Rating: - Nowhere Near Classic - But A Good Entertainment Value
In the 1970s, American audiences accepted, in the spirit of good natured fun, the Canadian group Guess Who's schlock hit "American Woman," even though it was highly derivative (a sort of Led Zeppelin lite), silly and full of insecure Canadian "we are so very different from Americans" cultural jingoism. The same sort of approach - acceptance as good natured fun - is needed to enjoy Due South, a Canadian produced, "set in Chicago" formulaic buddy-cop series that veers wildly (sometimes in a single episode) from genuinely cool and slick pop entertainment to amazingly dumb and inconsistent writing, story line and production values. The main character Benton Fraser (Paul Gross) is a stiff, cartoon-like, morally pristine Canadian Mountie who can leap in front of high speed vehicles, confront a bar full of seedy and heavily armed underworld characters or jump/tumble from great heights without any sign of fear or hesitancy and, more importantly, without wrinkling his crisp Mountie uniform. All this is done while we learn that Benton can also speak Chinese, communicate almost intuitively with his deaf, lip-reading pet wolf and determine where a clod of Chicago-area mud came from simply by sniffing or tasting it (no kidding). Benton's sidekick (or co-main character) is Ray Vecchio (David Marciano), a harried Chicago detective whose cheesy exterior and gruff mannerisms barely conceal his reluctant sincerity and heart of gold. Together, these two unlikely buddies (a modern day, whimsical Holmes and worldly Watson duo) finesse, stumble and plod their way through a series of mysteries and adventures - from solving the mystery of how contaminated meat is entering Chicago-area grocery stores to thwarting vicious murderers and kidnappers. Accepted for what it is - good, clean fun with a tongue-in-cheek attitude - it is easy to overlook the deficiencies and inconsistencies in this series and, instead, focus on its merits as middle-of-the-road, albeit sometimes lightweight and amateurish, entertainment. On a more cynical note, the series is certainly worth the 20 to 30 dollar price per season - even if you just use it as video "background noise" or "filler" for other activities, such as housecleaning, reading the paper or vegging out with not-too-stimulating or challenging tv fare after a hard day at work. I don't think Due South will ever be considered among the classic achievements of television, but it is worth viewing. And, oh yeah, American audiences will have to sit through the obligatory Canadian reference to the War of 1812 and yet another "meaningful" reprise of "American Woman" in the soundtrack to the series.