“A modern day Dudley Do-Right, Constable Benton Fraser is a Canadian Mountie who goes to Chicago with his pet wolf to find his father’s murderer. Extremely polite and moral, Fraser eventually teams up with streetwise Detective Ray Vecchio, choosing to stay in Chicago after uncovering corruption in the RCMP makes him persona non grata at home.”
……i……………….
My favorite thing about Due South (and there are a lot of things I like about Due South) is that at one point, there was a lapse in production, and when the show returned, it was with a new actor playing Ray. Which happens sometimes in media, they replace an actor for whatever reason. The difference here is how they dealt with it.
They had the main character aware of it.
So the first episode of the season has everyone addressing the new guy as Ray. His coworkers, his friends, his family. Everyone’s like, HEY RAY.
And Fraser is slowly going nuts, because THAT IS NOT RAY WHY IS EVERYONE CALLING THIS GUY RAY IT IS CLEARLY NOT RAY? WHY IS RAY’S MOM HUGGING THIS GUY AND CALLING HIM RAY HOW DOES SHE NOT KNOW HE IS NOT RAY?
Long story short: Ray had to go undercover or some such police nonsense, and Ray 2.0 was PRETENDING TO BE HIM so no one in the criminal underworld would notice he was gone. And everyone knew this except for Fraser.
It was the most insane way to deal with an actor switch I’ve ever seen and to this day I am in awe of it.
w ait wh
d………do they get the original Ray actor back????
NOPE.
Two Rays. Original Flavor Hardened Chicago Gumshoe Ray, and New Ray, a scruffy, slightly younger, a Little Less Jaded Ray.
You haven’t seen a ship war until you’ve seen the ship war of CHOOSE YOUR RAY.
I was there. Oh, let me tell you about the Ray Wars.
Better yet: http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Ray_Wars