The Murder is Just the Beginning.
It’s no surprise that CTV ordered a third season of Motive this week. The hit procedural-with-a-twist is unusual for two reasons: Vancouver plays itself not somewhere else and Motive is a whydunit not a whodunit. At the top of each episode, we learn who The Killer and The Victim are and then follow along with detectives Angie Flynn (Kristin Lehman) and Oscar Vega (Louis Ferreira) as they solve the murder and uncover the reasons behind it. In its first season, Motive exploded to become the country’s top new homegrown scripted drama. And it has grown even bigger in its second season, averaging 1.3 million viewers a week in Canada, as it builds to this Thursday’s season two finale. Credit goes to the unique format, the lead actors, the choice to make “ordinary people” the killers and victims instead of gang leaders or thugs and the bold cinematic style of the series.
Motive is one of the best that BC Film has ever produced, going into next weekend’s Leo Awards with twelve nominations for its first season: including Best Drama Series; Kristin Lehman and Louis Ferreira for their lead performances and Brendan Penny for his supporting one; Andy Mikita for directing; Katherine Collins for writing; Alison Grace for editing; Jeffery Ong for stunt coordination; and Mathias Herndl for cinematography of and Stein Myhrstad for picture editing of the series premiere Creeping Tom, which established the unique visual style.
Vancouver’s own crime drama is doing well as an export too, especially south of the border where it airs as a summer series on the American network ABC. In its first season, Motive averaged 4.3 viewers a week in the U.S. and that audience should grow in the second season, which kicked off Wednesday night this past week on ABC.