1. For the sorry record of CTV in its first 25 years, see Miller, M. J., Turn up the Contrast: CBC Television Drama Since 1952 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1987) 9 at 331Google Scholar [hereinafter Contrast]; and, for the attempts of the CRTC to regulate CTV into providing Canadian drama and Children's programming, ibid. at 5, 12, 14, 254, 331. In the last few years CTV has, under direct CRTC pressure bought clones of American night soaps like Mount Royal, clones of American action/adventure—Counterstrike, Matrix, Tekwar. The exceptions are a few episodes of Bordertown and one genuinely indigenous series which is also a hit—ENG.

2. Miller, M. J., “Inflecting the Formula: The First Seasons of Street Legal and L.A.Law as characteristic examples of contrasting Canadian and American Television Series” in Flaherty, D. H. & Manning, F. E., eds., The Beaver Bites Back? American Popular Culture in Canada (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

3. Newcomb, H., The Most Popular Art (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1974)Google Scholar. See also Fiske, J., Television Culture (London: Routledge, 1987)Google Scholar for a survey of scholarship in generic theory and “Reader-oriented criticism”; Allen, R. A., Channels of Discourse Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism (Chapel Hill: R. Allen, ed., 1992)Google Scholar.

4. Miller, Contrast, supra note 1 at 107.

5. Street Legal Writer's Guide (January 21 1988–1989) at 8Google Scholar. When the producers commission a season's worth of scripts, a “bible” is devised to keep all the writers on track with the characters and to indicate possible future developments. Some characters fleshed out in the bible never come to life on the screen and are dropped after a few episodes. Note that writers may well add new twists to the characters as time goes on or supply more “backstory” to the characters we already know—e.g. when Olivia's uncouth, shady brothers show up to expose her backgound. They may even come up with new plot directions. I find the consonance and the dissonances between the “bible” and a season as completed informative about practices in making television drama.

6. Contrast, supra note 1 at 6.

7. A convention borrowed from Dallas which also reveals the increasing inflection toward the wildly successful “night soap” genre of the 1980s in the later seasons of Street Legal.

8. Street Legal Writer's Guide, supra note 5 at 45.

9. A defense now available in limited circumstances according to R. v. Mack (1988), 2 SCR 903.

10. Street Legal Writer's Guide, supra note 5 at 45.

11. Contrast, supra note 1 at 108. See also Paul Rutherford's chapter on Wojeck in Rutherford, P., Prime time: When Television was Young (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. His basic argument differs substantially from mine in that he concludes at the end of his detailed study of the CBC that Canadian television drama had ceased to be distinctive by the mid 1960s.

12. The NFB's Lonely Boy and Alan King's Warrendale for the CBC were two of the most influential examples of direct cinema internationally.

13. See Contrast, supra note 1 at 53. The chapter “Copshows and Mysteries” contains more detailed analysis of both Wojeck and Seeing Things.

14. J. Bawden, The Toronto Star [no date].

15. For more on this series, see Contrast, supra note 1 at 70–90. Every episode and the two drama specials from Cariboo Country were written by Paul St. Pierre and produced by Phil Keate. Dialogue is quoted from my notes made during screening.

16. Lest he appear infallible, however, in a coda to the plot, he sentences Smith, the white rancher and old friend of Ol' Antoine, to 60 days in work camp for disrupting his courtroom because he thinks Smith is an idle drifter and because Smith stubbornly refuses to identify himself.

17. I include this NFB/CBC co-production, because, like its controversial cousins, the dramatized documentary The Valour and the Horror and the much-acclaimed topical mini-series The Boys of St. Vincent, the films were seeen by the vast majority of Canadians on the CBC and the CBC shared in production costs with some production input.

18. See Contrast, supra note 1 at 274–91; “Other Roles” in Miller, M. J., Rewind and Search: Makers and Decision Makers at the CBC [hereinafter Rewind and Search (Montreal: McGill-Queens, 1996) 171Google Scholar.

19. NFB publicity advertising the CBC November 1989 broadcast and the video for sale [no date].

20. For a fuller analysis, see Miller, M. J., “Donald Brittain, Television Biographer” (1990) 16:1Canadian Drama 32Google Scholar.

21. According to then vice-president Ivan Fecan, [interview with M. J. Miller, July 1993]. See further chapter 11 of Rewind and Search, supra note 18.

22. The St.Catharines Standard [5 December 1989]. Ivan Fecan [interview July 1993] told me that Brandon Tartikoff, for some years a respected Vice President of Entertainment at NBC and his executives had expressed surprise that the miniseries could win the ratings game without any known stars.

23. The St. Catharines Standard TV Guide [2 December 1989].

24. For a detailed examination of Andrew Allan's national theatre of the air, the influential Stage series, see Fink, H. & Jackson, J., eds., All the Bright Company (Quarry Press & CBC Enterprises, 1987)Google Scholar. Protagonists Riel and Whelan reappear later in different, much more fictionalized versions; Riel in the very controversial mini-series Riel (1979) shot in French and English, and Whelan in Passion of Patriots, one of dramas in the occcasional historical anthology of the 1980s, Some Honorable Gentlemen.

25. Scales of Justice has attracted superb directors like David Cronenberg, Michael Anderson and Eric Till, which means that the style of shooting has varied over time. However, these breaks in the continual narrative flow remain.

26. Scott, J., “Against Interpretation: Scales of Justice proves less is more” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (7 February 1992)Google Scholar. The title of the article sums up his evaluation. John Haslett Cuff, the regular reviewer for the same paper, who normally attacks CBC dramatic programming, also thought it was “adult and intelligent and demanding, combining the best of information and entertainment in one package”; The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (29 February 1992).

27. Bawden, J., Starweek (9 February 1992)Google Scholar.

28. Contrast, supra note 1 at 262–64, offers more details about the differences between historical drama and historical docudrama and the ethical problems presented by docudramas for both makers and viewers.

29. The broadcasts were widely advertised in TV guides but only once in a sensational (for the CBC) way. It was an ad in The St. Catharines Standard TV Guide (15 November 1992) using white type on black ground with large caps: WHEN DOES SEX BECOME RAPE? and the in smaller-size caps: “The George Pappajohn Story”, then the name of the series, and the following text: “A naked woman with hands bound runs through the streets of Vancouver. A businessman is charged with sexual assault. Was she the victim of rape or the victim of a misunderstanding?” etc. The programme itself did not reflect that “movie of the week” prurience at all—but it must be noted that producers seldom have any input into the publicity that pre-sells and thus frames their stories.

30. Ruby, C., “Who Would You Want In Your Corner?” T.V.Cuide (18 April 1988)Google Scholar; Miller, J., “TV Lawyers Reflect Country's Culture” Lawyer's Weekly (8 April 1988)Google Scholar; Kilig, P., Law Times (29 January-4 February 1990) 10Google Scholar.