Due South

From Due South Wiki

Due South was a television program that originally ran from 1994 to 1996. As Benton Fraser describes it best:

I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison officer with the Canadian Consulate.

Fraser became friends with a local detective, Ray Vecchio, whose sister, Francesca, was romantically interested in him. Although Vecchio was often confused by Fraser's strange way of doing things and Fraser was often confused by how things were done south of the border, the two had an amazing rapport and an incredible on-screen chemistry.

Due South was originally a made-for-TV movie on CBS, with location shots done in Chicago, but most shots were in Toronto. After the end of the 1994-1995 season, CBS dropped the show. As a result, CTV had to secure outside funding to finish off the year, even though CBS did order more episodes as a mid-season replacement in 1995-1996. The show was canceled in 1996 due to low ratings, with the final episode airing in Canada in May of 1996.

A year later, they resurrected some of the cast and crew to create the 1997-1999 spin-off. While many of the cast from the original show returned, they were unable to secure David Marciano to continue his role as Ray Vecchio. The ratings never lived up to the producers hopes, and the spin-off was canceled after 26 episodes.

In the spin-off series, Benton Fraser returned to Chicago after a vacation in Canada, unable to understand why somebody else was pretending to be his old friend Ray Vecchio. After they finally told him that the real Ray is deep undercover with the mob, he accepts his new partner, and with his deaf wolf Diefenbaker in tow, the two join together to battle crime. They never quite mastered the chemistry that Paul Gross had with David Marciano in the original series, but the two performed quite well off each other.

There is often confusion as to whether the 26 episodes with Callum Keith Rennie are part of the original series with David Marciano, because the two series were combined and presented together in the United States as one series with three seasons, and later distributed as four seasons on DVD.