It was after attending an international forensic science conference a few years ago in Vancouver that Chris Haddock was struck with the idea of building a show around a coroner.

What he came up with was Da Vinci’s Inquest, now shooting its second season and nominated for seven Geminis. Three of the nominations fall under the best writing in a dramatic series category – and two of those are compliments of Haddock.

It was the chief coroner of b.c. who invited the writer/director/ executive producer to the conference to speak about the representation of forensic scientists and criminologists in the media.

‘I started to cook that idea and knew that if I wrapped the three favorite tv genres – police, medical and legal procedural – into one show I had a good shot of making something interesting and different with commercial potential.’

Most of the Da Vinci storylines are anchored in reality. The ‘Quality of Mercy’ episode, cowritten with Leonel Luna, a story about euthanasia and the grueling decisions a family has to make, was inspired by a situation close to the writer. The story in ‘The Capture,’ scripted with Larry Campbell, was triggered by a newspaper article Haddock came across about a widely accessible rape drug.

Through his work on Da Vinci, Haddock has come to believe that tv is the medium of social discussion and where issues that people deal with in daily life are reflected back most effectively.

‘Feature film has diminished in its capacity to deal with what is really going on in society and tends towards a younger demographic, more fantasy,’ he says. ‘tv has taken the place of adult cinema.’ Pamela Swedko