Thursday, February 08, 2007

DaVinci's back for more

The series may have ended in its native Canada some time ago, but the program continues to roll on in the U.S.: DaVinci's Inquest, the former CBC drama featuring Nicholas Campbell as Vancouver's coroner, is returning for a third season in syndication. Program Partners has cleared the procedural drama in 98 percent of the country including all top 20 markets.

DaVinci's runs locally at 1:30am Mondays on WGN-TV.

The program was inspired by the life of Vancouver real-life coroner-turned-mayor, Larry Campbell (no relation to Nicholas.)

The third season in the U.S. also includes the short-lived DaVinci's City Hall, a spin-off which featured Campbell as the mayor of Vancouver. That program ran for only thirteen episodes on CBC during the 2005-06 season. It'll run under the title of DaVinci's Inquest.

Running canceled spin-off series under their parent's names in syndication is nothing new. In the 1980's, reruns of former first-run syndicated Ted Knight Show ran in cash syndication as Too Close For Comfort, the series the Ted Knight Show spun-off of (actually continued as) in 1986. Knight ended that year after series star Ted Knight (who also headed Too Close For Comfort and of course, was an Emmy winner as Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) passed away.

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