Cold Case
Cold Case is an hour-long television crime investigation series. It first aired in September 2003 on CBS. It was billed as one of the most-watched shows in its first season, and has been renewed for the 2004-2005 series. It has also been sold internationally, screening in several other countries, such as Australia, where it is shown on the Nine Network.
Main Characters
- Lilly Rush (Kathryn Morris), a female detective on the Philadelphia homicide squad who specializes in murders that have never been solved.
- Scotty Valens (Danny Pino), Rush's partner. He can best be described as a womanizer with a heart of gold.
- Lt. John Stillman (John Finn), Rush's mentor.
Supporting Cast
- Det. Will Jeffries (Thom Barry)
- Det. Nick Vera (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.
- NCIS 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. (Note: This is clearly meant to represent Rush's imagination; this is not a series 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.