After seven seasons, Julie Stewart has frisked her last stiff on Cold Squad.
The CTV drama begins its seventh and final season tonight at 9 p.m. It anchors the networks brand new CrimeTime Saturday slot, with encore episodes of U.S. dramas CSI, CSI: Miami and Cold Case running alternate weeks.
Kind of ironic since they all pretty much stole and ran with Cold Squad's forensic crime formula. (It will air the next two Saturdays as well before the rest of the rotation kicks in.)
Stewart was convinced her show was toast two years ago. After constant cast shakeups, CTV announced it was shutting down the series. Her character, Sgt. Ali McCormick, quit the force at the end of the sixth season. The sets were torn down and the cast released.
Then the numbers came in. Cold Squad has consistently been one of the top-rated Canadian-produced TV shows, despite being booted all over CTV's schedule. It's the show they couldn't kill with a stick.
When the producers secured another season of funding (during a time when many others couldn't), CTV put it back on their schedule.
"We've had a wonderfully loyal audience when they've had the opportunity to find it," Stewart said during a visit to the Sun last week. She wrapped shooting the Vancouver-based show nearly a year ago and spent her first summer in Toronto in years, renovating her new home with her husband.
Ali comes back on her own terms, she reports, and not with her tail between her legs. "We left the window open a crack for her return, thank goodness," says Stewart.
The actress rolls her eyes at the mention of her ever-changing hairstyles on the series. Long, short, red, blonde, Ali kept them guessing.
Everybody's obsessed with her hair, even cross-town forensic cop show rival Nicholas Campbell (Da Vinci's Inquest), who ran into her at an airport once. "You gotta leave your hair the same," he told her.
Stewart says the series goes out on a brave note. "There was a lot of discussion about the ending," she says. "We went to a place that had us all wondering if we wanted to go there or not. It's sort of a scary and a disturbing idea."
There's even a dark fantasy sequence with Ali offering an accused a lap dance. "There I was in super high heels, short, short skirt and leather corset. It was bizarre, fun and a real challenge."
Would she ever consider crawling back under this character's skin? Why not, said Stewart. "I think we could do great movies with it."
Besides placing in her first duathlon, she had a blast on stage with Fiona Reid and Rick Roberts this past spring at the Tarragon Theatre. She'd like to pursue directing (she helmed three Cold Squad episodes). And she'd love to do a film -- something she's never done before. "My horizons are wide open at this point."
