1 9 9 8 – 2 0 0 5 (Canada)
98 x 60 minute episodes
The Canadian drama series Cold Squad – a conventional police drama about unconventional police detectives tackling unsolved murders from Vancouver’s past – revolved around sergeant Ali McCormick (Julie Stewart), an ambitious detective parachuted into a homicide unit to revitalise the investigative team that examined old, unsolved cases, known in the trade as “cold files”.
Veteran Canadian character actor Michael Hogan played Detective Tony Logozzo, a world-weary street cop written off by his colleagues as a has-been. He longed for the good old days when a cop could beat a confession out of a suspect – and sometimes pretended those days were still here.
Joy Tanner played civilian researcher and behavioural profiler Jill Stone, who had a knack for picking up on vital clues.
Paul Boretski played Ali’s former partner, Nick Gallagher, a charismatic homicide detective often at loggerheads with his bosses over how to conduct investigations.
The team used current scientific, medical and technological aids to reinvestigate cases that had never been solved because these modern tools were unavailable when the crimes had initially been committed, sometimes several decades ago.
The cast was overhauled for the third season (the first to be syndicated in the US), keeping only Ali McCormick from the previous two seasons.Β Ali returned from vacation to find that almost everybody she had been working with, except Logozzo (who retired the following week), was gone, and Inspector Simon Ross (Peter Wingfield) – with whom she had an affair – was preparing to leave for a job working security at the UN in New York.
When the sixth season ended, everyone assumed it was all over. Characters were killed off, Ali quit her job, and the production company got rid of the studio, the set and the wardrobe. But CTV decided to order one more season – and so the seventh and final season made it to air almost a year later, with new sets, new cast and new people behind the cameras.
Julie Stewart returned as McCormick and new additions were Tahmoh Penikett as corporal Ray Chase and Sonja Bennett as homicide detective Samatha Walters.
Cold SquadΒ was the brainchild of executive producer Julia Keatley and former undercover RCMP detective Matt MacLeod. It was the first entirely homegrown hour-long drama series to originate in the Lower Mainland of Canada.
The production company sought legal advice when CBS began airing their own show,Β Cold Case, in 2003. The American show was incredibly similar – the lead character, Lily Rush (Kathryn Morris) even looked like Ali McCormick.
Sgt. Ali McCormick
Julie Stewart
Det. Tony Logozzo
Michael Hogan
Jill Stone
Joy Tanner
Det. Nick Gallagher
Paul Boretski
Insp. Vince Schneider
Jerry Wasserman
Sam Fisher
Jay Brazeau
Det. Eddie Carson
Bob Frazer
Det. Christine Liu
Linda Ko
Det. Larry Iredell
Eli Gabay
Det. James Kai
Hiro Kanagawa
Det. Jackie Cortez
Lori Ann Triolo
Sgt. Lloyd Mastrowski
Paul Coeur
Insp. Simon Ross
Peter Wingfield
Manny Needlebaum
Richard Ian Cox
Bernice Boyle
Sharon Alexander
Det. Bill Overmeyer
Allan Lysell
Sgt. Frank Coscarella
Stephen McHattie
Det. Nicco Sevallis
Gregory Calpakis
Det. Mickey Kollander
Tamara Marie Watson
Insp. Andrew Pawlachuk
Garry Chalk
Christine Wren
Joely Collins
Det. Len Harper
Matthew Bennett
Dr Ben Wilson
Adrian Holmes
Cpl. Ray Chase
Tahmoh Penikett
Det. Samatha Walters
Sonja Bennett