Tag Archives: Durham County

In the news: Durham County’s two leads

From Rob Salem of the Toronto Star:

  • Two of a kind
    “Hugh Dillon, the musician/actor who so memorably blew movie audiences out of their seats in Bruce McDonald’s Hard Core Logo, dials it all the way down to simmer as Durham’s Mike Sweeney. He’s a hard-boiled homicide detective with issues driving him back to the old neighbourhood: a sterile suburban enclave surrounded by ominous, omnipresent electrical towers. There he re-encounters Ray Prager, his one-time best pal, as vividly and kinetically embodied by Justin Louis, the veteran Canadian character actor (Missing, Hidden Hills, Urban Angel). Prager has issues of his own, not the least of which is that he has recently become a copycat serial killer.”
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Upcoming series: Durham County, Movie Network/Movie Central, May 7

Secrets, Suspicion and a Serial Killer Hide Behind the Suburban Landscape of Durham County, A New Canadian Original Series From The Movie Network and Movie Central

Premieres Monday, May 7 at 9 p.m. ET/ 8 p.m. PT

Astral Media’s The Movie Network (eastern Canada) and Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central (western Canada) present the premiere of Durham County, a daring new six-part Canadian original series premiering Monday, May 7 at 9 p.m. ET on The Movie Network and 8 p.m. PT on Movie Central.

Durham County follows the tormented life of Detective Mike Sweeney (Hugh Dillon, Hard Core Logo; Trailer Park Boys: The Movie), a world-weary homicide detective, who moves with his wife Audrey (Hélène Joy, ReGenesis; This is Wonderland) and daughters Sadie (Laurence Leboeuf, Human Trafficking; 15/Love) and Maddie (Cecily Austin, Me Too) to a seemingly idyllic suburban community in the hopes of a new beginning.

But their new neighbour, Ray Prager (Justin Louis, Dawn of the Dead; Fallen Arches), and the work of a sinister serial killer, make life for the Sweeney family more difficult than they could have ever imagined. What their families don’t know is Mike and Ray share a history, and their unfinished business, dark secrets and explosive tension threaten to shatter their own lives as well as those around them.

In contrast to its backdrop of suburban placidity, Durham County takes a raw look into the tangled and twisted hearts, minds and motivations of the series’ characters and exposes viewers to a unique drama that breaks away from the standard police procedural genre of “who” and “how”, to explore the “why” through the complexity of human behaviour.

“Following pay-television’s success with such series as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Dexter, we know that Canadian audiences want more of these compelling, hard-hitting and brave dramas. Durham County is an extraordinary Canadian original series that delivers exactly that and is unlike any other Canadian drama,” said Michelle Marion, Director, Canadian Independent Production, The Movie Network. “It is cinematic, unflinching and offers darkly sophisticated, intelligent and bold storytelling combined with powerful performances.”

“The exceptional writing, vision and overall craft in Durham County puts it in the league of world-class drama that international audiences typically expect from the powerhouses of U.K. and U.S. television,” said Shelley Gillen, Head of Creative and Business Affairs, Movie Central. “That pay TV in this country is now commissioning multiple dramatic series of this calibre and offering them to its own viewers first, indicates a new era of Canadian drama has arrived.”

Durham County also stars Sonya Salomaa (Black Eyed Dog) as Traci Prager; Greyston Holt (Into The West) as Ray Prager Jr.; Patrick Labbé (Les Boys) as Tom Bykovski; Jean-Nicolas Verreault (Maelstrvm) as Jayson Graves; and Kathleen Munroe (Beautiful People) as Nathalie Lacroix.

The series is written by Laurie Finstad Knizhnik (Bliss, Cold Squad), directed by Adrienne Mitchell (Bliss, Drop The Beat) and Holly Dale (Cold Case, Absolution, The Collector), and executive produced by Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell (Bliss, Drop The Beat, Talk 16) and Michael Prupas (This is Wonderland, Human Trafficking, Wind in the Willows) of Muse Entertainment Enterprises.

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