When Lark Productions hired Nicole Mendes as head of scripted development in 2020, the Vancouver prodco was in early discussions about how to modernize a TV procedural, recalls president Erin Haskett.

It just so happened that, at the time, Mendes was having similar discussions with novelist and screenwriter Anar Ali, who had an idea for a show that would eventually become the CBC police drama Allegiance.

Allegiance stars Supinder Wraich as a rookie cop of Sikh Punjabi heritage in Surrey, B.C., who must balance her responsibilities to her job while fighting treason charges against her father, a local politician. The series premiered on Feb. 7.

Haskett tells Playback Daily that linear TV is experiencing a shift where audiences are still looking for the “traditional case of the week,” but want a “little bit more [from the stories],” citing shows such as The Good Wife, where they “marry the serialized with the procedural” format.

“I think that this show [Allegiance] delivered that, both in its original premise, and also in its execution,” says Haskett.

The series is produced by Lark in association with its minority shareholder Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group. Stephanie Morgenstern and Mark Ellis are the co-showrunners and also serve as executive producers with Ali, Haskett, Mendes, David Valleau and Tex Antonucci. The cast also includes Enrico Colantoni, Stephen Lobo, Adolyn H. Dar, Brian Markinson and David Cubitt.

NBCUniversal Global Distribution is handling the distribution of the series globally.

Getting the show in front of Lark was a “stroke of luck,” says Ali, who had been exploring themes of identity, restorative justice and family for a procedural and had earlier developed a project with Mendes while the latter was a production executive at CBC. She says she was about to pitch the concept and characters for a Surrey-based show to Mendes when she moved to Lark, which so happened to be a B.C.-based company.

Haskett says Lark was confident the show would find a home, but they needed to be careful about what would be the right fit.

“We actually had offers for two homes and we felt like the show was best suited for the CBC because of who they are in their mandate and their desire to reach, entertain, and inform a broad audience,” she says.

CBC put the show in development in spring 2021, and NBCUniversal Global Distribution came on board not long after.

“[NBCUniversal are] looking for big dramas that they can sell around the world. When they read Allegiance, they thought, ‘this is a show that they could get behind,'” says Haskett, crediting SVP, global scripted Kelsey Balance for “championing the show internally at NBC International.”

During development the team took time to find the right formula and tone, the right cases, the lead character’s voice, and make a show that led with “a sense of humanity,” says Haskett.

The development team included the dramatist Gavan Cheema as cultural consultant and Paul Dadwal, an ex-RCMP officer from Surrey, whose anecdotes helped build some of the fictional cases.

Ali says when it came to the lead character and her family, she wanted to go in a different direction from most immigrant stories on TV and focus on the lives of people who have been living in Canada for generations, and their relationship with the question of allegiance and identity.

She says the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the conversations around it made her more brave as a writer. She was also inspired by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Chicago-based public health organization Cure Violence Global, and Ontario’s community court model, the Justice Centre pilots, which are all based on the idea of restorative justice.

The idea of restorative justice is explored in episodes highlighting safe supply and Indigenous sentencing circles, for example. The show also delves into topics such as South Asian gangs, and migrant worker trafficking rings, and also explores the ideas of class and privilege.

Lea Marin, CBC’s director of development, drama, says “Anar’s understanding of being caught between the intersection of cultures past and present, and her desire to explore the possibility of restorative justice through the lead character Sabrina’s unique lens, had us convinced early on that this series would be something quite special.”

Allegiance was greenlit last winter and Morgenstern and Ellis, creators of the CTV police procedural Flashpoint, joined as co-showrunners soon after. For them, Allegiance provided an opportunity to dig into the “critical and aspirational dimensions” of policing.

After the greenlight, Lark assembled a team of writers who could capture the authenticity of the stories and their setting. And they worked towards a very “ambitious deadline” to get production completed by the end of the year, recalls Morgenstern.

The writer’s room included story editor and director Agam Dharshi, who had to split her time after she was cast in CTV’s Sight Unseen, Penny Gummerson, Sarah Dodd, Abdul Malik, Manny Mahal, Seneca Aaron, Aubrey Nealon, story editor Tanvi Bhatia, and writer’s assistant Kaylyn Johnson, with Cheema and Dadwal remaining as consultants.

The directing team included Shannon Kohli, Nimisha Mukherji, Darshi, Madison Thomas, and David Frazee.

The casting process for the show involved a cross-country search, with the team “really respectful” of other unions and their jurisdiction during strikes in the U.S. and mindful of not casting talent who were dual members.

The team shot on a seven-day schedule, which Ellis says is very ambitious for a show with a “fairly substantial action and location component.” They also had to tackle daylight hours with filming starting in September and ending in December amid some of the “darkest days.”

Allegiance is produced with the support of the Canada Media Fund, Bell Fund, Independent Production Fund (COGECO), and federal, B.C, and Ontario tax credit programs.

Image courtesy of CBC and Lark Productions