And that's a wrap — before it even really began. The Star reports this morning that Lake Shore, the would-be reality TV series, has called it quits after producers were unable to secure a deal with a television network to air the show. I'd been waiting for just such an announcement to be made given that the controversy-courting show had become all but silent in recent months.

"I am sorry to say this, but it's over... We became victims of circumstances. It was no one's fault, this is just the way business is," reads defeated producer Maryam Rahimi's email to the cast. Short of those involved with the project, does anyone think this is bad news? Predictable and derivative in the worst of ways, though the show might have solicited an audience eager to see just how awful it was, in one way or another it would have been an embarrassment to Toronto.

The show's desire "to answer the question what happens when eight vibrant and volatile twenty-something Torontonians from different backgrounds, cultures and sexual orientations shack up," always seemed a perverted way to explore Toronto's diversity, and the attempts to harvest a network deal out of prejudicial statements made by the cast appear to have ultimately backfired.

Joey Violin (labeled "the Italian" on the show) told the Star that he thinks the idea for the series was "too controversial for Canada." There might be some truth to that. When a cast member made an Anti-Semitic remark in an audition tape, a brief flurry of outrage ensued. On the other hand, most people saw that move for what it was: a transparent attempt to generate attention for a web series that had yet to make it onto the mainstream radar. Whatever reach Lake Shore had, it was always way overstated. And rather than controversy, it's quite possible that no network took a chance on the show because it just didn't strike them as a money-making opportunity.