Border cops, hockey wives highlight CBC winter season

CBC Television is heating up its winter lineup with a gritty drama about immigration police and a steamy series about the women in the lives of hockey players.

On Tuesday, the public broadcaster unveiled 12 new shows planned to air beginning in January, including three new drama series, a new sitcom and a new reality TV show.

The cast of JPod, from left, Torrance Coombs, David Kopp, Emilie Ullerup, Ben Ayres and Steph Song.
(CBC)

The four series to be launched on CBC are:

• The Border, a fast-paced cop thriller set in the fictional Immigration and Customs Security Squad in Toronto.
• JPod, a comedy series based on the novel by Douglas Coupland.
• MVP, a drama centred on a fictional NHL franchise, and the wives and puck bunnies in their lives.
• Sophie, a comedy series about a modern career woman trying to juggle single motherhood, running a business and a menagerie of oddball friends.

The Border takes stories ripped from the headlines — including tales of drug trafficking, deportation, illegal immigrants and the war on terror — and turns them into a series of one-hour stories.

The Border's cast, from left, includes Graham Abbey, Mark Wilson, James McGowan, Jim Codrington, Jonas Chernick, Nazneen Contractor, Sofia Milos and Catherine Disher.
(CBC)

The series, created by Peter Raymont, who directed the 2004 documentary Shake Hands With the Devil, stars James McGowan as head of the Toronto-based ICS Unit and Sofia Milos as a U.S. Homeland Security agent based in Toronto.

"It's really fast moving and confident," McGowan said of the series. "Raymont has really done a great job of putting the show together."

Raymont and his late partner, Lindalee Tracey, began to see the drama in border and immigration issues while making a documentary about a border security unit in the 1990s, McGowan said.

"Then came 9/11 and they thought they'd never be able to make the series, but it actually has presented even more opportunities for drama," McGowan said.

JPod, being shot in Vancouver, follows the adventures of a group of employees of an electronic gaming company.

David Kopp plays Ethan Jarlewski, a "gore programmer" torn between his hippie parents and his quirky co-workers.

"The comedy comes from his character. He's always trying to be helpful and people are making demands on him from every direction," Kopp said.

Coupland is executive producer of the series and also wrote the script, which has several plot lines not in the book.

CBC's new reality show is The Week the Women Went. It shows what happens in the town of Hardisty, Alta., when all the women leave on vacation for seven days, forcing the men to do the housekeeping and child rearing.

Writers strike could help ratings

CBC has invested heavily in drama series, after a 2006-07 season that introduced mainly reality TV shows. That was always the network's long-term strategy, said Kirstine Layfield, CBC-TV's executive director of network programming.

Natalie Brown plays Sophie, the modern career woman whose live is perfect until the day everything goes wrong.
(CBC)

"It takes time to get up the dramas. The reality shows came out faster," she said.

CBC is hoping the January start will give it an edge in building ratings, possibly at the expense of U.S. networks.

"It was our chance to come out in January when there is not so much noise over the fall season," she said.

"People are ready for something different in January and when it's cold outside, they want to watch TV."

This January, the American networks may be playing reruns because of the television and film writers' strike, and that may attract more viewers to the Canadian fare, Layfield added.

Also airing during the winter:

• The Englishman's Boy, a two-part miniseries based on Guy Vanderhaege's award-winning novel about the West before the advent of the RCMP. To be aired in March, it stars Michael Terriault, Bob Hoskins and Nicholas Campbell.
• H2O II: The Trojan Horse, a sequel to the 2004 political thriller H2O, starring Paul Gross as Tom McLaughlin, the former Canadian prime minister who watches from the sidelines as Canadians vote for union with the United States.
• Steven & Chris, a daytime lifestyles show starting in January, with hosts Steven Sabados and Chris Hyndman.
• Project X, a science series that explores everything from tornadoes to toxins in an offbeat way.
• The Confidential Series, a documentary series that introduces viewers to quirky and little-known facts about topics such as the origin of blue jeans and the doggie couture business.

Layfield also announced that CBC would bring Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune to the network in September 2008. Jeopardy! is hosted by Canadian Alex Trebek.