geoffrey, a once highly-acclaimed stage actor who seven years previously had a mental breakdown in the middle of a production of Hamlet, jumped into Ophelia's grave, and ran away. When the series begins, Geoffrey is directing at a hold-in-the-wall theater in Toronto and is constantly trying to avoid bill collectors, but is inspired by the art of it all. Then he gets a drunk-dial call from Oliver, his former partner at the New Burbage Festival, which is shrouded in mystery and followed by Oliver's untimely death by "Canada's Best Hams" truck. Geoffrey ends up taking over Oliver's job "temporarily" and there you have the series.
I could list ten reasons why this series is so brilliant, but I won't do that to you. I'll just say this: each of the three seasons follows the production of one of Shakespeare's major plays (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear), events in the show mirroring important themes and motifs from the plays. A fan of Shakespeare? You will love this. Not a fan? You will still find it hilarious.
***Side Note***I tried to show a portion of Season 2 (Macbeth) to my students last year while we read The Scottish Play and it was a disaster because I could not navigate around the flurry of f-bombs. Needless to say, we had to have a conversation about "mature television viewing."
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