Made in Canada (1998)
Made in Canada is a Canadian television situation comedy which aired on CBC Television from 1998 to 2003. Rick Mercer co-created the program and starred as mercenary TV producer Richard Strong. In the United States, France, Australia and Latin America, the show was syndicated as The Industry. It was produced using a single camera setup.
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Episode 1 - Merger
Release Date: 1999-10-04Richard is miserable as the new production head for Prodigy's Captain Magee show after being fired from Pyramid for having sex with Siobahan on the boardroom desk. Alan is at a health spa having recently undergone minor surgery and now he's announced to the executives at Pyramid he's selling the company to Dennis Weston of Prodigy. Alan plans to retire and return to what he calls his first love, producing films, but Veronica is able to talk him out of it. Her and Richard are able to get the merger to reversed and Alan ends up buying Prodigy instead of the other way around. She then gives Richard his old job back.
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Episode 2 - New Office
Release Date: 1999-10-11Pyramid Prodigy is having growing pains, Alan rents the bar down the street to hold a private party for the staff that he has just given the day off. They run a video tape of Alan who proceeds to basically fire the whole company. What they don't realise is they have also fired someone who happens to be Keifer Sutherland's brother in law. Some fancy footwork, and quick words on the part of Richard gets him back into the company, but at a press conference announcing the new Keifer project, Sutherland announces Pyramid Prodigy does not have the skills needed to produce such a series. As his videotaped speech plays, Keifer's brother in law sneaks away leaving his resignation with Veronica. The press mobs Alan and the gang before they can make it to the doors.
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Episode 3 - Damacles Directs
Release Date: 1999-10-18Michael Rushton, star of Damacles wants to direct, the staff doesn't want him to. Unfortunately they have no choice as its in his contract. At the same time Siobahan wants to spread her wings and try something other than Beaver Creek and so Alan gives her a role on Damacles. Victor's nephew Ted, on a rehab release comes with him to spend a few days at the office, and instantly hits it off with everyone including Alan. Within hours he has pitched a whole New Media division to Alan and begins working on a Sword of Damacles video game. Alan orders Richard to babysit Damacles while he attempts to direct the show in an effort to keep it somewhat on budget, and on time.
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Episode 4 - Buy the Book
Release Date: 1999-10-25Beaver Creek receives an award from a right wing advocacy group for its family positive message. Of course, the whole thing blows up in their face when the Pastor and Blacksmith announce they are marching in the Gay Pride parade in character. Alan assigns the task of fixing the Beaver Creek problem to Victor. He of course makes the problem even worse after faxing an inflamatory memo to the Pastor demanding he not march in the parade. The Gay community is outraged and they announce they will be protesting in front of the Pyramid building. Meanwhile, Richard convinces Alan to option an unpublished book by an author without actually reading the book first. The entire thing blows up in their faces when the book turns out to be terrible, and totally unproducable. Victor and Richard beg Veronica to help them, and she does in exchange for a series of future favours. In the end she gets out of the book deal, and appeases the gay community by volunteering Victor as Grand Marshall of the
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Episode 5 - For the Children
Release Date: 1999-11-01Captain McGee, star of the company’s acquired children’s show is found out to be a wife swapper with his girlfriend while a German executive is given the cold shoulder as Pyramid employees try to sell him Beaver Creek as being “young and hip”.
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Episode 6 - It's a Science
Release Date: 1999-11-08An old business associate of Alan (Murray) returns after joining a cult known as Spirentology claiming he created ""The Sword of Damacles"". The cult demands Alan pay them for using the show. Alan sends Victor to join the cult in order to beg Murray to drop the whole thing. The plan backfires however when Victor becomes ""transparent"" and joins the cult himself. The cult leader blackmails Alan for $50,000 in exchange for releasing their new cult member Victor. Meanwhile Alan is obsessing over his age when he discovers a gray hair... down there. Throughout all of it a mysterious company is trying to recruit Veronica and Richard without the other's knowledge. All the while they are trying to destroy eachothers reputation. We soon discover the recruiter works for Alan as a loyalty test. He reports that Veronica and Richard are the least loyal to Pyramid, and that Victor is the most loyal. But moments later we see Victor with Murray and the cult leader celebrating their scam against
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Episode 7 - Diva
Release Date: 1999-11-15Beaver Creek during sweeps week is 'lucky' enough to land aging fading star Dian Del Largo. The actress writes a new deffintion for high maintence after she fires the director, and demands Lisa play the part of Director. After a mixup with a delivery boy Dian fires Lisa and appoints Victor the new director. Her antics delay production and then has an anxiety attack on set that sets them back even farther. Richard finally calls in the Diva master (Gino Empry) to save the day and get the show back on schedule.
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Episode 8 - Connect the Dots
Release Date: 1999-11-22Alan is thrilled with a new management book he has found and is becoming obsessed with the idea of connecting nine dots with four straight lines (without any of the lines crossing) He instructs Richard to find a way to make Beaver Creek more interesting to the Americans. They decide to add an Asian to be a David Carradine character. The changes prove to be disastrous but end up being a setup by Alan. (Another management technique) Meanwhile, he is leaving Veronica completely outside of the loop leading her to believe she is being fired. She becomes so dispondant she gets drunk with Victor and later sleeps with him. Alan calls her into his office the next day only to throw her a surprise birthday party. Veronica, now even more furious announces that not only was her birthday six months ago... but that she was so upset she slept with Victor.
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Episode 9 - Life in the Woods
Release Date: 1999-11-29Alan decides Beaver Creek sucks after watching one of the episodes against the advice of everyone and fires the entire staff. He puts Victor in charge of directing, Veronica in charge of the budget, and Richard in charge of making sure the program is watchable, and he runs off to play golf, badly.
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Episode 10 - The Christmas Show
Release Date: 1999-12-06Alan's in a bad mood, so he cancels Christmas. The staff rebels against the idea and faxes a copy of the memo to the newspaper earning Alan the name ""The Grinch"". He decides to rectify the situation by donating the normal Christmas money to a needy family he can exploit. Meanwhile Alan seems to be cursed after a group of Wiccan's complain that Beaver Creek shouldn't say Merry Christmas, but ""Happy Holidays"". The needy family turn out to be actors hired by Alan. Richard returns the gift and he and Victor deliver the money to the real Todd family and watch them from across the street as they discover the gift.
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Episode 11 - Girls Night Out
Release Date: 2000-01-10Fed Up with being ignored Veronica lets the entire staff have the day off and takes Wanda and Lisa out to lunch leaving the men alone to panic over the question to the German taxes. The trio tear the office apart looking for the files. After they've emptied all the desks and filing cabinets searching for the tax returns they find a joint and a few bottles of booze and decide to have an impromptu bankruptcy party. Veronica's lunch runs a little late.... all the way to last call. The next day Veronica returns to work and reports the taxes were paid the week before. To make up for his years of mistreatment Alan gives her a 20% raise and 4 weeks paid vacation.
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Episode 12 - Creative Deadline
Release Date: 2000-01-17A hard hitting journalist wants to do a piece on Pyramid. The group is nervous since she tends to expose all of the dirty little secrets within a company, and within Pyramid, there are plenty. Richard coaches the group in an effort to make them seem better then they are. The piece however turns out to be nothing more than a fluff piece on powerful fathers, and their daughters. That information however doesn't make it back to Victor who decides to dig through Diane's (the journalist) things to find something to blackmail her with. He finds a needle and threatens her and orders her out. The piece is then redone as a full hour expose on the problems of Alan Roy. Meanwhile, Alan has decided to write a script about Dental Surgeons. He is so paranoid that someone will steal his ideas he has them all written on red paper. Unfortunately his paranoia seems real when the office temp skips off to NBC to pitch to pitch the idea, and its picked up as a series.
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Episode 13 - NATPE
Release Date: 2000-01-24Alan discovers the healing power of magnets and orders everyone to begin wearing them in their shoes as they prepare for the big television convention NATPE. They Pyramid gang begins working on a new 13 minute daily news show that will stream to every highschool in America but soon learn that Alan's arch enemy is also making his own project. At NATPE Richard straps the magnetic shoe inserts to his arms and proceeds to wipe all of Moses' pilots. His actions work, but not before Moses discovers his treachery resulting in him getting hired by Moses to run his new Bogota, Columbia station.