#vecchio and fraser (deceased)

[dirtyzucchini]

Seeing as this poll considers the Due South Official Guide canon (as long as it's funny), I took pictures of my favorite parts as a contribution to @ds30below's canon week! Huge thank you to my production assistant @sammeltassensammelsurium, who kept things steady and made me get rid of the pet hair, which in hindsight was a fantastic artistic decision.

Starting us off is this lovely picture I have not seen anywhere else:

I really like the way he looks at the dog, it's adorable.

I'll put the rest under a read more, but if you'd rather read the Official Guide in all its glory, @jackymedan has your back: find the PDF here!

Next up is Bob Fraser (deceased), who gave me psychic damage with this little excerpt:

It's funny that he ships his son with Meg Thatcher, I always suspected, but "the delicacies that life sometimes presents"? Really, Bob? Also, "the fruit of our labors" is... What, a weird flex? I was aware you had relations with your wife, Bob, I was just really happy to not consider this fact (like with my own parents) (who I'm sure never, uh, labored, as it were) (ever).

ANYWAY let's look at this recipe instead:

OR MAYBE NOT. This is too funny, though, and I'm once again left to wonder, who the hell is the intended audience for this book? I mean, I guess it's me because I'm having fun, but I'm also slightly disturbed. I was a young adult in the late 90s, but I don't remember them being this weird. I guess Due South really IS as special as I think.

I will leave you with these fun little bits of information - some vital stats for Ray Vecchio...

And Ray Kowalski:

Sadly, no height or weight for Fraser - does anyone have an estimate?

Anyway, there you have some of my favorite bits. The whole thing is an experience, though, so do consider grabbing a copy from the link above!

#due south #ds30below #red ships and green ships

[california-112]

Vecchio and Fraser (Deceased)

Due South x Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) | Inspired by @catbushandludicrous ‘s post | Clips borrowed from S01E12 ‘A Hawk And A Handsaw’

#the scientist speaks #due south #randall and hopkirk #crossover #vecchio and fraser (deceased) #this has almost no audience #but i like it #and it's a fun idea #might write a fic... #fun! #randall and hopkirk (deceased) #paul gross #benton fraser #david marciano #ray vecchio #s02e12 #a hawk and a handsaw

[doctorbeverlycrusher]

For the asks: 2 and 3 😊

Thank you for the asks ❤️

2 - Top 5 overrated shows

It really takes a lot for me to dislike a show or something, but here’s some that I’ve never quite seemed to enjoy as much as the masses. I’ve enjoyed these at parts, but I was never as invested in them as most people.

The Walking Dead

Riverdale

Danny Phantom

Supernatural

Hey Arnold

3 - Top 5 underrated shows

I’m going to give a little description with these ones but here are some shows I really enjoy(ed) that I don’t see talked about enough

Providence - Sydney Hansen, played by Melina Kanakaredes (who was later on CSI:NY), goes home to Providence, Rhode Island, after the death of her mother, and ends up staying to be with her family. It’s this wonderful slice of life drama that I ended up finding by accident when my sister turned on the W Network one morning to find a rerun of it. The show has a really unique thing where the cold open to every episode starts with Sydney in some sort of dream sequence involving her mother.

Corner Gas - A sitcom set in the small town of Dog River, Saskatchewan and focuses on some of the residents. There’s Brent, the owner of the titular Corner Gas gas station which is inherited from his cranky father Oscar. His mother Emma is rather sharp witted and can hold her own against Oscar but the two really do love each other. The other major characters include Brent’s dimwitted best friend Hank, his extremely sarcastic and smart co-worker Wanda, city girl Lacey who moved from Toronto to run her deceased aunt’s coffee shop, and the only two cops in town, Davis and Karen. The show was popular in Canada when it aired, but I think it can appeal to non-Canadians as well, especially if you like quirky humour.

Human Target - Loosely based on a DC comic book character, Human Target followed Christopher Chance, a former assassin who went rogue and basically became a security specialist/mercenary for hire for people in need. He’s aided in this by Winston, a former police inspector and Guerrero, another assassin who had the same employer as Chance. In season 2, he gains a rich widowed benefactor Ilsa Pucci. At the time I watched this show, I was obsessed with the police procedurals. This show had that feel, but with a whole spy/assassin/action element that I really enjoyed and I wish it had lasted longer.

Due South - RCMP officer Benton Fraser in all his stereotypical polite non-threatening Canadian man glory heads to Chicago to investigate the murder of his father. His investigation leads to him gaining a position at the Canadian consulate where he works along Chicago PD cop Ray Vecchio. Season 3 replaces Vecchio with Ray Kowalski. There is a very divisive line in the fandom over which Ray is better and/or which Ray you ship with Fraser. Also, Fraser has a deaf, lip-reading, pure white half-wolf named Diefenbaker who is the definition of a good doggo. There is a thriving fandom for this show, but I think it would really appeal to younger people in fandom if they watched it as well.

Stickin’ Around - Most Canadian kids around my age would would remember this animated show from YTV. The show revolves around Stacy Stickler, her best friend Bradley and a group of other kids. The show is drawn in a stick person style and looks like a stereotypical children’s drawing. The show is extremely hard to find which is one of the reasons why I think it holds such a nostalgia factor for me. Anyway, if you ever find it, watch some of it. It’s ridiculous and absurd, but entertaining.

#asks

[alwaysalreadyangry]

i also watched the dS episode “vault” last night & i didn’t sleep and really can’t write a good/coherent long post about it right now.

but i am very interested in what dS as a show has to say about banks & finance. how ray vecchio knows that it’s important to be paid, whereas fraser puts duty first, while conversely ray says that he doesn’t want to put himself in harm’s way for the bank’s property and fraser tries to argue that actually they’re protecting the small deposits of hardworking families, etc. i am with ray here!

but there’s also the weird side plot about ray trying to scam lots of disability money, only he’s come up with an impossible injury that would have killed him, so he’s been registered as deceased and he’s lost access to everything - all of his money, all of his documentation, everything. so ray is on the make with a scam that is aimed at... i think his insurance company (? i don’t really understand how the US system works) and he’s arguing against protecting banks while also we know that he is injured because he took a shot for fraser, and we know that when pushed he will be brave and put himself in danger to save other people.

i think it’s really interesting that here fraser, for all of his weirdness and unreality — fraser is the one arguing that they should be willing to die saving property, that they should be fighting for the bank and for the money that people have saved there (as if it won’t be covered by insurance if stolen!)

fraser is the one arguing for order. whereas ray doesn’t see it the same way - but it’s not a high moral stance. it’s both a distrust and dislike of big business/banks but it’s also selfishness, in that he’s like — why should i put myself on the line for this corporation that doesn’t care about me? and it doesn’t. he’s right. the bank manager had literally just told him that he’s legally dead, and didn’t care that he couldn’t access any of his assets.

but also — it’s ray’s insurance scam that led to them being there, to their lives being in danger in the first place. if he hadn’t tangled himself up further in these corporations, he wouldn’t have been arguing with them — and they wouldn’t have been caught up in the heist. if he wasn’t declared dead, he could just have used his ATM card and then been on his way, none the wiser. and he was only declared dead because of his com

and of course, in the end they do stop the heist and save the property.

ray, while in the vault, makes like he’s going to steal some of the money. he’s trying to survive the bank robbery, not stop it. it’s fraser who wants to stop it. but in the end, does ray keep the money? i can’t remember if we saw this resolved. i am guessing he does not. but he feels like he is owed something — that the money he wanted to take was what he deserved. it’s an interesting aspect of his character, especially given that we know what his father’s influence was/is like — abusive, selfish, about the primacy of number one.

ray talks about banks as things that don’t deserve his protection — but he stops at seeing simply himself as the hard-done-by one in the situation. his impulses aren’t about redistribution or wider justice — he just wants more than he’s got.

and so in the end ray says that he can’t bear to keep hearing fraser explain his various dangerous, wild schemes. he can’t bear to hear the details of how his life will be put on the line; ray will just have to trust fraser implicitly. which is what fraser wanted all along, and it leads to them saving the day. fraser acts as something of a conscience, or... not really a conscience. he saves both of their lives but he also, through a typical madcap scheme, fights for order. fights for the bank. fights for property. it just happens that this also saves them. because capital and property are messy and sometimes it can be hard to untangle them from people — this whole episode is about ray being caught up in financial systems, one way or another.

i don’t really know what i am saying here to conclude. only that i find ray hard to warm to in this episode but i also often think that he’s right — in what he says to fraser about how fraser is constantly risking their lives, basically offering them up for whatever cause that he thinks is worthy, according to his own morality or sense of duty which may or may not actually align with ray’s own. fraser thinks that ray should implicitly trust him — but he’s also lost count of how many times, how often he is reckless on both of their accounts.

ray wants fraser to admit that in the face of the machinery of the force that he works for... and in the face of the whole world which he is always willing to give up everything for... that fraser feels unappreciated sometimes. what’s this about? franny’s plot is like a weird parody/play on the same theme that i really can’t get into here. but it ties in very neatly i think: in the face of the systems that control and dictate our lives, it can be very hard to feel like a person, it can be hard to ask for and get what you want, what you deserve. it’s not always about trying to take everything you can get; sometimes it’s just about wanting to wear the clothes you like. it’s about self-determination — and whatever that looks like, in the face of the machineries of capital... and the state, which is implicitly tied up in it.

i haven’t rewatched “easy money” for a long while but i would like to rewatch and compare to this episode.

#due south #this likely makes no sense as i have not really slept in the past couple of days

[hellyes-tommccamus]

Due South [TV] (1994-1999)

Drama/Comedy

Tom McCamus appears in S01E10

[spoilers]

Due South is perfect. It's an utter joy to watch the adventures of the trio of courteous Mountie Benton Fraser (Paul Gross), cynical cop Ray Vecchio (David Marciano) and Diefenbaker the wolf (Draco & Lincoln, who adorably have their own IMDB pages). The show has a great style and sense of humour. I watched this show the first time around and it was probably my first exposure to Canadians and Canada (especially as “Chicago” is just Toronto pretending to be the US as usual).

Tom plays Jimmy Donnelly, a member of a gang of thieves who rob a bank at Christmas dressed as Santas. I’m a real sucker for Christmas themed stuff, especially Christmas episodes of shows I love. For some reason one of the crooks decides to double cross the others and pulls the alarm on them. Then he runs off, but literally runs into Del (Ryan Phillippe). Benton and Ray just happen to be Christmas shopping together at the time and Benton notices that Del saw the fleeing Santa.

The dynamic duo question Del but he doesn’t give any evidence. Del returns home to find he’s been burgled and bumps into Jimmy on his way back out. Jimmy is a friend of Del's father.

Benton drops by to return a Christmas gift which Del forgot back at the station. Del accidentally lets on that he knows the thief. They talk about Del's father and Benton starts thinking about his own father, and later he appears. The good old classic Christmas ghost!

Jimmy shoots one of his gang members for aiding the double cross. Meanwhile, Benton and Ray close in on the gang, aided by Fraser Sn (deceased). Del and his father William (James Purcell) try to escape and there’s a great car chase, including that good old classic driving through stacked up empty cardboard boxes. Plus Canadian flag spotted! The Canadians are a patriotic bunch, flags everywhere. It’s a wonder they manage to mostly keep them out of shot for Canada-does-America shoots. Take a picture in a Canadian city and you’re probably lucky if it doesn’t include a flag or a Tim Hortons.

Del's father tells him he took the money for him, but Del isn’t impressed and runs off. Benton confronts William but he drives away. In a haunting montage, William sets up his plan to kill the Donnellys and himself, leaving the money to his son. But Benton and Ray intervene and convince him to not burn them all to death.

Father and son make up and it’s a happy Christmas ending.

This episode had so many awesome montages, funny and touching moments. Tom is always so good at playing the bad guy. And in this he has a bit of an Irish accent.

#due South #tom mccamus #Paul gross #david marciano #ryan phillippe #James Purcell

[california-112]

Top 5 favorite tv characters!

Ah, TV characters! So many to choose from, maybe too many...

Fifth place is Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H, but he's only fifth because we're old friends now. This show bought me up (in more ways that one...), so yeah...one of my longest-running favourites.

Number four is Benton Fraser from Due South, lower down because we're new friends (two weeks ago, I didn't know this show existed!), and it was a hard choice between him and Ray Vecchio.

Third is Llewellyn Watts from Murdoch Mysteries. I've watched this show for a few years now, and though Watts is relatively new, he's still gone straight to the top of my favourites list- overtaking Crabtree!

Two is Jeff Randall from Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), and this was another hard choice between partners, because Marty is brilliant. However, Jeff just...his whole character...relatable :')

The first prize goes to Peter Newkirk from Hogan's Heroes. This show also bought me up from around the same time as M*A*S*H, but in Newkirk I see a lot of myself. Not necessarily in a good way...

This was lots of fun, thank you for asking!

#ask #tv characters #mash #due south #murdoch mysteries #randall and hopkirk #hogans heroes #thanks for the ask! #great fun #:)