Satisfaction a mature comedy about immaturity
In an upcoming episode of the new CTV comedy Satisfaction, there is a scene involving ne’erdo-well Toronto urbanite Mark Movenpick suddenly discovering the heritage of his date during what he hopes will be a one-night stand.
It’s a brief romance. Part of Movenpick’s shtick as a character is that all of his romances are brief. But for a show that seems to aim for a sort of Friends-like universality, the scene is unmistakably Canadian.
“I’m coming home really drunk with this beautiful woman and we start making out,” says Calgary actor Ryan Belleville, who plays Movenpick as a self-centred but romantically exacting slacker.
“She starts talking and has a really thick, thick Newfoundland accent. It’s just really funny to see this beautiful woman go to a hardcore, smalltown Newfoundlander. It’s distinctly Canadian.”
He adds, “Although the Americans who watched it still laugh, I don’t know if they thought she was Irish or what.”
So goes the balance of Satisfaction, which debuts on Monday on CTV. It’s a Canadian show with a universal feel, centring on a group of young people living together in an apartment as they deal with encroaching maturity, relationships, career woes and the minutia of day-to-day life in Toronto.
It was created by Montrealborn writer-producer Tim McAuliffe, who has worked on both the distinctly Canadian This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the American hit The Office.
On the surface it may seem like McAuliffe and his cast — which includes Belleville, Luke Macfarlane and Leah Renee — may be a few decades late to cash in on the Seinfeld-spawned era of sitcoms about maturity-challenged young adults and their day-to-day woes in the big city.
But Belleville sees Satisfaction’s relatively simple premise as an indication that Canada’s approach to sitcoms is itself maturing, no longer needing a “hook” to hang its laughs on. “I always resented, as a young urbanite, which is almost 80 per cent of our country, this sort of rural thing. It’s almost like hack cliché. Because, realistically, the average Canadian’s life isn’t that different from your average Chicago person’s life or Indianapolis person’s life. So, I think, in that sense, it’s a very universal show.”
The one-off appearance by a sexy small-town Newfoundlander notwithstanding, Satisfaction is a modern urban sitcom. There’s no Saskatchewan gas station or Mosque on the prairie to add quirk to the premise.
Macfarlane and Renee play a couple dealing with the ups and downs of their relationship. Belleville is the goofy roommate who is constantly hatching schemes and annoying most everyone around him.
It’s a good fit for Belleville, who at 33 has become both a veteran of sitcoms and the standup circuit since earning his stripes with Calgary’s improv pioneers Loose Moose Theatre. He’s starred or gueststarred in numerous Canuck sitcoms, both memorable (Little Mosque on the Prairie) and forgettable (She’s the Mayor).
In 2011, Belleville and his brother Jason oversaw Showcase’s funny but short-lived sitcom Almost Heroes, a broad and occasionally edgy series about brothers running a comic-book store.
And while it’s not exactly Californication, Satisfaction also has a certain tone to it that at least puts it at the same level of raunch as your average American sitcom these days, Belleville says.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel or get too crazy, but there’s definitely some edgy stuff and risque stuff that I think is keeping up with modern American comedy. You’ve got Two and a Half Men and 2 Broke Girls or even Big Bang Theory, it’s pretty adult humour.
“I think, sometimes in Canada, people were pushing to make things a little too chaste with Little Mosque and things like that, which was sweet. But on our show people have sex.”