Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Desperate Houseknaves

It's the story of a group of addicts who are, indeed, desperate to maintain what they have.
Now showing on Canadian television [possibly available in U.S. border states], it's Desperate Houseknaves - the mini-series of life on Maple Leaf Lane.
Episode 1: Scott and John host a beer-and-pretzels party for the neighbourhood's poor families.
Episode 2: Annie announces a new plan for neighbourhood security. She promises to arm the guards at the gate. The guards get water pistols and cap guns.
Episode 3: Ralph tips off his friends to a big deal upcoming. They make a small fortune, some of which they immediately give to Scott and John to help pay for the beer and pretzels in Episode 1.
Episode 4: Judy hires strippers as housecleaners, but won't let a foreign-born doctor who wants to move into the neighbourhood come in unless he agrees to drive the shuttle bus.
Episode 5: Gilles, who lives in the old section of the neighbourhood, says Paul, Ralph and Annie are skimming from the neighbourhood association's treasury and threatens to start a new association in the older section. Paul, Ralph and Annie enlist some of Gilles' neighbours to fight his plan. They send Chuck around with envelopes laden with cash.
Episode 6: Paul refuses to appear with Gilles at a meeting in the older section of the neighbourhood. Steve, who doesn't trust Paul but still wants to keep the neighbourhood together, offers to meet Gilles instead to discuss the situation. Gilles refuses, saying that since Paul runs the association, he's the one that should be there.
Episode 7: Jack, the neighbourhood's pretty boy, offers to settle the dispute, but only if he can run the association. Paul listens to Jack's pitch and promises to make some of the changes Jack has proposed... with his fingers crossed behind his back.
Episode 8: Paul refuses to sign a joint policing agreement with the much larger Eagles Ridge neighbourhood because of his distaste for George, the head of the Eagles Ridge association.
Episode 9: This is the double-secret climax to Desperate Houseknaves. It will be aired throughout Canada on Jan. 23. The producers are keeping this a tight secret, although polls of show watchers indicate that Steve may unseat Paul as head of the association and discover all kinds of nifty irregularities that could send Paul, Chuck, Annie, Ralph and many of their friends packing up their toothbrushes for a visit to the local penal institution.