“A kind reminder that shows need time and space to lay their foundations, develop and grow.
In the wrong hands, this series would have been taken off the air in its first season for 'poor performance.' Daniel Levy, a 37-year-old Canadian with four Emmys under his arm, had reason to be exultant this Monday after the fiction that He created with his father, Eugene Levy, and who directs, produces, writes and interprets, made history in the most important awards on television.
Schitt's Creek
was in all the pools to win the award for best comedy and some of the acting awards, but no one expected it to sweep in such a way: never before has the same series, comedy or drama, had won all the awards of its category in the awards granted by the Academy of Television of the United States.
The four acting, script, direction and best comedy.
If you add two more that were awarded in previous days, the nine awards in total that he achieved last week crown
Schitt's Creek
as the most awarded comedy ever at the Emmys in the same year.
Such achievements, almost certainly, were not in the plans of its creators when in 2015 this series began to work on Canadian public television CBC.
Levy dedicated a message to her and the small pay channel PopTV on Monday in which he thanked them for a patience that very few networks and platforms show lately and that, if it is basic in television, it is even more so in the case of the comedies.
The cult series that American scholars have surrendered to began five and a half years ago as the classic story of the fish out of water.
The wealthy Rose family loses everything.
They will only keep a small town called Schitt's Creek, which the father bought as a birthday present for his son in a kind of silly joke.
Used to every imaginable luxury, the four members of the family have to move to the seedy motel in this town and start a life from scratch.
In its six seasons, the series evolves into a hymn to family and, as Daniel Levy put it in one of his many thanksgiving speeches on Sunday, "the transformative effects of love and acceptance."
Daniel and Eugene Levy created the series out of curiosity about what life would be like for billionaires capable of eccentricities such as acquiring an entire town.
They tried to sell the idea in different free and pay chains in the United States but nobody bought it.
Finally, they managed to gather the necessary budget with an agreement with the Canadian network CBC, the European distributor ITV Studios and the Pop TV pay channel, owned by the ViacomCBS media conglomerate and in which the series was broadcast in the United States after it started. in Canada.
But it wasn't until it was available on Netflix in 2017 that its following among American audiences began to spread.
Thanks to word of mouth and a small but noisy fan base, the show's audience has grown season after season, something few television productions can boast about.
Between her first and fourth years, the audience doubled on Pop TV.
With its fifth season it achieved its first four Emmy nominations (which did not translate into awards), and by its sixth and final installment, aired earlier this year, the series was already a cult phenomenon that received the attention of the greats. American media.
Adding live and delayed viewings, the last season averaged one million viewers on Pop TV, quite an achievement for such a small channel.
In Spain, the emission rights of
Schitt's Creek
belong to Movistar +, which has its six seasons available on demand.
Since Sunday the series won all the comedy awards at the Emmy Awards, its viewing has experienced significant growth on the Telefónica platform.
According to official sources from the company itself, and although they do not provide exact data on this increase, the episodes that have experienced the greatest demand since Sunday are the first two of the series and the beginning of the last season, demonstrating the power of the galas. award ceremony as an advertising campaign for its winners.
With this production, comedy veterans Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara have achieved the first acting Emmys of their careers (both had won this award as screenwriters).
Levy explained in an interview in
The New York Times
how the new generations now recognized him on the street for his role in the series and not as the father of
American Pie
.
Something similar happens to O'Hara after years of career and roles as iconic as that of
Solo's
mother
at home
.
The success of the series has served as a stepping stone to the career of Daniel Levy, who in 2019 signed a three-year contract with ABC Studios to create series.
The triumph of
Schitt's Creek
corresponds to the rise of the so-called
comfort tv,
programs that comfort their viewers, take them to a safe and happy place and help them escape from reality.
It is a type of television that experienced a growth in demand during confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Furthermore,
Schitt's Creek
has been applauded for its respectful and progressive treatment of the LGBT community.
