Let’s be honest about this. An American in Canada proved this paper (and, cough, this reporter) wrong by making it to a second season. When it failed to get LFP cash from the Canadian Television Fund back in April, the little-seen six-ep series looked as if it would soon go, like so many similarly cash-strapped shows, off to the mountainous ash heap of Canadian sitcoms. The future of the show was, as we put it, ‘uncertain.’

But – who’d a thunk it? – American went on to cheat death all spring, scoring an offer of EIP cash and a half-million-dollar cut of leftover LFP funds shortly thereafter, completing the budget for a second season of seven episodes. CBC then bumped up the order to an even 10 and the show was slotted back among the net’s Friday night comedies, hammocked at 9 p.m. between This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Red Green Show. It returned on Oct. 24.

Getting the show on air, and keeping it there, has been ‘like Chinese water torture’ for creator and writer Howard Busgang, but he’s happy with the results, despite the miserly orders from the network (‘Ten is the new 13,’ he quips) and the difficult timeslot. Although CBC does well on Fridays, it is often thought of as a night where shows are sent to die.

‘Yeah, it means we lose all the Hasidic Jews,’ he jokes about Fridays. ‘But I can only control what I can control, right? Our job is to put the best show we can on the air. I trust the other people who know about programming to do their jobs. Hopefully we’ll put on something people want to watch.’

The series follows an American reporter, Jake Crewe, played by Rick Roberts, who is suffering through professional exile at a local TV station in Calgary and much of the comedy turns on the culture clash between the brash Yankee newshound and his polite, doughnut-munching colleagues.

Busgang came up with the idea during his 14-year stint in L.A., where he wrote and produced the long-running ABC series Boy Meets World. ‘My biggest influence was Northern Exposure – the fish out of water, the quirkiness of the characters,’ he says. It’s the last day of shooting and we’re hiding out at the unlit backend of the American set, on the top floor of CBC HQ, sitting amid a heap of old props. Someone yells for quiet on set and he leans in to whisper. ‘I thought, ‘Ohmigod. Canadians! We have our quirky ways.’ It seemed like a natural way to go.’

But he didn’t want to do another traditional sitcom. ‘I didn’t want to feel like I had to put three jokes on every page,’ he says, bitterly recalling his old job in the States. ‘I didn’t want to feel like I had to end every scene with a joke.’ He thinks of American more as a dramedy.

Roberts also spent time in the States, at work on a show called L.A. Doctors, and was ‘blown away by the weird alpha male energy’ down there. ‘The joy I have in playing this part is I can leap into that broad, asshole character. But the writing also makes him aware of himself, which keeps him human.’ There’s always a point in every episode when Jake realizes he’s acting like a dink, and turns himself around.

It took three years of pitching to turn out the pilot, which aired on CBC in 2001. The net then ordered a six-pack, which Busgang and director Shawn Alex Thompson (Puppets Who Kill) shot concurrently in just 18 days. The season one pilot went on to win a best comedy Gemini.

‘[Season one] was a beast, just insane,’ recalls Thompson, between takes. ‘Some days we were shooting five episodes at a time. So to keep track of all that, not only for me but for the actors and everybody, was extremely tough.’ Last year’s little failings, he says, without getting specific, have now have been ironed out.

‘Howard and I are out to improve the show by say, 25%, in every single capacity. We’ve got a touch more money and we’re looking at things that could be improved.’ The writing will delve deeper into the characters, and will have longer story arcs, for example.

Thompson plays with a battered pair of drumsticks the whole time we’re talking and, when the cameras go off, is constantly rat-a-tat-tat-ing them off any nearby surfaces, as if the monitors were snare drums and he was Gene Krupa. ‘I don’t play drums,’ he explains, but he smokes, and playing with the sticks wards off the nic fits.

Today he’s working on episode 210 and, on set, Roberts and costars Helene Joy and Timm Zemanek are taking another run at a scene in the Wake Up Calgary! offices, wherein Jake is flummoxed by feelings for his coworker and love interest Judy.

‘This season feels smarter all over,’ says Joy, who plays Judy. ‘Down to the little things. Down to all of the little details. The show’s snappy, smarter, and the characters are much more developed. It’s not just Rick being the funnyman in the midst of chaos. Everybody has their own issues.’

Everyone is quick to credit Busgang’s writing for the success of the show so far, while Busgang thanks the strong ensemble cast. ‘You always have people you dread to write for, or who you write around. But here there’s not one person who can’t deliver a line or a joke. It is, to my mind, one of the best ensembles on TV period.’

-www.cbc.ca