"In Toronto's war on crime, the worst offenders are pursued by the detectives of the specialized Criminal Investigations Unit. These are their stories." CHUNG CHUNG!
The fifth foreign spin-off in the Law & Order franchisenote , Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent is a Canadian version of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The show is airing throughout Canada by Citytv, both for TV and for online streaming from February 22, 2024. It's scheduled to run for 10 episodes. It stars Aden Young, Kathleen Munroe, K.C. Collins and Karen Robinson. The show's concepts are developed by Tassie Cameron.
According to the production team, the episodes will be based on criminal cases "ripped from the headlines". It centers on serious criminal cases being investigated by the Toronto Police Department while working with Ontario Crown attorneys.
Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent provides examples of:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Despite being a Canadian production set and filmed in Toronto, the Opening Narration uses the over-emphasized "toe-rawn-TOE" pronunciation for the city's name, which almost no Torontonian doesnote .
- Antagonist Title: Like Criminal Intent, the TPD goes after the suspect of the week and whatever motives they have.
- Big Brother Bully: The Villain of the Week in "Good Neighbours" was a monstrous example of this to his younger brother.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- The true culprit responsible for killing Eve in "The Real Eve" was arrested, but the real artist who did the work for Eve was Killed Offscreen.
- The ending of "Bleeding Hearts" has the scammer dead and his killer arrested, but the victim does not believe that her "fiancé" is dead. Sure enough, someone takes over from the dead scammer to continue scamming the woman.
- Car Fu: In "The Key to the Castle", the widow of the episode's Victim of the Week was rammed on her driveway by a Mercedes-Benz sedan that was driven by the Villain of the Week.
- Claiming Via Flag: The series makes certain you know it's the Canadian version of L&O with an absolutely huge Canadian flag in the credits, should anyone happen to think "Toronto" in the title meant somewhere else.
- Government Agency of Fiction: Unlike the original Criminal Intent, which preserved the New York Police Department (NYPD) name, Toronto: Criminal Intent chose to portray Toronto Police under a fictional name as the Toronto Police Department. The actual police force in Toronto is known as the Toronto Police Service.
- The Mafiya: In "The Key to the Castle", the TPD was investigating a murder that seemingly have the Russian mafia involved. They weren't responsible for it.
- Ripped from the Headlines: "Crack Reporter" is based on allegations that former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was reported to be recorded smoking crack in 2016.
- Scenery Porn: The production team mention that the show will showcase aspects of Toronto from CN Tower, Little India and Chinatown instead of being
used to double for American cities like Chicago and New York. - Self-Made Lie: "Minnow and the Shark" features two examples as the main culprits. One is Nadia Betts, the CEO of BestBetts, a grocery store chain. Despite having inherited the company from her grandfather, Nadia insists she earned her position through merit, but one of her employees states that the company is making money in spite of her. The other is Douglas Hill, founder of Hill Breads who started out as just a humble baker before becoming the owner of the largest commercial bakery in Canada and is much closer to being an underdog who rose to the top than Nadia. However, the detectives' investigation reveals that Nadia and Douglas are engaged in a price-fixing scheme — when one increases the prices of their goods, the other gains market share. Zoe Vaughn, the Victim of the Week, discovered this and was trying to expose both of them, hence why they had her killed.
- Sigil Spam: Expect to see the Canadian flag on TPD uniforms, which is already a standard with most uniformed Canadian law enforcement agencies.
