A surprise winner of the 1998 - 1999 season was the CBC series "DaVinci's Inquest". Although the idea of a coroner helping police out on their investigations isn't a new one (Canada did it in the sixties with "Wojeck", and CBS is doing it right now with "Diagnosis Murder"), Dominic Da Vinci isn't your typical coroner. Although good at his job, Da Vinci is also an opinionated, crass, and often offensive recovering alcoholic. His relationship with his co-workers and his ex-wife leaves a little too be desired.
Da Vinci is played by veteran Canadian actor Nicholas Campbell. With a slew of Canadian, American, and international credits (Campbell began his career in England), Campbell would be a coup for anyone to cast in a series. Gwnyeth Walsh plays his ex-wife Patricia, a pathologist who just happens to be dating James Flynn (played by Robert Wisden), the chief coroner and a former friend of Da Vinci's. Da Vinci is often assisted in his cases by police detectives Leo Shannon (Donnelly Rhodes), Mick Leary (Ian Tracey), and Angela Kosmo (Venus Terzo), and fellow coroner Sunny Raman (Sue Mathew). Side-bar characters include Da Vinci's daughter Gabriella (Jewel Staite), and Mick's mysterious younger brother Danny Leary (American-born Max Martini).
From the very beginning, "Da Vinci's Inquest" has been a hard hitting show. Rather than disguise the crimes in humor and happy characters, like many shows are wont to do, "Da Vinci's Inquest" pulls no punches. The show started off it's run in the fall of 1998 with a three-part look into the murders of Vancouver prostitutes, and finished off the year with a two-part "spoof" of the most notorious couple in Canadian criminal history, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, as well as a notable reference to the infamous Clifford Olsen "deal". Almost every storyline could have been ripped from the headlines of Canadian papers.
One of the strongest focal points of the series is it's gripping realism. Many shows prefer to sugarcoat their stories, but "Da Vinci's Inquest" wasn't worried about offending viewers with their blunt storylines. Although the shows may have similar backgrounds, this is no "Diagnosis Murder". "Da Vinci's Inquest" has no real American equal, with a possible exception being the early years of "Law & Order", when viewers could flip through the newspaper afterwards and find almost the exact same storyline they just saw on screen.
Da Vinci's Inquest -- My Rating
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