Streaming TV

In Canada: Available on CBC Gem
In the UK: Available on Netflix

There’s something about ‘family drama’ that brings out the fantasy in writers. I don’t mean elves and Thorin sitting down and singing about gold, here. I mean implausibility, silliness and cliché.

Of course, a lot of that is true for CBC (Canada)’s shows, too, so maybe it’s the fact that Northern Rescue is a family drama co-produced by CBC and Netflix that makes it so daft.

It stars the scary doppelgänger of Alec Baldwin – his brother William, who has slowly over time converged with Alec to become almost physically and audibly identical to him – as a Boston fire fighter, husband and father of three irritating teenage children. One day, family matriarch Michelle Nolden (Burden of Truth, Saving Hope) keels over at home and is subsequently diagnosed with fourth-stage cancer. A quick flashforward later and they’re at her funeral and unsurprisingly not very happy as a family.

Then Nolden’s sister Kathleen Robertson (Boss), who still lives in the remote small town that Nolden and Baldwin grew up in together, learns that the local Search and Rescue commander is looking to retire and she has a cunning idea. What if Baldwin were to take over and bring the family up north for a new start? They could even come and live with her!

The Fates then conspire to destroy Baldwin’s hopes for career advancement in Boston and with his savings all gone from medical treatment, he decides to grab the lifeline offered to him by Robertson. After taking a secondary kicking from the Fates, who decide it would be a cracking wheeze to burn down Robertson’s home just as Baldwin and co arrive, things soon take a turn for the better. Can the whole family be ‘rescued’ by their northern relocation? And will reality as we know it survive the process?

Continue reading “Review: Northern Rescue 1×1-1×2 (Canada: CBC Gem; UK: Netflix)”