Geek vs Life

I must admit, I’m probably biased. I’ve been reading Douglas Coupland books for years now. I read Microserfs in three days while stranded in Mexico. I remember intentionally bring jPod with me the next time I went because I remember the fun I had the last time. Some books are just meant to pass around. For me, jPod was one of them.

jPod is about a group of coworkers that have been assigned together because of the first letter of their last name, “J”. The book focuses on their adventures working for a game developer somewhere in the Vancouver Canada area (if you’re think EA Games, you’re probably right.) The book takes a few left turns and bring in a great supporting cast. The weed-grow op owning mother, the cougar chasing brother and the “extra” actor father. There’s a trip to China. An encounter With Douglas Coupland himself and so much more.

Geeky as the characters may seem, they each have personalities, flaws and strengths that are not unfamiliar to me or my immediate surroundings. I know an Ethan, I know a Cowboy and I even know a Bree.

When last year I read that the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) was turning the book into a TV show, my gag reflex kicked in. People more often than not, take a great story which works well as a book, mess around with it and make it an asinine movie or TV show.  Why toy with something that was just fine in the first place?

To have a clear conscious,  I gave it a shot, and rock it certainly did. The show stays true enough to the book without it a being verbatim copy of it. The people are the same, some of the situations too. But you have additional content as well which just makes the mind meld of both the show and the book just that much better. Both entities can co-exist in the same universe without it being a “oh but the book was so much better” kind of situations. They accompany each other and do it WELL.

But life is not without its problems. With about 4 episodes left in the season, the CBC decided to pull the plug on the critically acclaimed show. Not that unusual when you consider what happened to other cult faves like Firefly, Twin Peaks, Buffy, Freaks and Geeks and countless others. It seems that for some reason, cult classic TV shows die young nowadays. Network bigwigs have a short fuse when it comes to giving a show a chance. Then again, airing a show aimed at a young adult demographic on Friday nights is not very intelligent, to say the least.

But there is a ray of hope at the end of this dark tunnel. After a grass roots campaign and multiple emails, postcards and Lego pieces were received at the CBC, they have agreed to rebroadcast the series in it’s entirety and retest the ratings, giving the show a second chance at life. Starting on Thursdays at 8pm, on June 19th, the series will air again on the CBC. The network can be viewed throughout Canadian markets and also in some northern American markets too (Seattle, Vermont…). Pending an improvement in ratings, the show just might return for a second season in the near future.

Death in television is never final, look at the resurrection of Family Guy and Jericho. If you watch it, they’ll make more.