Toeing the Line With ' The Border'
Source: AOL
Posted: 01/08/08 10:43AM
Filed Under: Television
CBC’s new investigative drama straddles right and wrong
By Chloe Tejada
Of late, life’s grey areas have been the bread and butter of good television. Even clear-cut genres like mob dramas (‘The Sopranos’) and series about serial killers (‘Dexter’) are riddled with bad guys whom we find hard to hate. In CBC’s ‘The Border,’ Canada’s small screen proves it can test our moral fibre with the best of them.
‘The Border’ follows a team of agents who each week face border security issues involving illegal immigration, kidnapping and terrorism. With each case, the characters battle not only the bad guys but their own moral judgment.
Montreal-born actor James McGowan plays head of Immigration and Customs Security (ICS) Major Mike Kessler. The actor reveals how his character keeps from buckling under the pressure of each case. “[Kessler] has a very strong moral strength,” he says. “He always has his eye on [his daughter] and the people who aren’t aware of the underground; he’s a bastion between the innocent and the guilty so that’s his driving force.”
Constantly toeing the line between good and bad, Kessler has a highly attuned moral compass, which makes it difficult for him to convict. In the first episode, his team arrests a Syrian terrorist at the Toronto airport and detains the man seated next to him. Kessler must figure out whether the man is an accomplice or someone who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. "When he sees that man's wife and child, his personal instinct is to take them by the hand,” says McGowan, “but he has to play the political game.”
Kessler is constantly challenged not only by his cases, but also his coworkers. He has an ongoing battle with U.S. Homeland Security agent Bianca LaGarda (Sofia Milos), for example. “It's a clash between classic American and Canadian,” says McGowan. “She acts and talks before thinking while Kessler sits back.”
“They exasperate each other but they both act out of the same integrity, there is mutual respect,” adds Milos, who is known primarily for her role as Detective Yelina Salas on ‘CSI: Miami.’
Milos relates to her ‘Border’ character, an immigrant who escaped Cuba to Florida by hitching a ride on a boat. Milos who was born in Zurich , Switzerland, is half Greek, half Italian and at 21 moved from Europe to the United States to pursue her acting career. The parallels between her own life and LaGarda’s make her appreciate her character more.
“Having come to the States [LaGarda has] an incredible appreciation for the opportunities the U.S. gave her,” says Milos. “Bianca is a self-made woman. She doesn’t need to play her sexuality. I admire the fact that she’s a strong, intelligent woman.”
Along with LaGarda and Kessler, the ICS team includes a stereotypical computer geek, a good-looking womanizer and a Muslim agent who is constantly trying to prove herself to her colleagues. Together, the team faces a post-9/11 world dominated by underground activity. “Headlines are reflected in all the episodes,” says McGowan. “We dealt with child soldiers and then after we finished shooting I read the newspaper and there was the episode.”
Milos hopes that the show will create a dialogue among viewers, the way it does between the characters on the show. “Do you believe in your government? Whose point of view is right? There is a border between justice and crime.”
’The Border’ airs Mondays at 9pm on CBC
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