Toronto’s Archipelago Productions is using the star power of its latest web series to propel the concept to greater heights.

The short-form scripted comedy series My Special Guest stars Juno Rinaldi from CBC’s Workin’ Moms as herself as she makes a satirical attempt to become a late-night talk-show host. All five, eight-minute episodes of the season are available to stream on YouTube.

The series is directed and produced by Jana Stackhouse, with Nicholas Ewart and Maeve Kern also producing. It is written by Rinaldi with husband Mike Rinaldi and co-star Jenny Young (The Lake), who also appears as herself in the series. The final episode, which was released on Wednesday (Oct. 5), includes a special appearance of singer and actor Jann Arden.

Stackhouse tells Playback Daily that Archipelago is currently in development on a longer 22-minute version of the series to serve as its second season, with special guests to appear each episode. The prodco is currently shopping the concept to broadcasters.

She says they initially shot a first episode in 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so they took a step back to further develop it in-house before financing a first season for YouTube.

“There was something kind of unique about the format of the story itself,” she says. “We loved this idea that the story is best served by Juno starting this mock talk show and the audience is brought along in this roller coaster of ups and downs and failures and wins as a web series before it hits as a TV series.”

The company is also hoping to leverage the built-in audience of Rinaldi and Arden to attract early audience engagement. Kern says the company has already seen a positive response on Instagram to build on the proof of concept, where they’ve attracted more than 100,000 views so far, as well as interest from viewers outside of Canada.

Archipelago has a three-part short-form series, titled Content Farm, set to premiere on CBC Gem later this year. Kern says the company has cast a wide net in terms of the type of content they’re developing, with more than a dozen currently in the works and a team that has “doubled” in the last year.

The slate includes their first children’s series, scripted drama and comedy series, as well as unscripted lifestyle content and a feature-length documentary on women’s basketball.