Backwater curves denote the depth profiles of steady flows in a shallow open channel. The classification of these curves for turbulent regimes is commonly used in hydraulics. When the bottom slope I is increased, they can describe the transition from fluvial to torrential regimes. In the case of an infinitely wide channel, we show that laminar flows have the same critical height h c as that in the turbulent case. This feature is due to the existence of surface slope singularities associated to plug-like velocity profiles with vanishing boundary-layer thickness. We also provide the expression of the critical surface slope as a function of the bottom curvature at the critical location. These results validate a similarity model to approximate the asymptotic Navier-Stokes equations for small slopes I with Reynolds number Re such that Re I is of order 1.