Best Wishes, Warmest Regards

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt’s Creek, by Daniel Levy

It was towards the end of 2020 that I watched Schitt’s Creek and got into it in a BIG way. I binged it like it was my form of oxygen and fell in love with everything about it. Fast forward to the latter half of last year, I noticed that there was a hardback, coffee-table style book being released in October and I immediately squealed with joy whilst also sending a link to my boyfriend. He took the hint and I received it for Christmas which I was so over the moon with.

This book was beautifully curated. It had everything from interviews with the cast and crew members to photography of behind the scenes and the sets, to illustrations and fan art to even letters the show has received from their loving, supportive fans. It’s honestly a must-have for any Schitts Creek fan!

You’re so cool. You just stand your solid ground, refusing to be anything but you.

Moira Rose (to Stevie Budd)

The first section of the book is comprised of a collection of pieces of writing on each character, written by the actors who play that character (so Annie Murphy writes about Alexis Rose); which I enjoyed reading so much. All of the writing in this book was amazing but reading the amount of thought that went into becoming these characters was really quite fascinating. There was also part of this section that introduced the town of Schitt’s Creek, or more so the sets, as a character too. The amount of thought that went into every single detail about the sets, even those that were seemingly small and insignificant, was just astounding to me. There were also interviews with the crew members throughout, discussing their reasoning for certain backdrops and decisions they made that turned out to be iconic for the show. For me that’s the decor of the Rosebud Motel, that blue/teal accent wall gets my diy heart aflutter.

The rest of the book was broken down into seasons, touching on certain episodes while going into more depth with others. They didn’t touch on every single episode but I’m pretty sure they got all the iconic ones and even some of the ones I found to be more underrated. These sections were comprised of breakdowns of the episodes and scenes, including original scripts, behind the scenes facts and photography. I think the interviews included were probably my favourite written parts of the book. Reading the dynamic between certain actors, or the actors and crew members, really made me realise why Schitt’s Creek turned out in the amazing way that it has. They just got everything SO right.

Out of the episode breakdowns, I’d say I enjoyed the one with Patrick coming out to his parents the most. It was lovely to read about the process of creating that episode, and reading how delicate and thoughtful they wanted to be while approaching it. Other’s I enjoyed were The Hike and reading about the origins of those four gold rings, and then also the creation of ‘Building the Show Within a Show‘ (Cabaret). I also loved reading the behind the scenes details about ‘the’ dress and the chaos surrounding that, as well as how they created the iconic Papal-inspired look.

I can’t forget also that all the above mentioned was littered with illustrations and fan art on all facets of Schitt’s Creek. I don’t want to spoil it all but I can’t help but list some below:

• The book titles of Schitt’s Creek, and who they’re read by throughout; think Stevie sitting at her desk (really nice little Easter eggs I try to catch now when I rewatch).
• Moriacabulary: all those great little words she comes out with, like bébé, Podunk, pettifogging, and jabberwocky (which happens to be my favourite poem so I really love that they used this word).
• A breakdown of the Jazzagals performances.
• The complete collection of Moira’s wigs – in beautiful watercolour illustrations.
• The world according to David Rose – what is correct and incorrect.
• The complete looks of Moira Rose – we’re talking every single look. That’s a lot of black and white!
• A world map of ‘The Adventures of Alexis Rose’, with numbered locations and her one-liner references to them (just as hilarious in writing as on the screen).
• David Roses complete collection of knits… amazing how they all fit in that custom built wooden trunk that Mutt built him.

I’m sure there’s so much more I missed but this book was just well and truly gorgeous to me. I absolutely loved it and cannot recommend it enough to fellow Schitt’s Creek fans (also if they wanna be friends with me and have long-winded discussions about it, hit me up!).

Also, if you are a fan and you haven’t noticed (highly unlikely) there’s a documentary-styled show on Netflix under the same title as this book, Best Wishes, Warmest Regards, which also goes through the making of the show but in quite an intimate, moving way. I could’ve cried at multiple times throughout it so I’d recommend that also.

Let me know what you thought of this book, and the documentary too.

Cheerio for now!