Street Legal (TV Series) - Show History

Show History

The series debuted in the 1986-87 season with Maryke McEwen as executive producer. It experienced a rocky start, with good story ideas but weak execution, lack of style in directing, and consequently low ratings. The theme music, however, beginning in season four, was immediately identifiable—a distinctive, raunchy and rollicking saxophone piece by Mickey Erbe and Maribeth Solomon. At that time the show revolved around just three lawyers—Carrie Barr (Sonja Smits), Leon Robinovitch (Eric Peterson) and Chuck Tchobanian (C. David Johnson). Carrie and Leon were the committed, left-wing social activists and Chuck the motorcycle-riding, reckless, aggressive, 1980s criminal lawyer.

From the third through the seventh seasons Brenda Greenberg was first senior producer, then executive producer, with Nada Harcourt taking over for the final season. As CBC's director of programming in 1987, Ivan Fecan hired a Canadian script doctor at CBS, Carla Singer, to work with the producer on improving the show. It was after this time that the show began to find its niche, introducing aggressive, sultry, high-heeled, risk-taking Olivia Novak (played by Cynthia Dale) to contrast the niceness of the Carrie Barr character. Olivia became one of the most memorable characters, but others were also added. Olivia became married to Chuck as the series progressed, they had a child together then became estranged near the series end.

Alana Newman-Robinovitch (Julie Khaner) plays a confident, compassionate judge, married to Leon, who confidently battles sexism in the workplace. They subsequently adopt a young boy in the series. Rob Diamond is added, a young bright lawyer (Albert Schultz)he leaves R.J. Williams and joins as a junior lawyer and managing partner.

In the fourth season, the first African-Canadian continuing character was introduced, crown prosecutor Dillon Beck (Anthony Sherwood). Dillon had a love affair with Carrie, subsequently marries her. They had two children, Dillon's daughter (previous wife deceased) and Carrie's adopted daughter from a client.

Carrie is struck and killed by a judge who was driving drunk. This wrote Carrie (Smits) out of the show due to family reasons. New lawyer Laura Crosby (Maria del Mar) is added to replace Carrie. Laura clashes with Olivia and romances Olivia's then-former boyfriend (later, husband), Chuck.

Dillon then has a relationship with Mercedes (Alison Sealy-Smith), the no-nonsense Caribbean Canadian office secretary. Nearer the series end Dillon joins the firm, to replace Chuck who is likely heading to Vancouver. He is now estranged from Olivia and has had a parting of the ways with longtime friend, partner Leon. Ron Lea played a nasty crown prosecutor called Brian Maloney, an in-joke to Canadians who immediately connected him to the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, lawyer Brian Mulroney.

Ron and Laura have a ongoing and eventual sour relationship. Nearer the end of the series Rob and Laura get together.

The enlarged cast allowed for more storylines and increased conflict.

The issues dealt with are also definably Canadian as well as international. Leon fought an employment equity case for a Royal Canadian Mounted Police candidate, as well as representing an African-Canadian nurse in front of the Human Rights Commission. Olivia became a producer of a Canadian movie. Chuck defended a wealthy Native cigarette smuggler on conspiracy to commit murder. Leon represented the survivors of a mine disaster and then ran for mayor of Toronto. Leon and Alana became involved with a Mexican refugee, eight months pregnant, who gets in trouble with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Human interest stories intertwined with the political issues and the characters' personal lives.

Street Legal represented a very important step in the Canadian television industry. Along with the CTV series E.N.G., set in a Toronto television newsroom, Street Legal established Canadian dramatic television stars. Cynthia Dale, who played vixen Olivia, has become nationally famous and has gone on to star in another series, as a Niagara Falls private eye in Taking the Falls. She has said that she gets letters from young girls who want to grow up to be just like Olivia. In one episode, when ogled and harassed by a construction worker as she passed his job site, Olivia knocked him off his sawhorse with her hefty briefcase. The scene was then inscribed into the new credit sequence.

The other cast members have also gone on to other work, but the problem of a Canadian star system remains. There are few series produced, even among all the networks, and often their stars will return to theatre or radio or, it has been noted, to auditioning again for TV parts. One reason Street Legal ended was that CBC could not afford to have two dramatic series on air at the same time and the older program was supplanted by Side Effects, a medical drama. The show's regular episode run came to an end on Feb. 18, 1994, and then all new episode production wrapped up with a two-hour movie, aired on Nov. 6, 1994, which drew 1.6 million viewers.

When Street Legal completed its eighth and final season, one TV journalist called it "unblushingly sentimental, unblinkingly campy, unabashedly Canadian and completely addictive." The one-hour CBC drama series about a group of Toronto lawyers stands as a landmark event in Canadian broadcasting history. After taking two years to find its niche, it became extremely popular. In its last six seasons, it regularly drew about a million viewers, the benchmark of a Canadian hit.