This hour lengh drama focusing on the work of medical coroner Wojeck is one of the true great moments in Canadian Televisiion history. Wojeck's premiere in 1966 was both symbolic and a precurser to the strong federalist state and protector of it's people that Canadian's felt mirrored their self image and reflected the values of Canada. The tv show was a precurser to the election of Canada's own great civil right's crusader, Pierre Elliot Trudeau. A true tribute to the show's identification and symbolism of the Canadian values of the era to seek a truly Just Society for all. The values that we fought in war we're now being fought on the streets by a truly epic hero.
Wojeck's seemed to spend every episode not only fighting the injustices of the right wing police force in Toronto, but also the entrenched value systems of the justice system. Both a metaphor for the changes that all Canadian's sought in the 1960's as the country made her way from the imperial dominance of British Colonization to the independence of today. Seeped in this shroud of government metaphor lay the waste of those that society would forget if only not for Wojeck.
Every episode is layerd with the drama of not only those Wojeck is out to avenge but also the metaphor of the moments of family and husband that Wojeck gives up to avenge those less fortunate.
For those of us that look back fondly on this show there is also an underlying feeling of the lament of loss. This show marked one of the truly great period's of Canadian television drama not to be repeated again for over a decade and the loss of John Vernon who would go from Canadian Hero to American villian with his move to the united states. There's also the bittersweet memory that for all of this program's inventivness, it's truly documentary feeling in the French new wave style of the hand held camera and natural lighting fused with a street realism rarely portrayed on canadian television. There is also the sadness that for all this inventiveness the plot of the program was essentially the same as the later Quincy. But Quincy was no Wojeck, thats for sure.
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