Observations Behind the scenes at the Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays finale live-stream

Last night, as part of a contest/ad buy we arranged with the producers of the CBC sitcom Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays, we were invited to a special “group therapy” event that was streamed on the CBC’s website following the season one finale episode. Basically, this was one of those post-show wrap-up things you see all the time on MTV, where people on reality shows shed light on why they did what they did and demystify why they called so-and-so a such-and-such, except not filmed before a huge live studio audience and much funnier.

In attending, there was some loosely defined, hazy expectation that we’d “cover” the event. But really, what’s to cover? We took part in a contest where the grand prize was a meet-and-greet with the cast and crew of Michael Tuesdays & Thursdays (Bob Martin, Matt Watts, Tommie-Amber Pirie, and Don McKellar) and then they held this live-stream thing and our contests winners (Joel and Michelle, from Montreal; both very nice and both big fans of the show) showed up with “CONTEST WINNER” buttons that they’d made themselves. The producers furnished no fewer than six varieties of cheese, a bunch of wine, and some fruit-cocktail kebab things where a big, long toothpick was speared through some pineapples, grapes, and strawberries. To trump it up would read like blatant advertorial—which we were already nervous enough about when we interviewed McKellar about the series, despite genuinely liking the show and being interested in speaking to McKellar. It was nice. And even edifying (Don McKellar gave us a brief lesson in “hipster semiotics” in response to our Beaver Hour Index piece on Twitch City). But it’s not really a story in the same way that the Canada’s Top Ten announcement or a bus getting stuck under the Dufferin underpass is a story.

But, what this does offer an occasion to do is really consider Michael Tuesdays & Thursdays, a show which is really pretty good, and exceptional in a lot of respects. Not old enough to qualify for the Beaver Hour Index treatment, and lacking any CanCon-centric T.V. Club to index letter-graded reviews of Being Erica and Flashpoint, Michael Tuesdays & Thursdays may otherwise slip through the cracks here at The A.V. Club, which would be too bad, because it manages to say a lot of interesting things about the climate of contemporary television, at least as we perceive it. Also, it’s funny.

Television seems to have gotten a lot more, let’s say, attitudinal in the post-HBO era. Like the auteur in cinema (or “the author” in literature), good TV now seems to derive from the singular visions of a creator/executive producer-as-artist. Even NBC’s popular, head-of-the-pack ensemble cast sitcoms (30 Rock, The Office, Parks And Recreation, Community) draw a lot of their power from their idiosyncrasy. (The Atlantic recently made a nice connection between the convincing folksiness of Parks And Rec and one of executive producer Greg Daniels’ other co-creations, King Of The Hill.) The appreciation of these kinds of comedies—as well as stuff like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bored To Death, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, etc.—seems less contingent on the jokes (though there are plenty) then on the viewer’s capacity to identify with the characters. HBO pushes Curb and its creator/star Larry David’s vision of kvetching misanthropy with taglines like, “Deep down, you know you’re him.” Likewise, Always Sunny seems to have further and further sketched its principals as caricatures of themselves, in order to make the patterns of identification even easier. Are you a Mac? Or a Dennis? Maybe a Jonathan Ames? (We hope not.)

And there's our lucky contest winners in the middle.Allen Martin, courtesy CBC.

Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays is, in some ways, of a piece with these shows. Its two main characters, terminal neurotic Michael (Watts) and his fusspot cognitive-behavioural therapist, Dr. David Storper (Martin), are differently flawed—Michael’s psychoses are, by design, comically small-potatoes, while Dr. Storper’s determinedly careerist ambitions are held in check by his own hang-ups—while remaining likable. But if there’s one thing that differentiates, even elevates, it from its American cousins, it’s that it’s splendidly unhip. The dry, back-and-forth patter between Watts and Martin (the gang assembled on the couch for the post-finale wrap-up steam repeatedly cited Bob Newhart’s sitcoms, and the influence is apparent) is clever, confident, and often hilarious, but it never really seems “cool.” Which is good. In Canada, it’s hard to try and be cool without seeming desperate to be cool.

Instead, a lot of the charm of the show derives from how convincingly neurotic it is. Neither Michael nor Dr. Storper are supposed to be totems of viewer empathy, like Larry David’s “Larry David” who says all the things we’re all thinking, or Jonathan Ames’ streamlined, prettified version of himself on Bored To Death. Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays is a rare kind of contemporary TV show in that it makes us root for its characters, instead of want to be them. Because the character’s flaws are flaws, not necessarily quirks or traits that totally endear them to us, there’s a legitimate desire to see them improve. The show’s ability to stymie this improvement—for the show to endure the characters must be neurotic, as neurosis is the premise of the show (call it the Gilligan’s Island or Star Trek: Voyager paradox)—while also carefully developing its characters towards something seems unique. It may be old hat and “sitcom-y.” But that is itself kind of nice, when all sitcoms of quality are supposed to draw their power from high-minded nihilism (Curb, Always Sunny) or high-minded wackiness (30 Rock, Always Sunny). And, like all Canadian films/TV/whatever, Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays can’t help but seem believably earnest.

At some point during the group therapy live-stream event last night, questions from people on Twitter and Facebook began rolling in. One came from the aunt of Tommie-Amber Pirie (who plays Dr. Storper’s hapless receptionist and Michael’s love interest, Claire). “That’s my aunt!” Pirie exclaims, and it’s funny and, of course, quaint. Instructive, even. Because really, no matter how funny or sharply written, even the best of CBC sitcoms seem produced and subsidized just so aunts at home can feel that swell of pride. Maybe even an entire captive nation of aunts at home. After all, they’re paying for it.

This quaintness and earnestness has even defined the producer’s approach to selling Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays. They pitch it (as in ads which have draped this site for the past month or so) as “the best sitcom nobody’s watching,” a line which was repeated by various critical bodies previewing last night’s finale. (Andrew Ryan at The Globe hailed it as “the great Canadian sitcom,” while also working in an incidental reference to Nobody Waved Good-bye. Our CanCon readings are off the charts!) The argument is that Canadian entertainment has to stand on its own, as if that’s even really feasible in a nation suffused by foreign entertainment and similarly plagued by a homegrown suspicion towards our own culture.

Last night, the Michael crew announced that it’s currently working on its second season. Watts even joked that he wanted to do an episode where Michael and Dr. Storper travel back in time to cure Napoleon of his Napoleon complex, which we would only certify the show’s unabashedly sitcom-y roots by moving into high-concept “Stefan Urquelle” territory. Really though, we just hope that the show keeps on an even keel, developing its characters and humour with the mannered degree of believability it exhibited in the first season. And keep enticing that cult audience, CBC, because everyone loves a great-little-show-that-could—even though a great show that just is, outgrown of its own neuroses and inferiority complexes, might be better.