A New Team Leader

Let the fork of friendship delve deep.

This one’s for you Reggie fans out there…

Synopsis (Spoiler Alert!)

Brooke is rushing out for work… on a Saturday. Alice, however, is showing no signs of leaving. Instead she tries invoking their newly hatched deal. Brooke doesn’t bite and heads off alone.

At the office, a memorial has been put together for Cake. While Brooke texts the very tardy Alice, Reggie nominates himself to speak, listing his impressive CV of public speaking awards.

Expecting a eulogy for their dead co-worker, the office staff is a little taken aback as Reggie laments the passing of his most successful nickname. When Roxanne regains the floor, she rallies the troops by announcing that the Martin-Wells presentation has a new team leader… Brooke. The office is understandably shocked. Brooke reluctantly gives a half hearted “keep up the good work” speech… and that’s when Captain Annoy-o goes on the attack.

“Will you be bringing in the cakes?” Roxanne assures her staff that Brooke will indeed furnish the office with cakes. Brooke is not so sure. “How does everyone feel about muffins?”

Production Notes

This another fun episode. It has the most Reggie of any episode. Scott Albert and Josh Budd had a lot of fun writing Reggie’s speech. I especially loved the harried look on Lise Moule’s (Cake) face in the photo at the memorial. You don’t get to know very much about Cake, but the backstory to her character was that she did all the work that Alice and Brooke didn’t. That one picture lets us know what Cake’s life must have been like – doing the work of three people on top of baking a cake every day.

This episode is the end of the middle of the series. The last 3 episodes focus in on the do or die Martin-Wells presentation. It was always our intention to leave certain story threads hanging. What is behind the weird Brooke and Roxanne dynamic? And what happens with Brooke and Alice’s deal? Won’t he end up owing her a lot of pot? And where does Captain Annoy-o end up after being double desked? We left then questions unanswered in the hope that we would get to do more Team Leader someday. Currently, alas, we have no concrete plans to do more, but we haven’t given up hope! If you’d like us to make more, be sure you let us know.

When we first started thinking about doing Team Leader, there were few other series like it. “Cerialized” was perhaps the only Canadian short-form comedy series. Now, of course, there’s tons from Chad Vader to the big budget Prom Night. Gopher X, the co-producer and distributor of Team Leader, is dedicated to making shows like this one, and making them work in a post-broadcast environment.