Cold Case
Cold Case is an American hour-long fictional television show about a police division that especializes in investigating unsolved crimes. The show is set in the city of Philadelphia.
It first aired in September 2003 on CBS and was billed as one of the most-watched shows in its first season. It has also been sold internationally, screening in several other countries, such as Australia, where it is shown on the Nine Network.
| Contents |
Main characters
- Lilly Rush played by Kathryn Morris
- Scotty Valens played by Danny Pino (Rush's partner)
- Lt. John Stillman played by John Finn (Rush's mentor)
Supporting cast
- Det. Will Jeffries played by Thom Barry
- Det. Nick Vera played by Jeremy Ratchford
Trivia
- The show's theme song is "Nara" by E.S. Posthumus.
- Each show makes extensive use of era-appropriate music for flashbacks to the year in question.
- Cold Case is notable for double-casting: it will cast a young actor for the flashback sequences and a more seasoned actor for the shots in the present, and cut back and forth between the two, to show how the character has aged.
- Nearly every show ends with a set of scenes showing the murder, Detective Rush arresting the murderer and seeing the grateful-looking victim standing nearby, who then quickly vanishes (this aspect of the show is meant to represent Rush's imagination, since the show is not about the supernatural).
- A real life "cold case" investigative organization, known as the Vidocq Society, is based in Philadelphia, and may serve as inspiration for the show's theme and location.
Controversy
In 1998, a similar Canadian series called Cold Squad debuted, several years before Cold Case. Fans of Cold Squad accuse the American series of copying the basic premise and characters of the Canadian version, and at one point the creators of Cold Squad launched legal action against the makers of Cold Case. Both shows air in Canada. Waking the Dead is a similar British TV series about a "Cold Case Squad", which first aired in 2000.
Reviews
Critical reaction to Cold Case has been mostly favorable, citing its distinctive use of "flashback" scenes-within-scenes, period music, and uplifting storylines.
A 2004 episode based on the "Boy In The Box" [1], a still-unsolved 1957 Philadelphia homicide, was criticized for giving viewers the false impression that the actual case had been solved. (It should be noted that other television detective dramas such as Law & Order routinely base episodes on actual cases.)