The Movie Network and Movie Central have given the green light to two original dramas, Durham County and ZOS, and will bring back the sci-fi series ReGenesis for a third season this fall.

The new series represent ‘world-class original drama that Canadian pay-TV is becoming known for,’ says Shelley Gillen, head of creative and business affairs at Movie Central. ‘I believe we’ll take Canadian dramatic series to a level of unparalleled success both here and abroad.’

The cop thriller Durham County is a six-hour miniseries by Back Alley Film Productions (Drop The Beat), slated to premiere in spring 2007. It focuses on a detective who moves his family to the suburbs west of Toronto, where he crosses paths with an archenemy from high school and a serial killer. Global TV has the second window.

‘We learn relatively early on who is committing the murders, so the show is really a ‘whydunnit’ rather than a ‘whodunnit’,’ says exec producer Janis Lundman, who co-created the series with writer Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik (Bliss). ‘That’s what the miniseries is all about – exploring the thin line between good and evil, and examining what drives a person to such violence.’

Michael Prupas and director Adrienne Mitchell also exec produce.

Durham County is casting, with shooting due to begin in Montreal this fall.

‘We can’t shoot in the real Durham County because you can’t get close to the Pickering nuclear reactor due to terrorism-related security, plus the GTA isn’t economically a good place to shoot right now,’ says Mitchell.

‘So we’ve got a location in the new community of St-Julien, which neatly resembles Durham County, with shiny new suburban homes in the foreground and a forest of hydro towers in the back.’

Meanwhile, ZOS is an eight-part drama about the frustrations and dangers of peacekeeping in a fictional, Sarajevo-like city – produced by Paul Gross’ and Frank Siracusa’s Whizbang Films (Men with Brooms).

‘We got the idea for ZOS three years ago, when Canada started to wake up to the fact that we are a peacekeeping nation with a peacekeeping force,’ says Siracusa, who exec produces with Gross, director Mario Azzopardi, and writer/showrunner Malcolm MacRury.

‘Thematically, ZOS is a sort of reverse Deadwood, where we get to see a society rise from the ashes of war through the eyes of the peacekeepers assigned there, and the Christians and Muslims who live there,’ he adds. ‘By fictionalizing the story, we can draw from all kinds of real-world conflicts and events, such as Kosovo, 9/11, and Afghanistan and Iraq.’

ZOS is slated to shoot in Hungary and Canada starting in March. ‘We hope to air it sometime in 2008,’ says Erica Benson, TMN’s director of Canadian independent production.

The Gemini-winning series ReGenesis will return for a third season on TMN/MC in March. ‘It’s done very well for us in its first two seasons, and ReGenesis’ writers brought a lot of good ideas to the table that we’re fleshing out for season three,’ says Benson.

ReGenesis is exec produced by Christina Jennings and Tom Chehak of Shaftesbury Films.