#mackenzie king

1x02 Diefenbaker’s Day Off // 2x08 One Good Man // 2x13 White Men Can’t Jump to Conclusions // 3x01 Burning Down the House | Normalized

due South does a main character re-casting better than any other show on TV, and they do it by playing with television's own accepted meta-narrative.

Recasting a character has a long tradition in television, creating a viewership that knows and understands the storytelling short form at play. As viewers, we realize that sometimes actors aren't available to reprise a role (or simply aren't interested in it anymore); but, for the sake of the story, sometimes the show needs that character to come back. So we lean hard into suspended disbelief and just go with it. After all, the characters in the show accept the parareality of it—why shouldn't we?

Of course, the most famous example of a character recast would be the Dick/Darren disaster on 1960s sitcom Bewitched, when Dick York was unceremoniously replaced by Dick Sargent in the role of Darrin Stephens. ("The Dick Wars" would have gone absolutely insane).

it was... not successful

But they weren't the only ones to do it. Aunt Viv from Fresh Prince, Becky from Roseanne, Daario Naharis from Game of Thrones, Greg Serrano from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (pain, agony)—recasting characters but maintaining the fiction is a storied tradition in TV. New actor, same character; totally normalized.

And shows continue to do it, even today, with a—uh—similar dedication to fucking it up doing it poorly.

why must we be punished like this

due South even engages in this trope itself in season 2, when hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King is recast and they don't even try to find an actress who looks similar. In 1x02 Diefenbaker's Day Off, she's played by brunette Madolyn Smith-Osborne; in 2x08 One Good Man, she's been replaced by blonde Maria Bello, and nobody talks about it.

yeah i'm absolutely the same person, obviously

Everyone diegetically (within the world of the show) is just like, oh yeah, that's hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King. Totally. Only non-diegetically (outside of the world of the show) does the viewer go "No, that's not the same person." Internally, the fiction proceeds as usual.

So what would happen if, say, Samantha Stephens turned to Dick Sargent and said "You're not Darrin," when everyone else in the show continued to treat him as though he was? Or if Jaskier told Geralt that he knows he's not actually Geralt, and everyone treated him like he was delusional?

Or if Fraser, even, had recognized Mackenzie King as someone entirely different, and everyone treated him like he had a hole in his bag of marbles because of it? Of course that's Mackenzie King; even her boss knows it. No, she's never been a brunette. What are you talking about?

And that's exactly what happens in Burning Down the House.

the rays vecchio

Diagetically, everyone else treats Callum Keith Rennie's character as though he is Ray Vecchio. "Oh, good, you found him," says Det. Huey. Elaine, Franchesca, literally everyone else both at the station and outside of it treat Callum Keith Rennie Ray Vecchio as though he is David Marciano Ray Vecchio. They're acting exactly as any other TV character would in the face of a recasting: as though absolutely nothing had happened.

Except for Fraser.

Fraser's specific brand of parareal Canadian plot magic means that he's immune to the recasting blindness; he's acting as an agent of the viewer, voicing our non-diegetic concerns. Fraser is (as he so often is) a character with one foot outside of the narrative. He's just always been like this and he doesn't know why.

oh this man is infuriating and hot, fuck. shit.

And for a character who already thinks he is likely insane (he sees the ghost of his dead father! He communicates with his deaf half-wolf! He is instantly committed to a mental institution upon voicing the actual true story of his life!), this is very extremely distressing. Fraser thinks he's actually lost it this time, because everyone else in due South is acting like a TV character, and Benton Fraser is acting like a viewer.

This is so brilliant on so many levels. They just fully lampshade the damn thing. It allows our protagonist to speak for disgruntled or confused viewers. It engages at a postmodern level with television as a medium with a storied history (and due South is incredibly postmodern; nearly every episode is or contains a reference to another piece of media). It's written from the perspective of someone who loves and is knowledgeable about TV tropes.

And it gives us an entirely new Ray while still maintaining respect and loyalty to the original, something no other straight (lol) recast could ever do.

Genuinely one of the most clever, witty, well-crafted hours of television ever made. I could write essays about so many different parts of it. And I guess I will!!!!!!

A character you would like to know more about: what is her lore, her motivations, her Vibe! someone you've often wondered about or a character that you've never considered until today!

The character could be anyone (major or minor).

Some examples include:

MACKENZIE KING

An ambitious reporter who initially is very suspicious of Fraser, because he is too kind (although that doesn't stop her from being kind of into him). Eventually she comes around to believing in him, even putting aside her own best interests in order to help him out.

MA VECCHIO

Ray's mother and mother of another two or three kids, depending on if we count the once-named brother from the pilot -- but in more canonically canon, the mother of Frannie and Maria. There are suggestions that she tried to protect her kids somewhat from her abusive husband's worse impulses, but that initially they genuinely did love one another. she now lives in the same house, although it's officially in the name of her son

CAROLINE FRASER

Fraser's mother who was killed when he was a kid. she seemed to submit to her husband's frequent relocating more than actually enjoying his antics, althought Bob didn't seem to notice her discontentment. A lot of her is framed through Fraser's understanding of who she must have been.

CAROLINE MORGAN

A career criminal who crosses Fraser's and Ray's path twice, she's pretty ruthless about getting what she wants. Unfortunately both times she gets arrested by the two of them, harboring an ever-growing grudge.

LOUISE ST LAURENT

A district attorney who first crosses paths with Fraser and Ray when Fraser is being framed for theft and corruption. although both he and Ray are cleared of all charges, she maintains a pretty standoffish attitude about some of the lax standards at the precinct and keeps everyone on their toes. she and Ray eventually have a brief affair

(do not feel bound by any of these)

here's the AO3 for anyone needing it

A little story of a conversation between King George VI and Canadian PM Mackenzie King on the eve of the Coronation:

‘I talked about his resemblance to his father, particularly the hand-writing being the same. He remarked on that himself, and laughed a good deal about it, and said he had to make a little change in the “R.I.” just to be different.’

MACKENZIE KING diary entry - 11 May 1937

Doublespeak by William Lutz (1989)

The Portable Curmudgeon edited by Jon Winokur (1987)

Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking by Jessica Mitford (1979)

Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media by Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon (1990)

personal rambles/storytime about the search below

need more of this energy in subsequent seasons

King George VI and Mackenzie King (pictured at Buckingham Palace)

**************************

Reflecting on the American section of the trip, Mackenzie King assured the King it had surpassed all expectations…

“This trip has made a great deal to me, and a great deal to the Queen,” the King replied. He said it had been all about developing a “new idea of kingship” which was more in tune with the people and their interests – “no more the high-hat business, the kind of thing that my father and those of his day regarded as essential, as the correct attitude, that certain things could not be done, everything was to be just in such and such a way”…

Most revealing, though, were the insights the King gave into his attitudes to the throne. “When my father was alive, he filled an important place, was much before the public,” he told Mackenzie King. “My brother was equally prominent before the public. I was kept in the background. My father used to tell me I could never do anything because I could not speak.” Indeed, before George V’s death, when he could see the way things might go, he had gone to Sandringham with a view to telling his father he would not accept the throne – but never did so.

1955.