The final episode of Royal Canadian Air Farce aired yesterday.
The episode opened with a fairly promising introduction featuring a mass of past cast members reminiscing on the fact Air Farce has been around making fun of politicians for the past 35 years. However, it followed up with a less-than-funny skit making fun of Stephane Dion and a only slightly better one about the coalition before moving into a much better one in black and white about the economy. Other subjects included more stuff on the economy, Guitar Hero (“I don’t know what real friends are, but I’m pressing buttons on my fake guitar”), the coalition, Peter Mansbridge (20 years; over 5000 episodes; order your boxed set today!), Obama, Hillary Clinton, James Bond (in Quantum of Canada), the Olympics, boxing and Bush.
The first word that comes to mind is “mediocre,” followed by “embarrassing.” The final episode didn’t go out with a bang, but trailed off in the way that so much TV does – into the abyss of, “What else is on?” Perhaps this is why the episode aired at 8 p.m. instead of 11. On the other hand, Despite being stylistically old-school, it still managed to pull in 770,00 viewers a night, which makes the reasons for cutting it a little dubious. As John Doyle wrote in the Globe and Mail,
“I doubt if there’s a broadcaster on Earth that would terminate a surefire hit in the way that CBC is letting Air Farce go. I suspect the situation surrounding the end of the show is complicated by divergent undertows in Canada and at the CBC itself. One of the unfortunate characteristics of CBC management is the knee-jerk need to erase the recent past. [...] Also, I think the current bosses are a tad embarrassed by the old-fashioned humour of Air Farce. It isn’t hip; it’s just popular. The audience for the show is older than the one desired by CBC these days and, as the bosses see it, the audience will probably be dead soon anyway.”
Personally, I stopped watching once John Morgan left the show. Regardless of whether or not ending it was a good idea on the part of CBC, it’s always better when something ends before it starts to go stale, and even though Air Farce ended with a sad little fizz instead of a bang, I’m sorry to see it go.