Canadian stuff on Telly Eireann

I was just thinking about this about how unlike with Aussie telly, where seemingly every soap, cop show, kids show yet only one or two sitcoms/sketch shows crossed over to the UK, Canadian telly, despite being a prolific market in English has never quite crossed over to the UK, while in Ireland, stuff did.

Ask a Brit 'name a Canadian TV show', and you might get Due South or Degrassi, Schitt's Creek or Murdoch Mysteries, or the Raccoons, and probably some all-US shows shot in Vancouver, but chances are if they saw any Canadian show, they might think them American - the aimed at US syndication cross-breeds of Friday the 13th the Series, War of the Worlds, Highlander, Night Heat, Counterstrike, or various Nelvana/Cinar cartoons...

If Canadian shows were aired, they'd either be kids filler (from the Forest Rangers, Beachcombers, Degrassi, Adventures in Rainbow Country, Seaway, Ritter's Cove, Danger Bay, the Odyssey, and from CTV - Swiss Family Robinson and from Global - Matt and Jenny, plus Huckleberry Finn and Friends) or stuff in late night (the Collaborators, the Z Cars spinoff/remake Sidestreet, various single plays slung out to ITV regions as Fireside Theatre, and a few eps of early Global-era regional four-figure budget SCTV aired on Granada as the erroneously billed 'Second City Revue from Chicago' (sic)).

Due South was a hit, but even that was mostly set in a Chicago that looked like Toronto (when it wasn't, it was set in a Toronto that looked like Chicago).

 The BBC did air a few prestige dramas like the CBC series the National Dream (about the Pacific Railway) and Empire Inc (the story of a tyrannical Scottish business tycoon in turn of the century Quebec, that was pitched as Brideshead-meets-Dallas, if that sounds like Brass without the jokes, well, that's what the UK critics said - ironically, star Kenneth Welsh later played Truman opposite Tim West's Churchill). and US-style miniseries like Love and Hate - the Story of Colin and Joanne Thatcher and Conspiracy of Silence.

However, in Ireland, a lot of this stuff became perennials, the Den full of Degrassi (though it was taken off BBC for being too controversial, despite being the big CBBC show, so maybe RTE followed suit), the Beachcombers, Danger Bay, The Raccoons, Huckleberry Finn...

The reputation of Canadian TV as cheap old rubbish could equally apply to Australia. When Thames (for a six figure sum) bought the CBC's attempt to do a big BBC-style period epic, the Whiteoaks of Jalna (which the CBC franchise in Windsor were vetoed to show, in the fear that people in Detroit would see it, spoiling a US sale - a US sale that nevertheless never happened), it was described by Nancy Banks-Smith as Canadian Crossroads. Canada have tried a few soaps, never that successful, with Coronation Street being the most popular one out there , weirdly.

Having watched a few Canadian shows of the Eighventies which look like British shows, all on VT albeit on NTSC, and they are quite Acorn Antiques. A Gift to Last, a slushy period drama set in turn of the century Canada was picked up by RTE, always willing to buy anything from the Great White North but not by any British station, and The Great Detective, intended as a vehicle for Iain Cuthbertson until the Canadian actors' union ACTRA intervened, which is like a Canadian version of Sgt. Cork or Cribb. Like Uncanny Valley British TV. 

 By the late 70s, British TV, once commonplace on CBC and other channels was no longer thus, Canadian content no longer meaning merely stuff from the Commonwealth - and you tend to notice, runs of British shows for one or two seasons on CBC and then dropped - Secret Army, All Creatures, Man at the Top, Grange Hill, even) or shunted into late night slots for expats (Minder), and these Canadian shows feel like 'we got British TV at home'...

Any Canadian shows we remember from Telly Eireann?