From the latest shows to hit television & the internet now it’s time to go back to an older one. Back in time to 1998 and a Canadian cop show called Cold Squad. The show crime drama show, created by Julia Keatley and Matt MacLeod, followed the investigations of a part of the Vancouver Police Department Homicide Division tasked with solving cold cases ( a crime or an accident that has not yet been solved to the full and is not the subject of a recent criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, retained material evidence, as well as fresh activities of the suspect), the titular Cold Squad. This was the first purely Canadian drama show that I had ever seen and followed, watching it back in 2000-2002, watching the reruns on AXN-India. Not sure when they originally started airing it here but that is when I started watching it. Recently I started watching the show from the very beginning and just completed watching the 11 episodes that make up the first season.
The show was a vehicle & launching pad for actress Julie Stewart who was cast as Sgt. Ali McCormick who leads the small team of Cold Squad. Rounding out the team are veteran cop Lt. Tony Lugozzo (played by BSG‘s Michael Hogan) & trainee profiler Jill Stone (Joy Tanner). One of the peculiarities of Cold Squad was the constant changing of the cast & restructuring that would occur every couple of seasons. Anyways, also part of the main cast but in supporting roles were Insp. Vince Schneider (Jerry Wasserman) who was incharge of the station, Det. Nick Galagher (Paul Boretski), Det. James Kai (Hiro Kanagawa) & in the lab pathologist Dr. Christine Lui (Linda Ko) & Dr. Sam Fisher (Jay Brazeau). Each episode was also named after the victim of the case that the team was investigating. Also to note, Cold Squad was the forerunner & part inspiration for the slew of police procedural shows that came up in the US shortly afterwards – like CSI and more importantly Cold Case! The latter was subject to a case filed by Keealey & McLeod due to the similarities in the shows.
In the first episode a young boy is found in the harbor, Ali tries to tie the case to the similar unsolved murder of Christopher Williams in 1977. Next Ali & Tony investigates the 12-year-old murder of a ex-detective’s daughter, which destroyed his career. Ali takes on the case of a teen-aged Jane Doe, whom Tony has named “Tess,” whose body was discovered 15 years earlier. Ali revisits the case of Barbara Taggert, a mother who was killed in a house fire in 1995 that was ruled an arson. Her daughter Lisa disappeared that night and was presumed abducted. While investigating a 1995 murder, Ali and Tony come upon a new lead on a suspect in the 1968 murder of a sailor in his cheap hotel room. Most episodes deals with case that could not be solved because of the technology issues faced during the time of the initial crime.
The final episode, episode 11, deals with a woman who was involved in drugs & possible prostitution when she was much younger, switched ids with a young girl, Amanda Millerd, who was killed while on vacation and deemed to be missing. She hid from her boyfriend at the time and his boss who is a major drug dealer. The drug dealer turned informant to the police at 12 years before the events of the episode and hence was protected by the department at the cops at that time including Isp. Schneider & the local chief. Ali’s investigations bring the dealings into the light hence putting both the chief & the inspector in trouble, despite Lugozzo warning her not to. Ali finds the prostitute who under the alias of Amanda Millerd lives a new life with her husband & young son, who have no idea of her past. The drug dealer & his associate, the boyfriend, are brought down but the chief is transferred and the inspector has to resign. Ali is persona non grata at the station with Lugozzo asking for a transfer.