This weekend, Globe and Mail scribe Andrew Ryan wondered aloud what it would be like to have a made-in-Canada soap opera. In it, he cited the two existing daytime dramas on CBC Television — 49th and Main and North/South.
In it, he writes:
North/South received a brief daytime tryout last month. The show was set in the Halifax construction industry and featured top-notch writing and a respectable Canadian cast. But CBC burned it off in six parts over two weeks, and North/South promptly disappeared just when the story was getting interesting. It will never return.
The second Canadian-made soap, 49th & Main, was even better. This time, the show was set in Vancouver and revolved around a newly arrived Indian doctor unceremoniously dropped into a multi-cultural community. It was Northern Exposure meets Da Vinci’s Inquest. The last episode of 49th & Main airs on CBC this Thursday, and we’re not likely to see it again.
That surprised me, as I hadn’t seen any news about either show’s cancellation. As luck would have it, I’d been in touch with the William Wallace Grey, the Executive Producer of 49th and Main, and I asked him a few questions about the show, the process of getting a Canadian soap-opera to air, and his experiences with the CBC.
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Jowi Taylor is a Canadian hero. 
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