CBC’s Cracked starts production

From a media release:

WHITE PINE PICTURES ANNOUNCES START OF PRODUCTION ON NEW CBC TELEVISION DRAMA SERIES “CRACKED”

  • Starring David Sutcliffe, Stefanie von Pfetten, Luisa d’Oliveira, Dayo Ade, Karen LeBlanc

White Pine Pictures announced today that principal photography began July 16th, 2012 on the new drama series Cracked, for CBC Television. Shooting will take place in Toronto, Ontario, through November 30, 2012 with the hour-long series (13 episodes) premiering on CBC in January 2013.

Starring David Sutcliffe (Gilmore Girls, Private Practice) as Detective Aidan Black and Stefanie von Pfetten (NCIS, Battlestar Galactica) as Psychiatrist Dr. Daniella Ridley, the drama series partners an unstable police detective (Sutcliffe) with a psychiatrist (von Pfetten) to solve the city’s most baffling and psychologically complex crimes. The dynamic all-Canadian cast also features Luisa d’Oliveira (The Secret Circle, 50/50) as Detective Poppy Wisnefski, Dayo Ade (Lost, NCIS Los Angeles) as Psychiatric Nurse Leo Beckett, and Karen LeBlanc (Shattered, Nurse.Fighter.Boy) as Inspector Diane Caligra.

Cracked is White Pine’s second drama series for CBC. Their first, The Border, ran for three successful seasons and was sold to 21 countries. “We’re thrilled to be collaborating with the CBC again”, says executive producer Peter Raymont, president of White Pine Pictures. “Cracked is a gripping, compassionate portrayal of emotional problems that affect so many people and touch us all. It’s compelling television with heart.”

The original series is created by writer Tracey Forbes (Flashpoint, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Toronto Emergency Task Force officer Calum de Hartog and executive produced by Peter Raymont and Janice Dawe of White Pine Pictures. Forbes will act as showrunner along with Janet MacLean (The Border). Jamie Paul Rock and de Hartog will produce. Susan Morgan is the show’s creative producer and White Pine’s Caroline Murphy is associate producer. Director of Photography is Norayr Kasper (St. Urbain’s Horsemen). Nataline Rodrigues is the CBC Executive in Charge of Production overseeing this project.
Cracked is produced by White Pine Pictures in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund and Cogeco. Distributed internationally by Beta Film GmbH and White Pine Releasing. Represented in the US by Carrie Stein.

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13 thoughts on “CBC’s Cracked starts production”

  1. I’m not watching anything produced by White Pines until they make a final episode for the Border. Leaving everything unfinished was just a lousy way to treat fans! Utterly disrespectful. What’s the chance they’d give the fans of the new show the same lousy treatment??? At least Flashpoint will end well and all loose ends would be tied up, that’s the way it should be!

  2. Just curious – would Cracked be made if CBC was not there to fund it.

    Anyone can do this. Get millions from CBC sugar daddy and spend, spend…

    Isn’t White Pine into documentary? Curious to know how Mr. Raymont is taking on this creative lead. Ha, what does he know about maketing and writing TV shows? Has he written a TV show? Does he know how to review TV scripts? Does he like to market his TV show? What does he kow about TV production and making sure the show is a hit?

    Canada is strange and very un American. Stay that way. Let us make pilots and sitcoms. Only .00009% of Canada matters in Hollywood TV, strange how CBC thinks and operates? Very lost in public funding.

    Daryl

  3. White Pine produced The Border, and Mr. Raymont was co-creator and Executive Producer of that show, which was a decent-sized success. Tracey Forbes and Janet MacLean are co-showrunners of Cracked which means they are primarily responsible for taking the creative lead.

    Networks don’t entirely fund a series – funders include the production company, sometimes government grants/tax credits, sometimes private investors, etc.

    I’m not sure exactly what your point was but it’s lost in some misinformation about funding versus producing versus creative control vs some apparent bias against Raymont. Cracked wouldn’t be made if no network wanted to air it, but I’m not sure it’s a knock against CBC to say that they air more Canadian content than any other network. And there are many, many writers and producers who would love to know your proof that “anyone” can get a show on the air.

  4. AngelinSydney: I’d like to see a proper wrap-up to The Border – or better still, a continuation – as much as any fan of the series. Seems a bit unfair to boycott White Pine shows in general over it, though.

    Daryl: Canada was founded in part to be home to an American Counter-Revolution. We’ve gone in a somewhat different direction from the original plans set out by many of the original Fathers of Confederation, but we still want very much to be our own country here. And we have our own stories to tell, however we can get them financed.

  5. I watched the first episode. It was horrible!!!! If it wasn’t from CBC funding this t.v. series would never have been picked up. The premise of the show is a good concept but having worked with the crisis unit that does respond to people with mental illness the script is so far fetched and so unconceivable that it borders on insulting. This show tries to be Criminal Minds, Castle, NYPD Blue, Flashpoint (another horrible t.v. series), and The Mentalist rolled into one.

    (Spoiler Alert:)

    Here are a list of mistakes made by the writer.

    – The doctor orders a cop to handcuff the victim being held by a dillusional man. In reality in Canada (since the opening scene shows the Toronto skyline) if a cop were to place handcuffs on a victim it would be considered unlawful detainment and it is a Charter violation. That cop would be subject to discipinary action and the police force would be sued.

    -The dillusional man is “gently escorted” into a police cruiser. In reality, a call of a man holding someone against their will would be bring down every available cop and the person would be physically restrained, handcuffed and placed in the back of an ambulance and transported to the neartest psych hospital.

    – A 16 year old is murdred in his home the homocide unit hand the case over to the newly formed unit. In reality, it’s a homocide the homocide detectives investigate.

    – The murder victim’s father under goes a polygraph test and fails it, he is released. In reality, he would be arrested and charged with murder. That is if he was dumb enough to have the polygraph test without talking to his lawyer first.

    – Two members, a cop and a psychiatric nurse, canvess the neighbourhood. In reality, it would be uniformed cops and detectives assigned to the case that would canvas the neighbourhood becuase that is their job to investigate and it goes to collecting evidence. Evidence that would be used in court to convict, evidence that would be challenged by the defence team.

    – After failing the polygraph test the father is released because a polygraph would not hold up in court. The father then attempts to go the house to get a change of clothes for his wife even though the house is still a crime scene. In reality, he would not be allowed anywhere near the house by himself. The house is a crime scene, it is part of the chain of evidence. If he was allowed in the house he would be escorted and watched. Why? Because if he is the murderer he can get rid of the evidence i,.e. weapon.

    – The Unit figures out who the killer is and track him down to the house of his next victim. The suspect/murder is a dillusional schizophrenic. The doctor tells the cop to try to connect with the dillusional schizophrenic, the cop puts his gun to his head and talks the suspect down. In reality, the cops would have burst through the door, seen the suspect kneeling over the body of a young girl in her teens who may or may not have been killed and would have yelled to drop the gun or would have just shot the suspect dead. Because in Canada if a cop were to draw his gun it’s with the intent of deadly force. I’ve dealt with many dillusional schizophrenics and they are not easy to connect with on any level but then don’t take my word for it the writer and the producer knows best.

    It’s a shame that this t.v. series is so horrible because it could have been a good series. But, I’ve read where the producer of White Pine studio believes that he knows what the medium wants. I’m sure that whatever consulting was done it was simpy ignored and the writer tried to create this viable and realistic script that quite simply fails. This episode doesn’t even begin to remotely resemble or emulate any known law enforcement agency.

    If I were to rate this episode on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. I would give this episode and series a 0 because it was just that bad. Canadian tax payers should be offended at the quality of this series.

    1. I’m not going to defend this particular show but I don’t think many people would be shocked that television, whether it’s about cops, lawyers, hospitals, paper companies or alien invasions, is inaccurate in its details. Imagine what you’re taking as fact in shows that centre on topics you don’t know much about. If you weren’t entertained you weren’t entertained, but looking for accuracy is a fool’s game in TV.

      1. If this show passes itself off as being a police drama then it better be as close to factual as possible and not some made up garbage thrown together. Take a show like Strike Back that uses former special forces consultants. Sons of Anarchy is another good show, sure it’s all scripted but the writers stayed true to the biker culture. Law and Order’s episodes where based on real events.

        I agree with the poster, this show is bad on so many levels. It could have been good, it could have followed in the footsteps of Da Vinci’s Code, or The Bridge but the show’s producer who’s also a cop chose to hand over the reins to someone that is clueless about law enforcement. There are some facts or fiction that can pass as for pure entertainment i.e. CSI or Sons of Anarchy because they have a strong script and strong actors that can pull it off. Only a fool would view Cracked as good t.v. But this fool is not watching another episode of possibly one of the worst Canadian made for t.v. series.

  6. Since cracked
    has been cancelled now,
    i am wondering what white pine is doing?
    i told Pine a week ago is that their company will close
    if don’t learn to make their own tv shows and movie,
    STOP DEPENDING ON CBC FUNING
    THE GRAVY TRAIN IS OVER
    and where is Pine get then money to payroll 12 staff at white pine
    insn’t the money drying up they got from cbc and that German distributor and the sri land dirvorce movie

  7. I was asked to read this. And why did CBC to add, ever used White Pine to make cracked. White Pine got ZERO idea how to make a TV show? Then how did they make cracked? White Pine is in African Documentaries? Who made that decision at CBC? I
    want names? And I want to file a complaint.

    Just got to White Pine Pictures web page, they got no experience making shows like Law and Order or these:

    Highest Rated Crime TV Series With At Least 1,000 Votes
    from http://www.imdb.com

    Producer Peter Raymond is no David Fincher or a Hollywood Producer.

    WHY DID CBC HIRE WHITE PINE TO MAKE “CRACKED”…

    Canada TV is suffering because CBC did no give the money to the right director and producer in Ontario.

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