Most ranting and raving and criticizing about television has an implicit
assumption: the rants are about American television. Sure,
"American television" is a weird term these days, since shows
like Survivor,
Big
Brother, Whose Line
Is It Anyway?, Trading
Spaces, Coupling,
and others are reworked versions of television programming produced
elsewhere, usually for the BBC. But references to the original shows or
other (ahem) "un-American programming" are usually offhanded
and derogatory: this stuff doesn't really matter, they imply,
but we're referring to it so you know how erudite we are.
Although I am by most measures a United States citizen and therefore a
consumer of American television, I'm writing now about a Canadian
television program, Da
Vinci's Inquest. If you're an American who happens to receive
CBC television over the air or via cable, satellite, or another of those
high-falutin' technological whatsamajigger services, you owe it to
yourself to check it out.
Of course, if you're Canadian, you can stop reading right now. You've
already heard of DaVinci's Inquest -- in fact, you've
probably heard way too much about it. The show is entering its sixth
season, and it's one of the highest-rated and most-lauded television
programs in Canadian history. Some of its cast members have become
national celebrities, the show regularly sweeps up armfuls of Gemini
awards (the Canadian Emmy) every year, and
Nick Campbell's leering face almost seems to be part of the CBC brand,
right next to Peter Mansbridge (sort of a combination Tom Brokaw/Peter
Jennings for Canada). In Canada, the show is practically inescapable.
But for us ignorant Americans, here's a rundown:
The show centers on Vancouver coroner Dominic Da Vinci (played by
veteran actor Nicholas Campbell), an opinionated, irascible, world-weary
former police detective, as he investigates deaths and the lives
surrounding the deceased. Unlike the multitude of television shows and
movies filmed in Vancouver (which use the city as a stand-in for another
location), Da Vinci's Inquest is actually set in
Vancouver, often focusing on the downtown east side. Per capita, the
community is one of the most impoverished in Canada, and, although it
has positive aspects, it's also a been haven for drug abuse,
prostitution, and homelessness.
Before you start thinking Da Vinci is a rehash of
Quincy, Crossing Jordan, or some show with
CSI in its name, there are a couple things to
bear in mind. First, Da Vinci debuted in 1998 and thus
substantially pre-dates Crossing Jordan and
CSI -- if anything, those shows are influenced by Da
Vinci's Inquest, not the other way around. Second, while Quincy
was an aging wannabe-ladies-man with a heart of gold, his world was
embarrassingly straightforward and antiseptic compared to the legal,
moral, and personal ambiguity DaVinci faces every episode -- and that's
leaving aside the equally convoluted situations surrounding the rest of
the characters, who are very much equal partners in the show rather than
sidekicks to Da Vinci. In Quincy, every episode wrapped
neatly; in Da Vinci, viewers are often left with more
questions than answers -- and many of the questions are contradictory.
And here's another twist: the character of Dominic Da Vinci is based
loosely on Larry Campbell (no relation to Nick Campbell), a
controversial former chief coroner for British Colombia who is
currently Vancouver's mayor. While Da Vinci and Larry Campbell
have a few things in common -- both advocate regulated red light
districts, for example -- Da Vinci isn't simply a fictionalized tribute
to Larry Campbell. Heck, if I were Larry Campbell, the Da Vinci
character would offend me: Da Vinci is a sexist, occasionally bigoted,
insensitive, often boorish former(?) drunk who's all-too-quick to jump
to conclusions, point fingers, and assign blame. And yet Larry Campbell
has writing credits on a handful of early Da Vinci episodes (all
produced before he became Vancouver mayor, to my knowledge). Da
Vinci's Inquest was created by Chris Haddock, who, not
coincidentally, is the creator of CBS's new drama about undercover FBI
agents, The Handler.
Storylines on Da Vinci's Inquest tend to span multiple episodes
and even multiple seasons; some end firmly in an arrest or closing of a
case, while others just peter away, leaving you wondering (along with
the characters) if anything really resolved, or if something is going to
come back and bite you in the ass next week, or the week after... or the
year after. Sometimes, stories do both: just because it's not on camera
doesn't mean it's over and done. Da Vinci's writing is unusual,
top-notch stuff: stories can proceed from what may seem the most boring
of crime-show premises ("oh, missing prostitutes again, ho
hum") to a multi-season-spanning arc as a detective, not without
doubts, risks her career, the department budget, and the lives of her
informants and fellow officers to flush out a murderer. The whole time,
viewers -- and her fellow cops -- have no idea whether she's doing the
right thing, and when she mis-steps (repeatedly), you get an almost
visceral sense of the fears the detective is facing: personal and
professional failure, failing oft-ignored crime victims, abusing her
position, doing the wrong thing, and -- at one point -- even fear for her
life. Unlike CSI, stories on Da Vinci's
Inquest don't turn on the chemical properties of some synthetic
fabric under ultraviolet light after it's been exposed to earwax from an
albino dwarf with a rare liver condition: instead, you're on the edge of
your seat wondering whether a teenage prostitute cum police
informant really thinks she can play two cops against each other, or
whether the next time you see her will be when she turns up OD'd in an
alley.
Some episodes take major risks with format and content, such as when
young detective Mick Leary extracts a confession from a murderer over an
all-night, whisky-fueled poker game, or the lead pathologist pursues a
possibly genocidal effort to sterilize aboriginal women only to find its
perpetrator, now long-retired, still knows his name but that's about
all: he has no memory of his actions. Because Canadian broadcast
regulations are different from standards and practices enforced by
American networks, Da Vinci's Inquest can get away with
things that were exclusively the province of premium cable services or
(very recently) late-night basic cable: the series' first season arc
features a sequence in which a prostitute is murdered by alcohol
poisoning which has to be one of the most horrific scenes ever put on
television. One third season episode -- It's Backwards
Day, initially conceived out of a budget crunch -- takes place
in real time, with Da Vinci at one end of an alley and detectives Leary
and Shannon at the other, and the entire first act is one continuous
take.
Some cases are deliberately annoying. Da Vinci spent a better part of a
season pursuing a bureaucratic nightmare involving the construction of a
parking lot: not what you'd usually consider appointment television. But
building the parking lot entailed removing and re-interning graves in a
small cemetery, and guess what was found in one of the graves? Two
bodies. Whose bodies are these? What's the right thing to do? How to
investigate commingled remains in a thirty year-old grave? Of course,
the developers aren't happy about having their work shut down, and apply
pressure to politicians who, of course, lean hard on the coroner's
office to sweep it under the rug. And some stories highlight that police
and the coroner's office face cruelty, disappointment, anger, and grief
every day, and no amount of law, justice, or money can fix everything. A
man loses his daughter in a tragic house fire which looks for all the
world to have been an accident: unable to accept that, he continually
shows up at Da Vinci's office, politely yet insistently asking about the
status of the investigation into his daughter's murder. Then he appears
at the scene of another house fire where a death occurred, taking
pictures, in his mind trying to make sure the coroner's office doesn't
ignore this case like his daughter's.
And it's not as if Da Vinci's Inquest is all overcast,
rain-soaked Vancouver days and dark, rain-soaked Vancouver nights:
there's a fair bit of humor in the series. Some comes from Chick, a
crime scene investigator played with an almost naive enthusiasm by
veteran actor Alex Diakun, and the dynamic between aged, old-boy
detective Leo Shannon and his younger, too-smart-for-his-own-good
partner Mick Leary easily beats anything you've seen on Law &
Order or NYPD Blue, occasionally with hysterical
results. And Da Vinci's scatterbrained interaction with his
administrative assistant Helen -- played charmingly by Sarah
Strange -- is always a highlight.
Which brings us to Da Vinci's cast. As strong as the Da Vinci's
Inquest writing is, it's brought to life by astonishingly good
actors, who often don't know what's happening to their characters until
they start shooting. If you've seen television or films produced in
Canada in the last 15 years -- and who hasn't? -- you've probably
seen all these people before: they're the character actors who populate
almost every television series and movie shot in the Toronto and
Vancouver area. Seen a silly sci-fi show for kids made since 1990? These
folks have probably been on it. The cast is headed up by Nicholas
Campbell as Da Vinci. Campbell's among the least visible of the Da
Vinci's cast to American TV audiences (he recently turned up on
an episode of Monk),
although he's done an astonishing number of TV movies, independent
films, and Canadian projects (Naked Lunch, Street
Legal, Major Crime, etc.) and he may be most known
for writing and directing his biography of Peter Tosh, Stepping
Razor. (And once you know his face, you can see him slip by in
things as far back as Space: 1999, The Spy Who Loved
Me, and the original Dead Zone.) Campbell's
alternately haggard, crusty, and gallant demeanor lend themselves well
to the Da Vinci character, and he's won lots of awards for his
performance. Campbell's good, but he's the lead: he's supposed to
be good.
For my money, I prefer the rest of the cast, particularly the
"police contingent" currently embodied by Donnelly Rhodes, Ian
Tracey, Sarah Jane Redmond, Venus Terzo, and Kim Hawthorne. Rhodes plays
Detective Leo Shannon, a homicide cop nearing retirement: he's lived in
Vancouver his whole life, but as the city changes he's becoming an alien
and anachronism there: now his boss is a woman, his partner's
"mixing the races" in his romantic life, whole neighborhoods
are going downhill, and he's had to institutionalize his wife who
suffers from Alzheimer's. He's a good cop, but he's a dean of the old
school with some major skeletons in his closet: Rhodes has also won
awards for his role. The standout in the cast to my mind is Ian Tracey -
who you've seen in everything, trust me -- who plays Mick
Leary, a young cop promoted early to detective and partnered with
Shannon on the basis of his technical skills. Over the seasons, we've
watched Leary evolve from naiveté to a dedicated, humane, and
very competent investigator... only to watch him fall apart following
the death of a young female officer, in which he may (or may not!) have
been more culpable than we know. Things ain't looking good for Mick, but
it's great watching how Ian Tracey takes him there. Kim Hawthorne plays
recent addition Rose Williams, a vice cop looking to get transferred to
homicide. When she shows up, you think: oh good, the writers have
inserted a character to play against grey-haired, cantankerous Shannon,
who will dislike her because she's a woman, she's young, she's black,
and she wants his job. And that's what Shannon thinks. But instead, we
realize Williams is a good cop who's not looking to put one over on
Shannon or anyone else, and -- as Shannon's partner Leary falls apart,
he looks to be the one who will be left twisting in the wind.
Venus Terzo and Sarah Jane Redmond -- who you've also seen (and in
Terzo's case, heard) in everything, trust me -- suffer from a
common problem among female television cops: they're too attractive. In
Terzo's case, I had trouble believing her Angela Kosmo was a detective,
as her model-good-looks and first season storyline (involving her
romantically with Leary's undercover-cop brother, Danny, wonderfully
played by underrated actor Max Martini, who you saw die horribly in
Saving Private Ryan) undermined her credibility. But,
rather than ditching the character, Da Vinci's writers
turned her around, giving her a thankless, near-impossible assignment
(investigating the basically-ignored deaths of prostitutes), no partner,
and precious little help. And Terzo quickly proved she can carry
Detective Kosmo anywhere -- and just to seal the package, Kosmo had to
deal with Danny Leary again, this time as the one yanking his chain: the
difference was like night and day. Conversely, Sarah Jane Redmond (who
became well known in the U.S. as the Devil on Millennium)
plays Sergeant Kurtz, who heads up the homicide squad following the
suicide of its former sergeant. Kurtz is very aware that she's a woman
in a man's world, but she's proven an able leader, overcoming her
initial instinct to put Leo Shannon out to pasture, able to participate
closely in a case when needed, yet willing to give her detectives the
space to do their jobs. Kurtz's fatal flaw may be that she doesn't know
enough about her people -- particularly Shannon and Leary. Kurtz was
also the subject of last season's most bizarre storyline, wherein she
became the fixation of a mentally disturbed female neighbor. The primary
thing which made the story compelling -- even possible -- was
Redmond's ability to convey Kurtz's continuing astonishment that it was
happening at all.
It wouldn't be a show about a coroner without a morgue, and that means
pathologists. In the first three seasons, the show's head pathologist
was Patricia Da Vinci -- the main character's ex-wife -- played by
Gwynyth Walsh. As you might expect, the two Da Vinci's bump heads over
both personal and professional issues, and over their daughter
Gabriella, played in the first two seasons by FireFly's
Jewel Staite. Since Patricia's departure to teach pathology, we've had
fewer scenes staged around bodies on slabs, and the morgue has been
headed up by Sunita "Sunny" Ramen, played by Sue Mathew. Sunny
is, unfortunately, the most under-developed central character of
Da Vinci's Inquest: a competent investigator who sticks to
her guns, she and Detective Leary were romantically linked until Leary
started cracking up: I don't think either of them knows what the status
of their relationship might be right now. Sunny is most marked by her
tendency not to rush to judgment: she always seems aware there
are possibilities which haven't been pursued yet.
A slew of other talented and well-known Canadian actors have gone
through Da Vinci's Inquest: Da Vinci's boss was originally
played by Robert Wisdon (oft-recognized as "the pusher" in a
few X-Files episodes); Gerard Plunkett is the new Chief Coroner. Stephen
Miller (you'd know him if you saw his picture!) plays detective Zack
McNab, whose scenes sparring with Da Vinci over alternate theories of
traffic events can be fall-down funny. Although not strictly Canadian,
Matt Frewer of Max Headroom fame did a disturbing multi-episode arc in
the second season (although for some people, anything Matt Frewer does
is disturbing). Peter Williams appeared in three seasons as
erstwhile-but-still-learning assistant coroner Morris Winston, and Lee
Jay Bamberry has popped up as the cocksure Montreal police detective Roy
LaBoucane.
Enough: none of this conveys the essence of Da Vinci's
Inquest. The show can be gritty like grinding bones, smooth and
companionable, utterly unsentimental, and socially conscious all at the
same time. Every episode features multiple stories, although it's
unlikely that many -- or even any of them -- will be neatly wrapped
up at the end of the hour. The stories are plot-driven -- like most
police procedurals, they rely on certain events happening in a
particular order -- but they do not unfold like carefully plotted
tales: instead, characters can spend months trying to figure out their
next move, or have something utterly unexpected suddenly sideswipe
them -- just like real life. Events are inextricably tied to the
characters participating in them. As a result, the pacing of Da
Vinci's Inquest can be frustrating -- on more than one
occasion, I've wondered if an episode had ended, or if CBC had merely
screwed up its feed -- and the CBC's increasingly unfathomable
broadcast schedule doesn't help things.
But Da Vinci's Inquest is worth the effort. The sixth
season is scheduled to start with a two-hour episode Sunday, November
23, and then appear at 9 PM Sundays on CBC until it's interrupted and
rescheduled by hockey, holiday specials, the Queen visiting a relative,
or Mr. Bean reruns. This year, look for Da Vinci to face promotion:
rumor is he'll be a candidate for chief of police, and will have to
learn to bite his tongue and play politics. Also look for Shannon and
Leary be repartnered: my bet would be Shannon and Williams, while Kosmo
will have to decide whether to let Leary sink or to try to help him
swim. If you receive CBC, try to catch it, or at least give some thought
to programming your VCR or one of those incomprehensible digital gizmo
thingies. You won't regret it.
