Vancouver: With his audience numbers in steady decline, Canada’s busiest and longest-running television coroner is getting a new job and new series this fall on CBC.

Dominic Da Vinci, played by actor Nicholas Campbell for seven seasons so far, will move from Da Vinci’s Inquest to become Vancouver’s mayor in the sequel Da Vinci’s City Hall – a move identical to that of the character’s inspiration, Larry Campbell, Vancouver’s former chief coroner and current mayor.

‘It didn’t start out as the Larry Campbell story,’ says series creator Chris Haddock of Vancouver’s Haddock Entertainment.

‘We got him elected to research for the show,’ he adds, perhaps only half-joking. Campbell was a technical advisor on Inquest and wrote some scripts. He will continue as an advisor on City Hall. ‘It is a segue more than an end to the original series,’ says Haddock.

Inquest produced 91 episodes.

The show won numerous Geminis through its run including a best drama series nod this year.

Da Vinci’s City Hall opens with the lead character’s first day on the job as Vancouver’s top politico and chair of the Vancouver Police Board.

Haddock maintains the series shift is about the natural evolution of the character more than a need to revitalize the series.

‘It came from my own instinctual drive to challenge myself as a writer,’ says Haddock, explaining he developed the idea for the new series two years ago when Campbell began his run for mayor. ‘I’m at my best when I’m feeling a little uncomfortable with the materials. And at some point, your characters demand to lead you down the road.’

According to the CBC, the seventh season of Da Vinci’s Inquest generated average per-episode audiences of 546,000 in 2004/05. That’s a drop of 32% compared to the average of 803,000 viewers per episode in 1999/00.

‘There has been some [downward] nudging at our numbers,’ admits Haddock, ‘but that’s across the board in television.’

Haddock describes the City Hall concept as a political procedural set to the pace of a police procedural, with the new storyline shifting Da Vinci out of Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside and into the crimes of other city business like gambling, property development and waste management.

‘Da Vinci used to look at crime from the street level,’ says Haddock. ‘Now he’s looking at it from the first floor.’

Toronto producer Laszlo Barna of Barna-Alper and the same production team behind Inquest will be backing City Hall. Each hour-long episode will cost more than $1 million.

City Hall will feature many of the elements of Inquest, but it will be a new series as far as funding at the Canadian Television Fund is concerned. That means that some so-far unnamed characters, besides Da Vinci, will make the move to the new series, but it will require a new regular cast. Some Inquest leads will make guest appearances in the new show.

According to Haddock, the CBC has ordered 13 one-hours for the next season. At press time, Haddock was writing the series bible to get it ready for the financing season. Haddock will also apply to the CTF for money to do the two-hour pilot for a potential new series starring Da Vinci’s Inquest regular Ian Tracey.

Last year, Haddock did 16 episodes of FBI drama The Handler with CBS.

-www.davincisinquest.com

-www.haddockentertainment.com

-www.barnaalper.com

-www.cbc.ca