Information AboutDue South |
''Due South'' is an award-winning Canadian television police drama created by Paul Haggis and produced by Alliance Communications (now part of Alliance Atlantis ), first airing in 1994 . It followed the adventures of a fictional Mountie Benton Fraser and his Wolf companion Diefenbaker , living and working in Chicago . Fraser's methods, usually more sensitive and understanding than is typical for police work, gave the series a reputation for well-rounded characters. HISTORY ''Due South'' originally debuted as a made-for-television movie aired on CTV in Canada and CBS in the United States . After higher than anticipated ratings, ''Due South'' was turned in to a continuing drama series with its first season launching late in 1994 . It was the first Canadian-made series to earn a prime-time slot on a major U.S. network. After the first season, CBS cancelled the series, but due to the shows success in Canada and the United Kingdom, the production company raised sufficient money for a second series which ran from 1995 - 1996 . The show was once again shown on CBS in late 1995, but again in 1996 CBS refused to renew the series. After a one year hiatus, CTV revived the series in 1997 with international investment, and it ran for two further seasons until 1999 . In the United States, seasons three and four were packaged together as a single third season for Syndication . The post-1997 episodes could be considered a Spinoff from the original series, but were in fact titled as ''Season Three'' and ''Season Four'' of the original series. Although ''Due South'' was never a hit in the United States, it was one of the highest-rated regular series ever aired on a Canadian network. In the UK ''Due South'' is currently being shown on ITV3 . STORY OVERVIEW The basic premise of the series is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable named Benton Fraser ( Paul Gross ) who, accompanied by his deaf half- Wolf , Diefenbaker , goes to Chicago to solve the murder of his father. The investigation leads Fraser to uncover a plot by a damming company that is slowly killing the environment. This uncovering leads to the dam being shut down and many people losing their jobs. He also implicates members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the affair. This along with the loss of so many people's jobs makes him decide that he is not wanted in Canada and he decides to stay in Chicago. This whole plot line is very often brushed over as he often states,
His partner in Chicago is Ray Vecchio ( David Marciano ), a tough, streetwise cop. Marciano did not appear in the post-1997 episodes, save for the first and last episode, but was replaced by Callum Keith Rennie as Stanley Raymond Kowalski, a detective who was under orders to ''impersonate'' Vecchio while the real Vecchio was undercover, an interesting parody of the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome . Marciano did return for the series finale, in which Vecchio ran off to Florida with Kowalski's ex-wife. The show falls somewhere between a cop show and a comedy show. Although superficially following the police drama format, the comedy derives from the outrageous plots, the self-mocking Canadian and American Stereotype s, and the occasional fantasy elements (such as the regular visits paid to Fraser by the ghost of his dead father), all played with absolute Deadpan by the actors. Much of the comedy, as well as setting much of the tone of the show, was provided by Fraser's supernormal detective ability. For instance, in one episode, Fraser tracks down a suspect by smelling the breath of a rat to detect which brand of cooked ribs it had been eating. CAST Main cast
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