Mark Farrell of Corner Gas may be nominated for two Canadian Screenwriting Awards, but he’s especially excited about the prospects for This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The CBC sketch show is also up for two CSAs, but this year will face less competition in the ‘comedy and variety’ category, since Gas and other sitcoms, oddly enough, now count as half-hour dramas.

‘I’m glad, because it gives a chance for 22 Minutes to get nominated as well,’ says Farrell on the phone from Halifax, where he is the showrunner on 22 during Gas‘ off season. The show is prepping its last episode of the season. ‘I think the feeling was that the sketch shows are different from scripted comedy like Gas and Robson Arms.’

Farrell feels writers are somewhat ‘underappreciated’ on 22 Minutes. Corner Gas has won the comedy prize three years in a row, going back to 2005.

‘We wanted to open it up a little bit,’ says a spokesperson for the Writers Guild of Canada, which gives out the CSAs. ‘We were noticing that sketch shows like 22 Minutes were up against half-hour series.’

Farrell is nominated for the Gas season-four episodes ‘Gopher It’ and ‘Seeing Things’ — the latter of which he shares with Robert Sheridan. They’re up against Daegan Fryklind for the ‘Misery Inc.’ ep of Robson Arms, which also airs on CTV.

Meanwhile, two episodes of 22 Minutes are up against ‘The Separatists’ ep of the skit comedy series History Bites.

In the one-hour drama class, Denis McGrath and Robert Wertheimer picked up nods for the first episode of Across the River to Motor City. Chris Haddock is nom’d for his ‘Down But Not Out’ script for the recently cancelled Intelligence, opposite Laurie Finstad Knizhnik for Durham County and Peter Mitchell for the pilot of CTV’s suspense drama Sabbatical.

Among feature films, the team of Chaz Thorne and Clement Virgo is in the running for Poor Boy’s Game, alongside Travis McDonald for Normal, Mark Leiren-Young for The Green Chain and Kari Skogland for The Stone Angel. Handled by Odeon Films, Stone Angel is set for release in Canada on May 9.

In the MOW/miniseries category, CBC’s Dragon Boys and The Robber Bride are up against CTV’s Shades of Black. The documentary nominees are China’s Sexual Revolution, Dubai: Miracle or Mirage?, Jonestown: Paradise Lost and Toxic Trespass.

Farrell, who is up for his seventh CSA award following wins for Gas, 22 Minutes and Made in Canada, will begin work on season six of Gas in two weeks. He believes one of the reasons for the show’s continued success is the freedom they get from the network.

‘CTV gives us a lot of latitude…and [star/creator] Brent Butt being heavily involved in the process means that if there’s something that everyone really likes, there’s a good chance it will make it to air,’ he says, noting that it’s rare in Canada for writers to have much control of a show.

The CSAs will be handed out April 14 in Toronto.