HAPPY TRAILS
Ahead of tonight's series finale, Dan Levy looks back on the legacy of Canadian comedy hit Schitt's Creek
For Daniel Levy, who cocreated CBC’s Schitt’s Creek with his father Eugene in 2015, he still can’t pinpoint when he knew, unequivocally, that the show was a hit.
“Because I was so actively involved in every area of this show, I went from a soundstage to an edit suite to a writers’ room. For the better part of a year, I didn’t even see the outside,” the bespectacled writer and star says in a phone interview.
“In my mind, we’re still a little Canadian show that wanted to tell some funny stories,” he continues.
When Schitt’s Creek premiered in January 2015, it was a hit for CBC.
But it gained international acclaim after it was picked up on Pop TV in the U.S.
The momentum continued thanks to Netflix, which added the sitcom’s earlier seasons to its library.
Accolades followed, including Emmy nods and a closetful of Canadian Screen Awards.
But tonight, it all comes to an end, with the series’ sixth season finale and a one-hour farewell retrospective.
Airing in the middle of a pandemic isn’t ideal, the former MTV Canada VJ says, but he hopes the show’s warmth and humour can provide a momentary break from the horrible coronavirus tragedy unfolding before us.
“In a way, I hope that it offers a kind of warmth and comfort for people in really uncertain times,” the 36-year-old says.
The ensemble comedy, which also featured Catherine O’Hara, Annie Murphy, Emily Hampshire, Chris Elliott and Noah Reid, followed the wealthy Rose family who, suddenly stripped of all their money, found themselves penniless living in a small town they had purchased on a lark many years ago. It is there that they bring new meaning to their once materialistic lives.
Levy came up with the storyline after his stint hosting a popular after-show for The
Hills came to an end. But what started out as a comedy, with some mild social commentary, grew into something bigger.
Levy’s character David’s sexuality and his subsequent engagement helped the show shine a light on inclusivity.
“I think when the political climate shifted in America and you saw some of those ripple effects in Canada, that’s when I think people really found the show and were watching it for more than just its comedy. They watched it for the philosophy that we should be kinder to one another and cheer for each other in ways that we hadn’t necessarily been doing.”
Calling from Los Angeles on a sunny day, remarking on “how clean the air is,” Levy reflected on the show’s popularity, spoke about why now was the right time to end the series and what he hopes the legacy of Schitt’s Creek will be.
Now that you’ve had some time to process it, with the show ending tonight, why do you think Schitt’s Creek resonated the way it did?
It was about the idea that loving each other and supporting each other and being accepting of each other is a really valuable thing.
I do believe that’s been why people have responded so emotionally to it.
The show has been called groundbreaking in a lot of ways. Did you ever feel that happening?
We never intended for this show to have the kind of trajectory that it’s had.
Our job from day one was: tell the best story we can.
We really haven’t taken our eyes off that prize.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing to look to America as an example as having succeeded because, to me, we succeeded when this show was a hit in Canada and this show was a hit in Canada long before it was a hit in the States.
Series finales are a tricky thing. What can fans expect with tonight’s episode?
This season has been the only time we’ve taken fan expectations into consideration.
So, when we started, we looked at what fans might be expecting and tried to tick off as much as we could.
We wanted to give them what they wanted, but also what they might not know that they need. I think that’s been the key to all the series finales that I’ve loved in the past.
When did you know Season 6 would be it?
I’ve just been very cautious about not overstaying our welcome.
So I was ready to potentially end after five and then our network came back and said they would happily allow us to do five and six.
I thought that would give us 28 episodes to wrap this story up.
It allowed me two seasons to sit down with our amazing team of writers and start plotting out the beginning of the end.
That kind of runway allowed for us to cautiously and thoughtfully wrap everything up in ways that I hope have satisfied our audience and respected the journey for our characters.
Did you always have a sense of how you wanted the stories of the Rose family to end?
Yes, but in some cases those changed. Some of the stories took a turn in ways we didn’t expect. I knew, generally speaking and thematically speaking and philosophically speaking, where I wanted the show to end up, so I was working toward a general idea. You don’t necessarily want to give people exactly what they expect. I don’t think it makes for successful storytelling to just pander to peoples’ expectations or take an easy way out and do the expected. In researching series finales that I really responded to, the commonality was leaving me with a sense of satisfaction, but not necessarily doing it in a way that I expected. Throwing the audience for a bit of a loop in that last episode is a fun thing. I think that’s what will leave a lasting impression. We tried to do that and I hope we succeeded.
In the special that follows tonight’s episode, director Cameron Crowe is interviewed and he says he thinks time will be kind to
Schitt’s Creek. How do you hope people remember the show 10 years from now?
I hope that they still love it. It was important for us to tell stories that felt timeless because all the great TV I love hasn’t been tied to a particular time period. So I hope people tune back in because they want to feel happy. I think that’s really been the point of the show. Our intention was to make something that could sit on the shelf with some of the great shows that my dad and I always loved, be it the Honeymooners or I Love Lucy or Green Acres. Those were the shows that we looked to in the beginning. So if we can come anywhere close to those, we’ve succeeded.
We’ve seen plenty of shows go off the air and return many years later. Is this really the end?
I think it was a really hard decision to walk away from this show.
I did it because it was the right thing to do for the show and the audience who invested all that time into the show. You certainly don’t want people to fall off.
All the shows I return to, and all the shows that I loved, stayed strong from beginning to end and that’s why I go back. All the shows that I dropped after the fifth or sixth season, I never find myself returning to. For me it was about legacy and hopefully ending the show on a high note. In the future, I hope people want to revisit these stories. But I don’t ever want to close the door. I think if there’s an idea that crosses my mind and it’s deserving of our cast and crew’s time and attention, then absolutely I’ll try and figure that out.
I don’t think it will be happening anytime soon, but we have built a beautiful family — cast and crew — so I hope some time down the line something comes to me that feels good and feels exciting.
When you bring a show back in any way, there’s such heightened expectations that it’s going to be as good or better than where you left things off; so it really has to be a great idea to bring everyone back.
The last thing I’d want is to put a movie out and have it bomb and then have that be our legacy. That would not be good.
The finale of Schitt’s Creek airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET on CBC and CBC Gem. It will be followed by the one-hour special Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt’s
Creek Farewell at 8:30 p.m.
“I had always wanted to hear something like that, and then just completely obliterated it from my mind because I just assumed it was never gonna happen. So when it finally happened, it was a complete shock to the system. And a very delightful thing to hear.” — Eugene Levy on his initial reaction to son Dan’s pitch for Schitt’s Creek.