Train 48

This show is great you, a bit like heroin, you need a fix every day, and you get that fix everyday cause the show is filmed in the mornings and shown at 7:00 everyday of the week. Its innovative and extremely Canadian, the characters are fresh and funny. You'll fall in love with some of them and love to hate others. All and all it's worth every minute.

Train 48 was incredibly boring. People doing bad improvisation and trying to be dramatic or funny or even worse dramatic and funny at the same time. I don't understand how a show this boring and poorly produced could ever make it onto TV, they didn't even have a writer for crying out loud! Actually I do understand they did it because it was incredibly cheap and a Canadian produced TV show. It doesn't matter that it was horrible and boring it just mattered that it was produced in Canada and gave money to some bad Canadian directors/writers/actors/producers. Then the show finally gets canned and they move on to the next horrible Canadian produced show that has no hope of success and no hope of finding an audience that actually would want to watch it. It was on every day and must have taken about three minutes to write. The problem is when you don't have much going on and you let all these actors "improvise" all their lines you end up with pointless scenery chewing and overly dramatic scenes that nobody wants or needs to see just to fill in the extra time.

A group of strangers converse on a train in the Southern Ontario area, discussing their lives, loves and dreams.

Some people hate this show. Some don't. I belong to the latter crowd, but I can see how it can be seen as an unlikable show. I think it has some very strong, good episodes. The earlier ones are not very good, but that's because the actors are getting used to the improv formula, now the actors have it down to a fine science. It's really getting good and dramatic, still having its humorous moments, especially with the character Johnny. The show is sometimes derailed (no pun intended) by its own actors though, through no fault of their own. Once in a while the writers who write the outline of the show, and make the actors act it out should write a complete script; but then again the show's uniqueness is in the improv formula. A double edged-sword.

3/5

It's a shame. Canada produces some very biting programming, but don't look for any originality, cleverness or interest on this show. The premise is simple, a bunch of passengers interact (i.e. talk) while taking a commuter train. The writing attempts to provide a mix of social commentary and ordinary nonsense dialogue (as in Seinfeld) but strives only to highlight uninspired script shortcomings (Hello? Character stakes/goals? Story arcs?) The actors are not bad, but they suffer from inferior lines and direction (this is television, not a play, hence the urgent need for NUANCE.) If I were stuck on a train with these people, I would tune out--which is exactly what I do when I see this playing on TV.

I can't sit through this show because it lacks story structure, drama, action...all the key elements of film and television. It's like a poor soap opera with absolutely nothing going on. While it is symptomatic of the times to see such a cost-saving television project, this show seems to be created without regard for compelling story telling. As a viewer, it is worse than a waste of my time, it doesn't even deserve my consideration. Furthermore, the acting and video/broadcast quality is very low.