Due South: Pilot

[truepenny]

Due South, Pilot
Original airdate: April 23, 1994
Favorite line:
DESK SERGEANT: You like pigeons?
FRASER: I don't have much experience with them.
[...]
DESK SERGEANT: It's not that they're dirty. It's just that I'm starting to question their loyalty.

Spoilers for all four seasons of Due South below the cut.



The thing that fascinates me about Due South is the way it shifts between realism, surrealism, contrarealism, and a constantly undercut and destabilized pararealism.

I probably need to explain that, huh?

When I first heard of Due South, back when it was on the air, I dismissed it as a sitcom. A Mountie with a wolf in Chicago. Obviously pararealism of the sort that sitcoms specialize in, which claims that everyone is beautiful and rich and no one ever has a problem that can't be solved in half-an-hour. The same sort of pararealism that asks us to believe in a southern California as predominantly white as the Midwest. (That's the easiest way to distinguish between various kinds of nonrealism: in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the contrarealism is the vampires and demons and whatnot, the surrealism is the satire of high school (e.g., Principal Snyder, and the Mayor in Season 3 combines the two, being both surreal and contrareal), but the pararealism is the things we aren't supposed to question but that don't match up with the real world. Ethnic homogeneity for one, or how is it exactly in Season 6, when Buffy's lack of money is a PLOT POINT, that she's maintaining the same standard of living she had in the previous five seasons?)

I was unmoved by a sitcom about a Mountie. I remember saying to heresluck at one point that I'd be more interested if the Mountie was a werewolf. And find it less implausible to boot.

Contrarealism turns my crank. Surrealism can, although it's not as reliable. Pararealism does not. Mostly, I admit, realism doesn't either.

I was introduced to Paul Gross via Slings & Arrows, and promptly developed a Thing for him that made me willing to reassess my judgment of Due South. And then I discovered that my grasp of the premise was flawed.

It's not a Mountie with a wolf in Chicago.

It's a Mountie, who is haunted by his dead father, with a deaf half-wolf, in Chicago.

I got heresluck to lend me the DVDs.

The thing that fascinates me about the pilot, both on first and second watchings, is the way it sets up Benton Fraser, not merely as a character, but as a narrative device. We start in the Canadian wilderness (the opening shots make me think of Peter Jackson's love affair with the New Zealand mountains in The Lord of the Rings), and we're introduced to Fraser through the opinions of his fellow Mounties.

They think he's certifiable.

They also think that what he's doing is impossible, and this is only the first of countless times that Fraser will do the impossible and make it look easy. But the really interesting thing here is the way that Fraser plays to their preconceptions. He dumps his captured felon, says, "The last time he'll fish over the limit," and walks off, exactly like the hero of a Western. In the interview with his superior officer, he lets the man walk into the trap, endures the chewing out for the moment when his unwitting straight man feeds him the line he wants. How far over the limit? Four and a half tons over the limit. And control of the conversation is squarely in Fraser's hands.

Paul Gross has a slightly flatter than deadpan delivery in this scene--which fills me with delight because it reminds me inescapably of how Batman sounded in the cartoons of my childhood. And the interesting thing is, that's not actually how Fraser speaks. Not all the time. It's a role which he uses deliberately and with somewhat malicious aforethought. Inspector Moffat's speech about being underestimated is utterly preaching to the choir, because that seems to be the only way Fraser has to work the interface with society.

And one of the things the pilot proves is that actually, his strategy works very well.

He does the same thing to Ray Vecchio in their first meeting. ("The dead Mountie was my father.") Once again, the moral high ground and control of the interaction is in Fraser's hands. Which is where Fraser wants them.

(One of the things I'm watching for, since I'm watching the whole series for a second time--at a more reasonable rate than the whole thing in a week--is a hypothesis I have about the difference between the two Rays. Ray Vecchio complains and kvetches and talks a good fight, but he never argues with Fraser. When Fraser whistles, Ray comes running. He's second fiddle, and he knows it--their conflict in "Red, White, or Blue" isn't about Ray's place in their quasi-pack, it's about Ray not feeling appreciated for his place in their pack. Ray Kowalski, who does not start out wrong-footed by Fraser's conversational legerdemain, insists on being treated as an equal. Hence he argues and disagrees and demands that Fraser follow him at least some of the time. We'll see how my hypothesis stands up to a second time through.)

So Fraser might be considered a pararealistic figure, but the problem with that is that the show constantly calls attention to his pararealism, and the point of pararealism, as I began to suggest earlier, is that it lurks in the givens. Once you call attention to it, the whole thing unravels. But Due South foregrounds the issue. It sets Fraser up as a superhero (and the soundtrack to the pilot tells you exactly how intentional that is: "Tarzan / Wasn't a ladies' man"), and then it starts taking its superhero apart.

If, as matociquala says, Farscape could be subtitled The Rape of John Crichton, then I think the first two seasons of Due South could each separately be subtitled The Destruction of Benton Fraser (the second season in quite a different mood from the first, mind you). Partly this destruction is a matter of urban America vs. Canadian wilderness culture clash, but it's also a matter of taking a heroic figure and inflicting reality on him. And the first blow has nothing to do with America at all, except for the hired killer. It's a Canadian crime committed on and against Canandian soil, and the criminal isn't merely a Canadian, he's a Mountie. One of Robert Fraser's friends. (The father figure parallelism is made explicit in "Bird in the Hand" (DS 2.4) when Fraser says that as a child he wished Gerard was his father.)

Betrayal is a theme here, as is role playing.

"Like you," Fraser says to Ray Vecchio the first time they meet, "he is pretending to be someone he's not." And there's a whole fistful of directions that comment could be pointed. One of the questions the series asks, and keeps asking, is whether it can be pointed at Fraser himself.

Comments

[sovay]

One of the questions the series asks, and keeps asking, is whether it can be pointed at Fraser himself.

Wonderful. Now I want to see this.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

(*applauding*) Excellent commentary; I'd love to hear more from you about your perceptions of the series and the characters. (Would say more, but am in the middle of moving, hence braindead.)

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

Absofreakinlutely! You've pegged so many things I *love* about this series. (Even if I haven't written any in ages, it inspired me to unmatched flights of fanfic...) It's a smart show, a weird show, and it pokes fun at BOTH sides of the border. And it's got this weird vein of magical realism that makes me so very happy. I still think it's one of the best shows ever made for TV.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

You're reminding me again why I've been meaning to buy season one for myself for something nigh unto five years...

[aukestrel.livejournal.com]

Slings and Arrows made me fall in love with Paul Gross all over again - not that I ever fell out of love, but it certainly rekindled the romance. I'm so glad you've discovered the wonder of dS. It's still my favourite and arguably only fandom.

[digitalranger.livejournal.com]

Compliments on a very well written piece.

I love Due South and it was a pleasure reading this :-)

[thisisbone.livejournal.com]

You are obviously smarter than me (the "genre theory" tag was the icing on the cake!), but I found myself nodding a lot as I read your analysis.

I think Fraser is one of the most complex characters I've seen on TV; the man's got layers on layers on layers, and different people bring out different layers as they interact.

That's part of what I loved about "The Thin Blue Line." Well, that and *rowr*MarkSmithbauer*rowr*. Fraser shows us soooo much in that episode that we hadn't seen from him before, including letting his guard down enough to show genuine anger.

I look forward to hearing more as you sift through things!

[chickwriter.livejournal.com]

IMHO, you nailed the 2 Rays on first go. Kudos.

I adore this series immensely and it's so great to know that you've discovered it. I'm always trying to pimp it to new folks. :)

Looking forward to seeing more of your thoughts.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

[via kelliem]

Yay for interesting discussion of due South's shifting genres. I'd love to see what you have to say about the difference between not the Rays but the underlying show as it shifts from one Ray to the other; I think the show itself changes (due to changes in writers and possibly in commercial focus).

[thefuturist88.livejournal.com]

Very interesting analysis. I think you nailed every point you were making. I love Due South and I have to agree with you on everything, especially the two Rays.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to let you know I really enjoyed reading this *g*

[duesfan2007.livejournal.com]

Thank you, especially for the thoughts on the two Rays. I haven't been able to figure why their relationships tend to each work with Fraser, but largely because I haven't been looking at them with this in mind. Again, thanks!

[duesfan2007.livejournal.com]

The thing that fascinates me about Due South is the way it shifts between realism, surrealism, contrarealism, and a constantly undercut and destabilized pararealism.

Another thanks, for a different reason. I've been trying to explain to some people "why" I enjoy the series despite much of the incredulous situations: Thanks for these terms and concepts; it will help me contextualize the series to others a little better!

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

I never liked the second Ray. The first Ray, for all his hard-shelled cynicism, was every bit as much of an idealist as Fraser. He secretly *wanted* Fraser to be right, even as he repeatedly insisted he wouldn't be. They mirror each other, in a sort of yin-yang way, each containing the other inside.

The second Ray lacked that connection. He and Fraser were friends, and coworkers, and maybe even (if Paul Gross's homoerotic subtext is to be believed) lovers or considering being lovers. But they weren't reflections. And I missed that.

Yes!

[themadblonde]

An excellent way of putting it, thank you.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

But the really interesting thing here is the way that Fraser plays to their preconceptions. He dumps his captured felon, says, "The last time he'll fish over the limit," and walks off, exactly like the hero of a Western. In the interview with his superior officer, he lets the man walk into the trap, endures the chewing out for the moment when his unwitting straight man feeds him the line he wants. How far over the limit? Four and a half tons over the limit. And control of the conversation is squarely in Fraser's hands.

That's it, absolutely, and I think you might have nailed the reason I love Fraser so much (subject to change, of course due to the zillion reasons to love Fraser).

I'm definitely going to have to rewatch the series again to look at what you mentioned about the Rays. Slashy subtext or no, what I love about Ray V's relationship with Fraser is how much they really care about each other. I see it with Ray K, as well, but the obviousness of the sexual overtones sometimes overshadows the genuine affection that they have. In the case of Ray V it doesn't do that, because the relationship is first and foremost a deep friendship. All the other stuff, if it exists at all, is gravy. *g*

And yay, another S&A fan! S&A floored me, completely, and made me pay more attention to Fraser (who I loved anyway, but didn't appreciate nearly enough).

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! We have just recently bought and re-watched the first couple of seasons and it's great to read your thoughts on them.

Sadly, I once read an interview with Paul Gross where he came across as a whiny actor who didn't like animals, which rather put me off him!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

I love your thoughts on genre!

Uh, also, the other night I dreamed I was babysitting for you and it went really badly and you were terribly angry, and I woke to be intensely relieved that it was a dream and you don't even have children!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

That dream is most emphatically contrarealism and in fact can only be discussed in the subjunctive, that being the correct mood for conditionals which are contrary to fact.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I'm really enjoying your DS reviews, and I haven't been involved in this fandom since the show was actually on the air.

I have for many years maintained that there are two Almost Perfect Pilots out there, and one of them is Due South's. I wasn't surprised that Paul Haggis emerged from Due South to go on to critically-lauded but difficult-to-understand shows like E-Z Streets, and back-to-back Academy Awards (in fact, he kinda set a record there.) I've always felt all his stuff was genius because it has had a stylistic thread running through it: whimsy and tragedy set up against one another on a knife-edge.

(In case you were wondering, the other Perfect Pilot is Invisible Man, starring Vincent Ventresca and Paul Ben-Victor, and the two pilots are actually very similar: they are pilots for a "buddy"-style action show where two opposite characaters who complement one another even as they are adversarial with one another combine to fight crime, and of course there's that humorous whimsy balanced against darkest tragedy to make it interesting.)

[bridgetj2.livejournal.com]

I'm coming late to the party, obviously.

I loved this show, and it season sets always seem to be near the top of my "buy" list, but never quite there. You've given them the nudge they needed.

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Ray Kowalski, who does not start out wrong-footed by Fraser's conversational legerdemain, insists on being treated as an equal.

God, yes, exactly! That's what was so pivotal about his introduction! He immediately gains control of the conversation (and for a time, the relationship - Fraser snatches control back pretty quickly, but that's another issue) by wrong-footing Fraser. That definitely explains a lot about their relationship - that, and RayK's duet speech, which sets up his eventual rage and despair in Mountie on the Bounty quite nicely. Also, I can't wait until you get to Bob Fraser's partnership is like a marriage speech.

[pharis.livejournal.com]

I have just finished reading all of your DS essays and have been enjoying them immensely! I’m re-starting the series now -- what a treat to be doing so with your insights as a guide. The contrarealism/pararealism/surrealism distinction is especially helpful.

I have no Deep Thoughts here, but one thing that struck me is that Ray is set up as a fairly poor cop (entrapment, lots of open cases, general attitude, concern about shoring up his career). He needs Fraser to rail against and complain about, not just on a personal level but because he hasn’t been doing good work independently. (Which will be another contrast with RayK.) I wonder whether he exaggerates and uses his role as Fraser does the Mountie role?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'm so ridiculously excited to see how you analyze the next two seasons. Just. Cannot even stand it. And I was getting a nice high from your season one and two ones with much refreshing every two to three days.

*happy* And I will remember to comment now.

[ceares.livejournal.com]

Linked here by seperis-I just recently purchased the series and I'm rewatching it, and your analysis is terrific. It's funny because Frasier manages to cast a glamour on me, similar I'm sure to the one Superman casts, where if you ask me about him, I say-sweet, shy,naive, innocent,terribly courteous...and then watching the shows I can see that he uses those very impressions to throw people off, to pull a different response from them than the one they'd normally give.

I love your description of the show-realism,surrealism,pararealism and contrarealism-absolutely, though I would never have thought to describe it that way.

I'm looking forward to following my watching with your reviews.

[wihluta.livejournal.com]

I was recently linked to your posts about dS and I'm now going to slowly make my way through them.
I just wanted to say that I'm very intrigued by your take on the pararealism of the show. Because, yes it's true. Even though, like you said, it's not actually pararealism, because the show itself calls attention to it.

To me it's always felt like a rather postmodern show. They way it uses 'reality' for it's own purposes, but doesn't stick to its laws if it doesn't want to. The title alone is an indicator of that - there shouldn't be any Mounties in Chicago. It takes bits and pieces and fits them back together to form its own reality.
The show has the playfulness and self-ironic references that (for me) are a major point of postmodernism (mostly found in literature, though). The show is aware, and makes the viewer aware of the fact that it's not real. It's what drew me in from the first moment and it's (among another bazillion reasons) why I still love watching the show.

Anyways. Off to read your thoughts on the next ep, now. :-)

[bghost.livejournal.com]

You're entirely right about the way Fraser plays up to the expectations of his colleagues, and uses them for his own ends. He turns up in the Pilot, obviously considered a loner and outsider by the other Mounties, and plays straight into their expectation of him. That's the last time he'll fish over the limit! Delivered with deadpan panache. And as you say, he reels in his audience (or in this case his boss) setting them up so that he can control the conversation, and be proven to be correct. He does this a lot in the series (interestingly Thatcher often doesn't allow him to get away with it, but others aren't expecting it, and fall for it everytime.)

Something which saddens me slightly is that Fraser obvioulsy isn't just a fish out of water in Chhicago, he's a fish out of water in Canada, even at work, as a Mountie. Other Mounties look at him and think he's "certifiable." (Which, arguably, might be true... but there is a method in his madness.)

Regarding the two Rays, there's an interesting inversion of the dynamic when RayK meets Fraser. You point out that RayV is wrong footed early in the conversation, and from that point is playing catch up. With RayK Fraser is the one utterly wrongfooted. He says to Dief, in a surprisingly playful manner, "let's surprise him," and ends up getting the surprise of his life when "Ray Vecchio" turns up, blond and spikey haired, and just... well... different. "I rarely forget a face, and I'm almost certain that I've never seen you before..." Poor Fraser finds himself on the backfoot for once...

That of course is meat for a future review, and I can't wait till you get to it, but all of this came to mind while reading your review of the Pilot.

Oh, and something else just popped into my head about the Pilot. It really does touch on incredibly dark themes which you wouldn't expect to see on television of that period. There is the scene where the villain is holding his son hostage, and his wife misdirects Fraser to China town.

His son of course doesn't know that he's hostage, he's just being cuddled by Daddy. "Let's put you and your Momma to bed." It seems such an innocent comment... but look at the woman's face. She's got her clothing arranged to conceal a shoulder and part of her neck, as though she's got bruises, and the comment about putting 'Mamma to bed' combined with her look of dread suggests (more than suggests) spousal rape.

This could be one of the darkest moments in the entire series run... what do you think?

[hexenmeister]

*crashes through the window 12 years later to tell you how much I love your meta*

I love your meta!! I'm doing a rewatch and reading along as I do.

My first watch of due South also lead me to reflect on the nature of genres ("fantasy" vs "procedural" vs "magical realism")-- how they are aesthetic and marketing categories more than they are descriptions of a text's relationship to reality. (due South really breaks/exposes the the artificiality of those genre distinctions.)

But you've articuted a whole other dimension of genre here! You've pointed out important things about dS's relationship to realism and how it compares to other TV. Thanks for giving me a new way to think about the show. :)

[ride_4ever]

Rereading your due South meta for the zillionth time and about to rec it for the due South 30th Anniversary "30 Below Fest". Also...hoping for the zillionth time that some day you might do meta for the episodes you haven't yet done.