BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

lemon_magic I've only managed to catch the first season of "Slings And Arrows", but I utterly love it and nothing short of death or the collapse of civilization will stop me from seeing the rest of it. Hell? Hell is being a professional theater troupe that does decent work ("as comfortable as an old boot") without ever being challenging or interesting...or alternatively, hell for an actor or a director is peaking too early in your career. This series takes that idea and runs with it, and there's barely a false note or a wasted moment in the episodes I've seen. The whole show is just amazingly organic and complete in tone and atmosphere. I'm not a "theater person", but my best friend was, my wife was a tech for years and my mother was in the periphery of a noted community playhouse for a decade, and I have to say: this show nails it. It skewers its characters even as it celebrates them, and displays the confounding mix of nobility and hope and banality and frailty and ego that makes up the theater experience. I can't guarantee that someone who tries this show on for size will like it as much as I do - for instance, my father hated the theater and basically made my mother stop doing it after they married, and he'd have hated this show. But if you have a feel for human drama and comedy...make it a point to see "Slings And Arrows".

uslawgal Slings and Arrows is one of a handful of series or films I deem worthy of 10 stars. Although the series has been concluded (and rather well, in my opinion), we can perhaps hope that we will see more from all who were involved in the production.I'm pleased Slings and Arrows found a home in the U.S. on the Sundance Channel. Our PBS channels have a long history of importing British productions, but we have seen very little of the original programming from Canada. Our U.S. networks and cable channels CAN make space for quality productions from our NAFTA friends and others around the globe -- if more of them will live up to their promise and stop reverting to reality shows, reruns of U.S. series, or clones of Law & Order.

Ant_Lan The huge, main and irrefutable difference between American sitcoms and British comedy is that the "Brits" limit one aspect of it, in order to blow the roof on others. It usually plays only for 6 to 12 episodes a "series" but defies conventions, blows its nose at profitability, and exudes complete ingenuity of content.Canadian television often tries to imitate completely one of the two. Slings & Arrows manages the unthinkable feat of bridging the gap. 6 episodes, an unusual "mélange" of laugh-out-loud funny and character-driven drama, and it's just a whole guilty-pleasure load of commercial fun.Series stars a deliciously exuberant Paul Gross as a washed out stage actor, forced to take over the Shakespearean company of his recently deceased former mentor. His task: mount a festival-closing Hamlet, in less the 5 weeks, with an action-movie star as his lead, no budget, and against corporate hands trying to turn the whole thing into a theme park. Oh! and he just recovered from a much-publicized mental breakdown.Trying to 'explain' Hamlet is already no small task, but the series succeeds with brilliance in not only exploring the makes of it behind the curtain, complete with jabs at corporate America and stings at Hollywood, but in incorporating the bard's numerous themes and characters into its very fabric. Gross' colorful Geoffrey embodies the Danish Prince, a man in the edge of insanity, stuck with visions of his annoyingly dead father figure. The company's sponsor, an American tough broad, reeks of Lady Mcbeth's evil trickery -and dialogs ("Are you a man" she asks her accomplice and honorable man of a Brutus). The mentor himself, before becoming an all-Canadian haunting to his pupil's Hamlet, starts out as King Lear, driven to madness by his "children". And the central play's couple, half of it played by a pre-fame and spot-on Rachel McAdams, brings the Romeo & Juliet theme to sweeter yet compelling levels. The rest of the cast and support players compose many microcosms of unforgettably well written moments of dialog, courtesy of "Kids in the Hall" graduate Mark McKinney, himself part of the cast.When all is said and done, "Slings & Arrows" will rival in Television history with high-level gems the likes of "Blackadder" and "Fawlty Towers", all the while remaining truly Canadian in essence, and completely accessible to anyone out for a good time in front of the tube.

em-106 I highly recommend this program to any and all. It's a riveting account of life backstage at a theatre. I was hooked five minutes into the premiere episode. The writing is excellent and the actors couldn't be better. The characters are so well defined, I feel like I know them all. I just watched the final episode this morning and cried hard, knowing that was the end.Is there anyone out there who might have some say about doing more seasons? Come on. I just want to go hang out at Anna's desk.Please.