Who taught you to live like that?

And so Canada now endures the premiere week for the new CBC shows they've been promo-ing down our throats. We've got some CSI chick to help make the border patrol seem sexy, an Anglo remake of a big Quebec sitcom (hey, it worked great with Rumeurs!) and a Douglas Coupland adaptation (which I am rooting for, though if the lead guy doesn't get to say the same word for an entire half hour, it just won't seem authentic). God bless all of you people on these shows, resting in the tentative and tenuous hands of the CBC.

But the new CBC show I'm here to praise is the one with what looks to be the lamest time-slot, Fridays at 9. It's MVP.

Exactly a year ago, at my old job, I got to see the two-episode pilot, and damn, it was fun. Yes, a show that's supposed to be on the CBC: fun. Big, stupid, nasty, trashy fun.

Here's just what I remember. Old dude on this hockey team's snorting coke upstairs before this big party in his McMansion, bereft he's being asked to take a paycut so the team can bring in this hot Native rookie from the reserve (seriously, a limo picks the kid up and drives him off the reserve). Soon after, party's getting going, old dude makes a toast, then promptly falls 20 feet from the landing and crashes onto the main floor, dead. Cut to a coffin being carried into a packed home arena to the strains of "Spirit In the Sky"...

Actually, they won me over right there. But there's more.

The coffin is set up at centre ice for viewing. One of the pallbearers, a star on the team, impassively watches the fans pay their respects - including a hot girl. He checks her out, she checks him out. Cut to his place with black clothes strewn all over the floor. And somewhere in the corner behind some stuffed animals, a video camera is rolling.

But later, well after the girl is gone and the tape has been labelled, the stud has creepy visions of a woman and child telling him not to blame himself.

Neato.

Of course, there's also the old dude's MILF wife and faux-ballerina daughter who get tossed out on their asses, the coach's son who's trying to reform while wooing a cute smart blonde who wears a lot of pink (in tv, this all adds up to "Virgin"), a rape charge, and some mysterious glowing key (?). But you get the idea.

English Canadian tv has always had a hard time making a soap about hockey, the most glamourous thing this country's got. Of course, the Quebeckers have had no such problem, cranking out Lance et Compte for ages. The CBC even tried a dubbed version of that show, but we just aren't down with the dubbing thing unless it's Iron Chef, I guess. CTV kinda gave it a shot with Power Play a few years back, but it was more a rumination on Michael Riley's character than anything else. Too high-minded.

Like many things the CBC does, the cue had to come from England, not Quebec. Footballers' Wives is a crazy piece of work with enough hot bodies of both genders, backroom sneakiness, humour, and plain old psycho behaviour for everyone. So it seems this gives our Mother Corp. licence to pick up MVP and even subtitle it, "the secret lives of hockey wives".

Whatever works, guys. Based on what I saw (man, they better not have changed anything, which will make me look like an even bigger goof), this show could be the most dumb fun you'll have watching a Canadian show since the dawn of Ben Mulroney.

And the title theme is "Who Taught You to Live Like That" by Sloan! C'mon! Who couldn't dig that?