Got the self-isolation blues? Switch on to Schitt’s Creek

TV Series
Schitt’s Creek
Netflix

“Didn’t you once take the wrong baby home from preschool?”, David Rose reproaches his fashion-crazed mother, Moira, during a family squabble over her parenting skills.

“Alexis looked Chinese as an infant!” Moira whines defensively, referring to David’s sister. “How many times must I defend myself?”

Moira Rose, played by Canadian comedian Catherine O’Hara, has to be my favourite character in Schitt’s Creek, a classic fish-out-of-water sitcom about the formerly wealthy Rose family, forced to move to Schitt’s Creek, a tiny hick town they once bought as a joke, after their father Johnny loses the family fortune.

You know you have a hit when the characters’ catchphrases become T-shirts (Ew, David!), GIFs on social media (“My bebes!”) and YouTube compilations (“Moira Rose: World’s Schittiest Mom”).

Time for a confession: I only discovered Schitt’s Creek, which is a Canadian production, late last year (the sixth and final series aired in January) but now it’s my go-to show on Netflix.

I was hooked by episode three in the first season: in particular, the scene where the hillbilly mayor, Roland Schitt, defends the town’s old “Welcome” sign, a painting of a pre-war gent tossing his hat in the air while appearing to hump a woman in crinolines. The interaction between Johnny Rose and Roland is a masterpiece of sight-and-gag comedy.

Written by Eugene Levy and his son Daniel, who play father and son in the show, it’s part of a wave of sitcoms (The Good Place, Grace and Frankie, Fleabag) riding high on the streaming revolution.

I now have a date with the malfunctioning Moira at least once a week. What’s to argue with a woman who declares: “If that’s not cause for alcohol, I don’t know what is.”

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