Canadian television has had a bad rap for a very, very long time. Long plagued with poor production values and excessive, cheesy Canadiana, not even Canadians wanted to watch it. But thanks to desperate need for content on five million cable networks and more funding (often through co-producing with other countries), Canadian TV has really hit his stride. 2003’s Stratford fest-inspired comedy Slings and Arrows was so successful that they’re working on making a new series. Murdoch Mysteries fans were so upset when Citytv decided to cancel the series last summer that the CBC almost immediately picked it up.

And now we have Bomb Girls, which follows the lives of four women who work at a munitions factory in Toronto during the Second World War. Gladys (Jodi Balfour) is the rich girl who wants to make a difference during the war; Lorna (Meg Tilly) is the manager of the munitions factory, with a sad and troubled marriage; Betty (Ali Liebert) is a gay woman desperate to be normal; Kate (Charlotte Hegele) is the daughter of a religious zealot who abused her and so she ran away to start a new life. These archetypes are fairly familiar in TV land, but it’s what the show does with them that make it so unique. The series first aired on Global last January, and was only intended to be a six-part miniseries, but it was so successful that they picked it up for a second series. The show is midway through its second series, and has really hit its stride. Here are five reasons why you really need to catch up and start watching.  

It’s all about the ladies

We’ve all seen the Rosie the Riveter poster at least once in our lives, but never before has there been a movie or TV show that tells the story of the women who stayed home and built the bombs and other munitions for the troops. Most media about World War II that even includes women at all tends to be about female spies who went into France, or war nurses (though I can’t think of a movie or show that was exclusively about the nurse’s experience). Very rarely is the homefront discussed, or the position that women were in at the time. A lot of second-wave feminism’s seeds were planted by these women who were given opportunities outside the home, and yet their story hasn’t really been told on film.

Unrequited lady love

It isn’t afraid to Go There

There has been a lot of criticism of midcentury shows (particularly Mad Men) that romanticize the period. Bomb Girls doesn’t gloss over the bad stuff. A recent episode featured one of the women taking an Italian man who works at the munitions factory because he isn’t allowed to go war because of his heritage, to an internment camp, where his father has been held for several years. Now, I had learned all about the Japanese camps, but had no idea that Canada did the same with Italian and German citizens (and POWs) as well. It also deals with issues of sex, including abortion and homosexuality, in a way that would cause an absolute uproar on American television.

Bless your shirtless Italian heart, Marco

Soapy drama and realistic relationships

Bomb Girls does have a tendency to get as soapy as say, Downton Abbey, with its May/December romances, infidelity, and illegitimate children, but unlike Downton, there’s always a sense of realism and the characters always do what makes sense to them. The show deals with very real issues of the time, and is grounded in the deep bond between the girls themselves. These are people who care about each other even when they’re so different, and that chemistry translates into something you can’t help but watch and like. 

One of many of Bob and Lorna’s awkward dinners

The cast

It stars Meg Tilly, an amazing Canadian actress with lots of Hollywood credits to her name, as Lorna, the headmistress of the girls at the factory. It also stars Peter Outerbridge, who is in pretty much anything Canadian (Regenesis, The Murdoch Mysteries miniseries, Men with Brooms, and currently also the CW’s Beauty and the Beast), as Lorna’s husband Bob, a man who was crippled in WWI and who is filled with self-loathing as a result. Outerbridge is known for playing these types of gruff, emotionally stunted manly-men types, but he’s particularly great here. You may recognize Gladys’ budding war hero fiancé, James (Sebastian Pigott), as Kai from Being Erica.

I’ll take one of this outfit to go!

The costumes!                                                                                                                                

Obvious, but true: The costumes are completely amazing. I am a hat girl, so pretty much every week has me lusting after (and occasionally buying) a new type of hat. Yes, this is a shallow reason, but I promise that if this is the only thing that gets you watching the show, you won’t be disappointed.

Bomb Girls airs on Wednesday nights at 8pm on Global. You can also stream full episodes on the Global TV website.

[Correction: The article originally stated that the second season was six episodes, but it is actually 12. EVEN BETTER!]

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Megan Patterson is the Science and Technology Editor at Paper Droids and currently a Toronto Standard intern. She has also written for WORN Fashion Journal, Elevate, and Salon Magazines. She also tweets more than is healthy or wise. 

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