Durham County: Gushing By Proxy

The Toronto Star's inimitable Rob Salem had a feature yesterday about Durham County, the new, 6 hour pay cable mystery series coming to TMN and Movie Central next week. I link to it because I'm behind in writing something that I'm just thrilled to be writing -- a gushy review. I've seen the whole show, and it's a monster, folks.

Maybe the best drama series Canada has ever produced. (En anglais, anyway...)

I'm loathe to build it up too much and raise expectations too high, but then again, it's Canada, there isn't enough advertising money, so what's the point in not gushing? It's not like it's going to get a proper, American-style promotional push on our second-class airwaves engorged as they are, 24/7 with U.S. promo, like a mosquito drunk on blood from...(okay...enough of that)



I'm not done my own review yet, so let's let an excerpt from Rob's article be my placeholder:

They are coming from almost opposite directions, playing characters who are violently, diametrically opposed, and yet they share so much in common.

Primarily, that in Durham County – the new six-part series debuting next Monday, May 7 at 9 p.m. on The Movie Network –they both deliver what may well be the performances of their respective careers.

Hugh Dillon, the musician/actor who so memorably blew movie audiences out of their seats in Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo, dials it all the way down to simmer as Durham's Mike Sweeney. He's a hard-boiled homicide detective with issues driving him back to the old neighbourhood: a sterile suburban enclave surrounded by ominous, omnipresent electrical towers.

There he re-encounters Ray Prager, his one-time best pal, as vividly and kinetically embodied by Justin Louis, the veteran Canadian character actor (Missing, Hidden Hills, Urban Angel). Prager has issues of his own, not the least of which is that he has recently become a copycat serial killer.

In a sense, it is almost as if their roles are reversed. Dillon, who at a younger, angrier and more self-destructive point in his life was not that far removed from Logo's incendiary Joe Dick, would seem perhaps the more natural choice for the explosively thwarted Ray.

Louis, with a couple of decades' worth of cops and crusaders on his acting resumé, could basically have mailed in the role of Mike.

But, then again, this is far from your traditional cop-versus-killer scenario. Durham's complex characters are painted in subtle shades of grey, a testament both to the actors who play them, and to the uniquely estrogen-intensive ensemble (producers Adrienne Mitchell and Janis Lundman, writer Laurie Finstad Knizhnik, director Holly Dale) that created them...

Louis grew up in the Jane/Finch corridor, raised on welfare by a strong single mom. Director Holly Dale, who helmed the first four Durham episodes (with producer Mitchell finishing out the run), guided him through one of his first major film leads, in the 1995 Canadian comedy Blood & Donuts.

It was she who helped him get over any initial reservations – on the advice of his agent, he passed on the project. Twice...

"But then, having read it ... I was blown away. I mean, I read all six of them in like two hours. And then I looked at the cover (page): `It was written by who? This woman – oh, I've got to meet her.' And then, in talking to her, I really related to what she wanted. This is essentially a feminist viewpoint of a serial killer. And I was like, `Well, that's different.' It just seemed like a character that had so many colours that I could explore."

If you don't have TMN or Movie Central, you're going to be missing out.

[EDITED TO ADD: I should also add, that this show was also developed with GLOBAL -- who'll have second broadcast window. They deserve a big praise-up, too. Good for them. There's enough glory for the quality of this one to go around.]

Read the rest of Rob's feature on Durham County here.