Bullet-proof vetted

Robert Cushman, National Post Published: Monday, February 04, 2008


Five weeks ago, Pearson International Airport joined the big leagues. It became the site of an exciting chase, culminating in the take-down of a terrorist and the arrest of a possible accomplice. It was fictitious, of course, but it got the new drama series The Border off to a pounding start.

The Border, apart from contributing to CBC's new drama push, is part of a movement to shine a glamorous light on government departments with less than glamorous titles. In The Border it's Immigration and Customs Security; in Global's The Guard, it's the Canadian Coastguard's Search and Rescue Team. The latter sounds as if it should be more thrilling, but so far it's The Border that's hit the ground running.

Not that it hasn't done some stumbling. The remainder of the premiere dealt with the disputed fate of the putative accomplice, a Canadian citizen whose crimes seemed to be: a) being of Syrian origin; b) occupying the next seat on the incoming flight; c) letting the terrorist slip him the name of a good orthodontist -- an excuse regarded by the hardliners at CSIS as so much dental floss.

The CSIS boss wanted to send the man back to Syria, with all that that would entail. The decent chaps at ICS would have none of this. And so the battle of the acronyms was joined, and won by the good guys with disappointingly little effort. I had imagined that we were just at the start of an intricate intrigue, in the manner of 24 in its great days, but The Border, like The Guard, has turned out to be not a serial but a series --i.e. a show in which the same characters face similar problems every week. (Both try to kid you that they have continuity by starting each week with one of those "previously on ..." announcements that only sound good when delivered by Kiefer Sutherland.)

Well, at least The Border seems committed to exploring every region in which the country belonging to us abuts the country belonging to them. "Them" is of course the United States, and they have been behaving very themmishly, indeed. The hawkish CSIS man (as portrayed by Nigel Bennett) just about counts as a crypto-American, but he has turned out to be the merest curtain-raiser. In the second episode, the Yanks sent in the cavalry, in the shape of a young lady from Homeland Security, an immigrant herself, with an an attitude like Ann Coulter with security clearance. Robert Fulford has already complained in these pages about the show's unwavering anti-Americanism; in the given context, I can't see that that's so bad -- it's not as if the Maher Arar case didn't happen -- but I do agree that the execution is formulaic. (My esteemed colleague is also right about the show's comic-relief computer geek being an unsuccessful attempt to emulate 24' s Chloe; his winsomeness has nothing to do with his skills whereas Chloe's unsociability was the essence of hers.) Agent Bianca seems to have taken one look at Canada and decided that on behalf of her employers this land is their land, and she can never quite understand why ICS head Major Mike Kessler should see things differently. He's played, very well, by James McGowan.

Every episode of The Border contains innumerable scenes of Mike and Bianca going eye-ball-to-eyeball, Bianca saying "You Canadians! Unbelievable!" when the major complains about a little thing like having his country's air space violated. Last week's episode, however, ended with the two of them sloping off to buy one another a drink, so this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. But this was an episode that never established the suspense it was striving for.

The previous week was much sharper: a four-cornered struggle between our guys, Bianca's guys, escaped Islamist terrorists and the Quebec police that involved two former Stratford Festival luminaries, Graham Abbey and Nazneen Contractor, trekking through the province's wider regions and nearly succumbing to both friendly and unfriendly fire in the process. Abbey isn't quite Jack Bauer, but he is shaping up nicely in the cat-with-nine-lives category. When The Border's narrative is firing properly, it doesn't matter too much that its characters are from stock.

It matters more in The Guard, which announces itself as being "character-driven." This turns out to mean that its principals have issues. This means they spend a lot of time moping at home instead of getting out and interacting on the job. Miro, the Duty Captain, has an online relationship with a sex worker who has misappropriated his credit card. Of Miro's team of Rescue Specialists, Laura is pouting about being passed over for Miro's job. And Andrew, having failed to rescue a child in the first sequence of the first episode, keeps having flashbacks about it, which are damaging his relationship with his own family. People say anonymously angsty things such as "we can't live like this." It's like daytime TV with an adventure gimmick. And maybe there's been a basic miscalculation about how exciting the setup is. Every week, the team goes out, and either it saves lives or it doesn't. Lost or saved, we don't know the people whose lives are at stake, so we can't much care; and there are no ramifications in the wider world.

- The Border airs Mondays at 9p.m. onCBC andThe Guard airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. onGlobal.

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http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=5c038521-c2ee-4a0e-bede-0c30b8377cb3&k=99732&p=1

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