Welcome to the jUniverse
The jUniverse is your gateway into the world of jPod. Follow these links and take a trip into the quirky world of the Podsters. Don't forget to send us a postcard!
The Lounge (coming soon)
Greetings and welcome to the jPod Lounge, your node of calm amid the gaming carnage. Grab a j-Cola and top your previous score on the retro 8-bit gaming classic, Defendoid.
Defendoid
Let's defendoid for the happy fun! Defend your prime! Blast for the most extreme! Get the Win! Accept no loser!
Wikipedia
If you don't like the truth, change it. All the citizen-written info you need to know, and lots that you don't
Coupland.com
All Coupland, all the time.
jPod.info
Where it all began. The official jPod book site.
jPod Cowboy
Call it a science experiement, a woman's worst nightmare or simple sluttiness. Cowboy calls it life. Cowboy goes on endless terrifying internet encounters so you don't have to.
jPod would like to be added as your friend. You have no friends in common.
Kam Fong Blog
Weekly chat with Triad lifestyle specialist and massage parlor billionare Kam Fong. Catch the word on the joyful side of human trafficking, body disposal and how to handle stalkers.
Neotronic Arts
Neotronic Arts: purveyors of the games people play. Come and experience the Neotronic universe for yourself, maybe even apply for a job!
About the show
Based on Douglas Coupland's cult bestseller of the same name, jPod is a one-hour drama series with amusing and evil twists. Ethan Jarlewski (DAVID W. KOPP) and four coworker pals are bureaucratically marooned in the bowels of a massive video game company, Neotronic Arts.
The series chronicles the amoral, lighthearted and often shocking lives of these five "Podsters." In Season One alone, they routinely deal with Chinese gangs, boneheaded bosses, sexual swinging, power lesbians, British royalty, gore-laced game designs and …it's a very long list.
jPod also follows the lives of Ethan's seemingly ultra normal parents, Jim (ALAN THICKE) and Carol Jarlewski (SHERRY MILLER). Jim and Carol are the new post-middle class, now enmeshed in marijuana grow-ops, biker gangs and ballroom dancing.
jPod is ultimately about the new relationships and modes of being that we, as citizens of this strange new century, are creating as we move forward. There is no map into the unknown, but we do have these five kids and a lot of heart and dark humor.
jPod stars David W. Kopp, Emilie Ullerup, Steph Song, Ben Ayres, Torrance Coombs, Sherry Miller and Alan Thicke. Produced by No Equal Entertainment for CBC Canada, jPod is created by Douglas Coupland and Michael MacLennan. Larry Sugar, Douglas Coupland and J.B. Sugar are executive producers; Matthew Chipera is producer. Series writers are Douglas Coupland, J.B. Sugar, Daegan Fryklind, Dennis Heaton and Michael MacLennan. Episodic directors are Mike Clattenburg, Brad Turner, J.B. Sugar, Tim Southam, Peter Deluise, Rachel Tallalay and Kristoffer Tabori.
Cast
ETHAN JARLEWSKI
is a game designer, sneaker collector and jPod's resident \"gore specialist.\" Ethan spends much of his time inserting carnage and violence into video games — but he also ends up cleaning up the lifestyle disasters of his friends and families. When you need help burying a body, call Ethan—literally—but if he's playing 1980s retro 8-bit game, Defendoid, don't expect him to answer his phone.
BREE
is single, sultry, nearing thirty and no matter how successful she is, she can never please her parents: "Chinese upbringing!" Bree is jPod's motion capture expert. She spends her time at work "taking perfect little moments and then imprisoning them on her hard drive forever and ever." Bree also enjoys trawling eBay for fetish items and repeatedly washing her hands with Purelle.
COWBOY
likes the ladies almost as much as he likes mentholated filter-tipped Langleys. He's a genius core-level programmer haunted by his parents' murder/suicide pact that orphaned him when he was ten. When Cowboy's brain overheats he chills out with his beloved cough syrup, Chugatussin—while he pioneers new ways to increase his standing on the Vancityplayers sexual conquest website.
KAITLIN JOYCE
is the most recent addition to jPod. She's a Florida trailer park refugee whose steel will helped elevate her from a teen pregnancy and morbid obesity into an often far-too-perky go-getter in the high tech gaming industry.
JOHN DOE
grew up on a lesbian commune and is Ethan's best pal. He wants nothing more than normalcy from his life to overcompensate for his weird youth. John Doe is part Hardy Boy and part Google and works harder than anyone to keep jPod happy and together. His hobbies include attending double-blind cola tastings and dissecting Ikea catalogs.
JIM JARLEWSKI
Ethan's dad, is an ex-white collar worker turned movie extra. Jim's life quest is to land a speaking role in a film, television show or made-for-TV movie. He fuels this quest with regular servings of his signature beverage, rum & Gatorade: "The electrolytes in the Gatorade combat any possible negative effects of the booze."Jim is an accomplished ballroom dancer and the moment his wife, Carol, isn't around, he becomes a raging party monster.
CAROL JARLEWSKI
is Ethan's Mom who converted the energy from her empty nest syndrome into profitable "lifestyle-oriented basement agriculture." Carol is a devoted wife who loves recycling, removing stains and meddling in the lives of her two sons. Like it or not, she is irresistible to all men, a trait that often leaves her with dead bodies in need of disposing. Fortunately the men in her life are good at helping her out on this.
KAM FONG
is a loveable, generous-spirited Triad kingpin, massage parlor billionaire and human trafficker. He's Jim Jarlewski's best friend, his best enabler, and his regular ballroom dance partner. Whenever you have a problem that's too big to solve, Kam's the guy to call, even though his solutions can often be a bit on the ... medieval side.
STEVE LEFKOWITZ
is the gaming company's "Vice President in Charge of Vision." He's a walking pep machine, an obsessive spewer of trendy management techniques and a disciplined stalker of Ethan's mom, Carol.
