Series creators and executive producers Derek Schreyer and Karen Troubetzkoy, centre, with series stars Stacey Farber (left) and Michael Seater, who star as a teen couple who get married and move in with the young wife?s parents in 18 to Life.
A funny thing happened on the way to season two for the creators and chief writers of 18 to Life, a CBC sitcom shot in Montreal that has garnered a loyal cult following.
While writing and shooting season two, which debuts on Monday co-creators Karen Troubetzkoy and Derek Schreyer found themselves in a back-and-forth with CBC execs about whether they could use the word "penis" in an episode. "The CBC felt it was too on-the-nose in context," says Troubetzkoy. "So we had to find a substitute for the word. The CBC, Derek and I exchanged a list of possibilities, including junk, pajama python and Pope John Pole the Third, before finally settling on pecker, which fit like a glove."
That, says Troubetzkoy, was the perfect creative debate to cap the creation of the show's second season. . And it also points to the conflicting pressures and demands involved in creating a saucy, boundary-pushing TV series in a medium that is in serious transition, and in a format that faces conservative criticism despite having an audience with more liberal expectations.
Troubetzkoy and Schreyer said they wanted to push some boundaries with their show, but they didn't expect to step into the family-values cultural war south of the border when the show began airing on the CW network last year. Canadian reviews had been generally favourable, but some American critics took umbrage with the show's premise that two teenaged kids would get married, fresh out of high school, and then move in with the young wife's parents. The Miami Herald's Glenn Garvin trashed the show, fuming that "the CW, a network aimed at teenage girls, apparently couldn't find an American network stupid or venal enough to make a sitcom about the amusing foibles of teenage marriage. Thanks for stepping in, Canada."
While the show does feature some frank discussion of sex, the content is generally pretty benign, allowing the characters to work through various conflicts as two couples from different generations would. If anything, it reaffirms faith in family.
"When you see people that young falling in love, and then committing to each other, it creates a strange emotional combination of horror and being moved," says Schreyer. "We weren't trying to make a statement on marriage, but our feeling was that these two characters were far too young to be tying the knot."
For the record, Schreyer and Troubetzkoy are in a long-term relationship, but are not married. Which prompts the question: How many of the show's plots are hatched from their own experience? "Some, but not all," says Troubetzkoy. "We're quite happy to exploit our own relationship for cash."
Schreyer says the second season has allowed the writers to move beyond the teen-marriage premise and let the characters explore new and different themes. "Everyone is a bit more mature this year," he says. "The parents have accepted the marriage. We've become a bit more irreverent. We'll certainly be exploring the gender divide."
This season's premiere has the young couple (Michael Seater and Stacey Farber) confronting each other about how many sexual partners they had before they wed. "Many of the episodes are about honesty," says Troubetzkoy. "Do you trust your partner with the truth? It's tricky, because we want the show to be salty, but also sweet. It's a complicated balance when you look at the private side of relationships."
Schreyer says it's a strange time to be creating and writing for TV. On the one hand, some Canadian TV shows have managed to sell to U.S. networks, which is seen as a big breakthrough. "But this," he adds, "leads some to try to pre-sanitize the shows so American networks won't object to anything."
At the same time, the influence of brazen cable shows such as The Sopranos and Sex and the City have expanded what's acceptable to audiences and sponsors. Indeed, it's contradictory, but America is the country where Bristol Palin, who had a child out of wedlock, has emerged as an advocate for abstinence and traditional marriage. .
"We really thought that by having our teen couple get married, we might not offend the religious right," says Schreyer. "And then by having the sex in it, we would please the liberals. But both seemed to be offended in the end."
Special to the Globe and Mail