Come on down, specialties and pay-TV.

These broadcast outlets have increased their profile as the destination for quality homegrown TV drama, as four of the five programs up for best dramatic series at this year’s Gemini Awards will attest.

Pay stations The Movie Network and Movie Central claim first broadcast rights on three of the noms: Slings & Arrows, ReGenesis and Terminal City, while the primary broadcaster on Moccasin Flats is specialty APTN.

Only CBC’s cancelled This Is Wonderland originally ran on an over-the-air network, and it will likely be a while, if ever, before the show appears on a specialty, since the pubcaster has the Canadian rights for seven years. But the involvement of over-the-air casters in the nominated shows hardly ends there.

CHUM was the first caster to support Terminal City, according to executive producer Jayme Pfahl of Crescent Entertainment. Having already aired on the two pay channels, the limited-run series, about a woman (played by Maria del Mar) who wages a very public war against cancer, is scheduled for broadcast on CHUM’s Citytv stations in March 2007.

As well, Global Television began airing the second season of ReGenesis on its main network in September. But Showcase, which has specialty rights for seasons one and two, has stepped up to the plate and acquired more exclusive rights for the third season, and the show will lose its presence on conventional TV.

The growth of original drama on specialties and pay comes as these channels have bolstered their subscription bases, and they provide an outlet for edgier material that producers welcome.

Niv Fichman of Toronto’s Rhombus Media, which produces Slings & Arrows, a sly look at the goings-on behind the scenes in a small theater town, notes he has ‘more freedom’ working with pay-TV than the networks. The shows can be more risqué in terms of subject matter, language and sexual content, due to pay’s more limited availability and its subscriber-based viewership.

‘We found that, with pay, there is an appetite for Canadian drama in general, and [these channels’] attitude in how they handle the creative has been so collaborative and supportive,’ he says.

He adds that TMN and MC ‘are starting to brand themselves in the tradition of Showtime and HBO in the United States.’

Michelle Marion, director of Canadian independent production at TMN, says her channel launched its drive for more quality indigenous TV programming about five years ago.

‘Specialty – and pay in particular – are getting a reputation for choosing and airing dramas that are a little bit out of the ordinary – shows that take more chances,’ she says. ‘We are catering to a discerning pay-TV audience, and when they see a series, they have to understand immediately why they are paying for it.’

She notes TMN is looking for writer-driven shows with distinct points of view that look cinematic and can be aired in high definition.

The pay stations have really stepped up to the plate for original Canadian one-hour series in the past couple of years, says Shaftesbury Film’s Christina Jennings, executive producer and creator of ReGenesis, which stars Peter Outerbridge as a molecular biologist who heads a team of scientists dealing with medical and ethical dilemmas.

‘What is interesting about the model is, if it works as it did in ReGenesis, it still means [a show backed by a pay channel] can go to specialty and conventional,’ Jennings says. ‘But pay is looking for [content] that is different.’

Showcase VP of content Tara Ellis notes specialties have grown their audiences and are now in a position to produce original shows themselves, rather than just being in the market for second-window broadcasts.

Moccasin Flats is one of those dramas Showcase airs in a second window. While the shows TMN and MC get behind tend to have big budgets by Canadian standards, Moccasin Flats is smaller-scale. Produced by Big Soul Productions and Stephen Onda Productions, and starring Candace Fox, Mathew Strongeagle, Gordon Tootoosis and Sarah Podemski, the series chronicles life in an urban aboriginal reservation in Regina. It is billed as the first series produced and written by and starring aboriginal Canadians.

Some of this year’s nominated dramas have ended their production runs, although some of the producers are eyeing reincarnations in different forms. Moccasin Flats has been cancelled, although there is talk of an MOW featuring the same characters. The last episode in Moccasin Flats’ three-year run was to air Sept. 25 on Showcase.

CBC dropped This Is Wonderland after its third cycle, but Muse Entertainment president Michael Prupas, the series’ executive producer, is pitching a French-language version of the series to Radio-Canada featuring bilingual actor Ron Lea, who plays a lawyer in the English-language show. The rest of the cast would consist of Quebec actors.

‘George Walker, who created the show, is tremendously well respected and loved in Quebec. His plays [which include Nothing Sacred and Suburban Motel] have done well,’ Prupas notes. ‘In Quebec, there is a more social-democratic perspective on the world, and I think that This Is Wonderland in some ways could be characterized as a great social-democratic series.’

Created by Walker with Dani Romain and producer Bernard Zukerman, Wonderland deals with Canada’s social legal system and the people caught up in it, focusing on a young lawyer played by Cara Pifko.

Terminal City was conceived and produced as a 10 x 1 series, and no new segments are planned. As well, the third season of Slings & Arrows will likely be the last.

‘Slings & Arrows was conceived as a three-season arc. It’s non-episodic and isn’t likely to continue after that,’ Ellis says. The second season launches on Showcase on Oct. 15 at 8 p.m.

A third season of ReGenesis has just gone into production.