Three Hit Comedies Renewed for New Seasons

It’s going to be a good season for TV comedy, with three of this year’s biggest titles renewed at CBC. The Canadian TV network issued a press release announcing that three of its most acclaimed shows have been renewed. They are Run the Burbs, Son of a Critch and Strays.

Entertainment fans often complain that small-budget comedies are falling by the wayside in favor of blockbuster franchises. CBC’s 2022-2023 slate shows that that’s not always true — although at the time of this writing, none of these shows are available to watch in the U.S. Still, it’s a good sign for the industry as a whole. CBC executive Sally Cato said: “CBC’s rich comedy legacy continues to shine with this new generation of series that feature original and authentic storytelling, led by talented creative teams. RUN THE BURBS, SON OF A CRITCH and STRAYS provide audiences across the country with great laughter and also, each in its own way, a sense of Canadian identity. We look forward to seeing how their second seasons unfold.”

Run the Burbs is created by Andrew Phung of Kim’s Convenience and Scott Townend of The Secret Marathon. It is about a Vietnamese-Canadian family looking for ways to live life to the fullest in the suburbs, and it celebrates South Asian culture. The series just premiered in January and is already a success, with critical praise and social media chatter.

Meanwhile, Son of a Critch is based on a memoir by Mark Critch and follows a fictionalized 11-year-old version of the author growing up in St. John’s, Newfoundland in the 1980s. Critch is listed as a creator on the series along with Tim McAuliffe, who worked on The Office, Last Man on Earth and MacGruber. Again, this show is brand new in 2022, and its immediate renewal is already being celebrated.

Finally, Strays is about a woman taking over as the new executive director for an animal shelter and getting more than she bargained for. It stars Nicole Power as Shannon Ross and was developed by Kevin White, Anita Kapila and Clara Altimas, all of whom worked on Kim’s Convenience. It premiered in September of 2021 and has been praised for finding the comedy in moments of anxiety.

Canadian TV is celebrating a lot of wins lately, though it can still be difficult to access the shows south of the border. The simplest way to stream CBC shows in the U.S. is still to subscribe to a VPN, through which you can change your IP address and log in from a virtual location in Canada. However, this limits the number of devices you can use to watch TV on, turning many prospective fans away. Right now, there have been no announcements of plans to make any of the shows above available in the U.S.