Citytv trying to Quon unsuspecting viewers, CRTC

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This article was published 15/10/2011 (5116 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sometimes, eating a meal is a delectable gourmet experience. Other times, it’s just a matter of consuming whatever it takes to fill a hungry hole.

In TV terms, Citytv’s new “reality” series The Quon Dynasty is most definitely the latter — a bland, overdone serving of what the Canadian channel requires to satisfy the federal broadcast regulator’s appetite for home-made content.

The Quon Dynasty, which premieres Sunday at 8:30 p.m. on Citytv, purports to follow the real-life adventures of the Edmonton-based Quon family, owners of a popular Chinese eatery called The Lingnan (followers of Food Network programming will recognize the Quons from their season on that cable outlet’s CanCon concoction Family Restaurant).

The series focuses on the at-work antics and family interactions of the Quon clan — eldest son Miles, The Lingnan’s ambitious manager; ever-present parent Amy, who serves as the restaurant’s hostess and conscience; Kinman, the family patriarch and The Lingnan’s traditional but easy-going owner; Mandy, the Quons’ decidedly princessly only daughter, who works weekends; and Marty, the younger son who’s considered a slacker despite holding down a full-time job while helping out at the restaurant.

The series’ stated intention is to follow the Quons through their day-to-day lives as business owners and members of a family with deep ethnic roots, but it’s clear from the outset that there’s very little that looks or feels real or unscripted about this “reality-TV” show.

The scenes involving the Quons going about their daily tasks seem anything but spontaneous — in every case, it’s clear that a situation has been pre-arranged and the players involved have been directed to act out conversations related to the chosen topic.

This is as charitable as it can be stated: as actors, the Quons make good restaurateurs.

Scenes such as mom Amy’s near-hysterical reaction to the news that Mandy has decided to go skydiving, or workaholic Miles’s wide-eyed wonder at being taken to a burlesque club by some car enthusiasts who frequent the restaurant, are so painfully contrived and poorly performed that they’re actually hard to watch.

The requisite reality-TV “confessional” sequences — in which the Quons sit in front of a camera and debrief what’s happening in each episode, are similarly awkward.

In short, The Quon Dynasty is neither appetizing nor satisfying. Watch it once, and it’s guaranteed you won’t have a hankering to watch it again half an hour later… or, probably, ever.

— — —

Given the quick turnaround involved in getting it on the air, it’s not surprising that the Discovery Channel special iGenius: How Steve Jobs Changed the World was not available for preview. But it’s certainly worth mentioning, considering the impact its subject has had on the way 21st-century society works, learns, communicates and interacts.

The hour-long tribute, hosted by Mythbusters‘ Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, will include interviews with people who worked closely with Jobs throughout his impressive career, including Lee Felsenstein, a founding member of the Homebrew Computer Club, Daniel Kottke, a close friend and traveling companion who became an early Apple employee, and John Draper, an engineer who gave Jobs his start in the tech world.

Also featured in the special, which will be simulcast with Discovery’s U.S. channel and then broadcast on the specialty network’s international outlets in 210 countries worldwide, are former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, New York Times journalist Joe Nocera and musician Stevie Wonder.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

TV PREVIEW

The Quon Dynasty

Featuring Miles Quon, Amy Quon, Kinman Quon, Mandy Quon and Marty Quon

Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

Citytv

one star