General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story

Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story is a Canadian comedic miniseries that retells the 1988 Olympic doping scandal of sprinter Ben Johnson from Johnson's own point of view, in a satirical mockumentary style. Created by Anthony Q. Farrell, the six-episode series stars Shamier Anderson as Johnson and premiered on March 26, 2026 on GameTV in Canada, with streaming on Paramount+ in Canada.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Six-episode satirical mockumentary; comedy, sports, miniseries; episodes average 23 minutes³
Creator	Anthony Q. Farrell (The Office, Shelved, Run the Burbs), showrunner and executive producer²
Broadcast	GameTV (exclusive cable home in Canada) from March 26 to April 23, 2026; Paramount+ Canada as exclusive streaming platform¹^•²
Lead	Shamier Anderson as Ben Johnson, in present-day interview scenes and flashbacks; also executive producer through his company Bay Mills Studios⁴^•²
Subject's involvement	Produced with participation from Ben Johnson and inspired by research by Canadian author and journalist Mary Ormsby⁵
Production	New Metric Media in association with Bay Mills Studios; principal photography began June 20, 2025 at Dark Slope Studios, Toronto²
Directors	Cory Bowles (Trailer Park Boys, Black Cop) and R.T. Thorne (The Porter), three episodes each²^•⁶

Spoilers

Premise

The series presents what its promotional material calls Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson's "definitely-not-biased account" of the doping controversy that followed his positive steroid test at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where he went "from hero to zero in 9.79 seconds" in what some called "The Dirtiest Race in History."¹ Johnson won the 100 m final in a record 9.79 seconds and was disqualified after testing positive for performance-enhancing steroids.⁷

The show is framed as a documentary interview: Anderson plays Johnson in the present day, sitting for an interview, and in flashbacks, delivering what one reviewer called "a delightfully unreliable narrator" played with exaggeration and bias.⁴ Farrell described the goal as telling the story from Johnson's point of view and making it "a little bit more redemptive," while noting that because Johnson participated in the writers' room and on set, the production required certain disclaimers.⁸

Cast and characters

Shamier Anderson stars as Ben Johnson. Andrew Bachelor (King Bach) plays Carl Lewis, Ennis Esmer plays Jamie Astaphan, Kristian Bruun plays coach Charlie Francis, Karen Robinson plays Johnson's mother Gloria Johnson, and Mark McKinney plays Walter F. Essanpee, a lawyer character. Malaika Hennie-Hamadi plays Khara and Jonathan Langdon plays Spike Fairweather; Elvis Stojko appears as Ivan Torunn.¹^•¹¹ Anderson also serves as an executive producer through Bay Mills Studios, alongside Stephan James for that company, Montefiore, and R.T. Thorne for New Metric Media.²

Episodes

Season 1 ran six episodes between March 26 and April 23, 2026.¹ The episodes are:

"A Rival" (March 26, 2026): when Ben Johnson starts racing in the early 1980s, the best sprinters are juicing, so Ben "evens the playing field."¹²
"White Father" (March 26, 2026): coach Charlie Francis, after his own failed sprinting career, seeks out Black athletes to take Canada to the top.¹²
"The Man with the Plan, Astaphan" (early April 2026): Ben and Charlie bring in Jamie Astaphan to focus on performance enhancement.¹²
"The Race" (April 9, 2026): the Seoul Games, 1988, and "the dirtiest race in history."¹³
"Mama's Boy" (April 16, 2026): Ben and his mother Gloria.¹
"Ben v. Everybody" (April 23, 2026): Canada reacts after Ben tests positive for steroids.¹

Development and production

New Metric Media announced the project in June 2023 as part of Paramount+'s first Canadian development slate, described then as "a scripted comedy about the scandal behind the scandal that brought the 'world's fastest man' from hero to zero in 9.79 seconds."⁹ Producer Mark Montefiore said the project took six years to reach screens and was originally conceived as a drama; when the dramatic approach was not working, he brought in the comedy writer and director Farrell.¹⁰

Greenlight and shoot. In June 2025, Anthem Sports & Entertainment's GameTV commissioned the six-episode series as its exclusive Canadian cable home, with Paramount+ in Canada, which had developed the series with New Metric Media, as the exclusive Canadian streaming platform. Principal photography began on June 20, 2025, at Dark Slope Studios in Toronto.² Farrell has said a tight budget and production window forced cuts to the script.¹⁰

Reception and style

Reviewers placed the series in a Canadian comedy lineage. Rachel Ho wrote in Exclaim! that it "has the soul of In Living Color and the spirit of SCTV," and noted that eight actors play approximately 70 different characters across the show, with McKinney's lawyer Walter providing jump-cut interjections to keep Johnson legally on-side.⁴ The review also observed that the series attempts "whataboutery" in suggesting much of Johnson's competition was similarly doped, while a tender scene with his mother insists the responsibility stops with him, and that it depicts the racism Johnson faced in Canada after his disqualification.⁴ The Canada Media Fund profile called it "a love letter to Jamaican Canadians" and noted the incorporation of Jamaican and Caribbean culture and humor.¹⁰

At the world premiere in Scarborough, Farrell and the producers said the series had originally been pitched as a drama before the absurdity of the story pushed it toward satirical mockumentary sketch comedy.⁴ Farrell said every scene is "based on something Ben told us," embellished and fictionalized, and that he wanted viewers to enjoy the comedy and then think about what it meant for the real person.⁸ Plex listed an audience rating of 7.2 out of 10.¹⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026