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I cannot in good conscience recommend, dear reader, that you purchase Slings & Arrows; Season Three [Acorn Media]. You must go out and get all three seasons, and the sooner the better. Three seasons might sound daunting, in terms of time commitment, but it's not in the present instance. This Canadian series, initially telecast hereabouts on the Sundance Channel, consists of only six episodes a season; without commercials, they come to about 48 minutes per. Thus, each season runs under five hours in total. Five delicious hours, that is. After watching the first two episodes of Season One, you will undoubtedly be clearing your schedule for the next several nights. Each season, preserved on two DVDs, is correspondingly priced; the whole shebang lists for about $90, less than a rear mezzanine ticket at some Broadway houses. And you get to — and will want to — see it again and again, with infinitely more legroom in your living room.

"Slings & Arrows" takes place at the prestigious New Burbage Theatre Festival in Canada. (The authors of the series have clearly done hard time, not in prison but at the Stratford Festival. Any similarities are merely coincidental, of course.) Caught in the slings and arrows of most outrageous fortune is, primarily, Geoffrey Tennant. A great Hamlet who went mad onstage and off to an asylum, he returns to New Burbage as interim artistic director after the reigning genius is struck down by a truck full of pigs. (Don't ask.) Said resident genius is, or was, named Oliver Welles — a combination of Orson and Sir Larry? — and he remains on hand for all three seasons, like an acerbic edition of Hamlet's ghostly father (moonlighting as Banquo's ghost). Aiding and abetting — and simultaneously hindering and sabotaging — the proceedings is Richard Smith-Jones, the managing producer of the Festival. The central quintet is completed by Ellen Fanshaw, Geoffrey's former Ophelia and now the no-longer-so-young leading lady of the Festival; and Darren Nichols, a visionary director in the worst sense of the word who comes back each season to stir up pretensions.

New Burbage, in theory, concentrates on the classics: "Hamlet" in the first season, followed by "Macbeth" and "King Lear." Business — that other component of show business — sneaks in and, by the end of the third year, pushes "Lear" off the mainstage into the 199-seater to make room for a megamusical about a lovable drug addict. Dare I say it: a heroin heroine? Any resemblance to the RSC, which favored their subscribers with the twin horrors Jean Seberg and Carrie, is certainly unintended.

Auxiliary players who merit mention for their consistently strong support include Susan Coyne, as the assistant managing director; Oliver Dennis, as a character man/star understudy who manages to keep the curtain up; and Catharine Fitch, as the hardest working stage manager in the north. (New Burbage mounts several plays simultaneously in rep, and they have one stage manager teching and running them all???) Graham Harley and Michael Polley, as two veteran spear carriers, provide running ballast and catty asides (very much like the two men in the box at "The Muppet Show"). They also commandeer the delicious opening credit sequences. Numerous guest stars come along, usually for a season's-worth of episodes. These include Luke Kirby, Rachel McAdams, Colm Feore and a wickedly funny one-scene stint by Kenneth Welsh (auditioning for a role he doesn't get). Especially notable in the third season is esteemed stage star William Hutt, who died of leukemia in June, playing a dying actor who is determined to get through a performance of Lear. Which makes for some chilling, and devastatingly funny, viewing.

This series, in a roundabout way, sheds some light on the mystery of The Drowsy Chaperone — the mystery being, where did all those unknown-to-Broadway authors spring from? Bob Martin, our favorite Man in the Chair, serves as creative producer (whatever that may mean) of "Slings and Arrows," and one of the three writers. He also played a small role in the first season, with an especially effective scene as a business executive taking an acting class. Martin's co-librettist on Drowsy is Don McKellar, who co-stars as that ghastly fool of a director, Darren Nichols. As for those Drowsy songwriters Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, they provide the delectable character-men-in-the-barroom songs under the opening and closing credits.

"Slings & Arrows" is your typical multicharacter TV-drama, yes; but it is a backstage drama as well, with true-to-life characters stumbling through their offstage lives as they live for art. The show is engrossing and gripping, yes, but with a macabre sense of fun and enough romance — all those young actors, you know — to keep things spicy. The action and the interest never let up, through all 18 episodes. Apparently, the third season is the end of it; the final episode, indeed, neatly ties up all loose ends. However, the show's many vehement fans are keeping their hopes high and fingers crossed. I suspect you will, too, if once you start watching. Continued...