Cop drama Allegiance aims to show flaws, possibilities in justice system

Mark Ellis was nervous coming aboard another show about police officers.

Not least because police procedurals have become an even more crowded media sub-genre since he co-created Flashpoint in 2008. But Ellis was more worried about making such a show when concerns around community and police relationships have reached a fever pitch.

"So what do you do when you create a TV drama? Do you show the flaws?" he said in an interview with CBC News. "Yes. But… I think we have to try and make a story that is aspirational on some level. I think we need to be transparent about what the flaws are, about what the limits are in the justice system. But we need to show also where there is possibility, right? "

The result of that mentality was Allegiance, the new series starring Supinder Wraich and Flashpoint's Enrico Colantoni. The show, which premieres Wednesday on CBC Gem, is set in Surrey, B.C. — a city without a shortage of drama over its real-life relationship between community and policing. 

WATCH | Allegiance features Supinder Wraich, city of Surrey, B.C., as its stars: 

B.C.-based police drama premieres in Surrey

11 months ago

Duration 1:20

Supinder Wraich stars in Allegiance, a new CBC drama set in Surrey about a Punjabi rookie cop with Sikh roots who grapples with a flawed justice system. She hopes viewers of South Asian descent will see themselves represented in the program in a new way.

But instead of a cop drama played straight, creator Anar Ali assured Ellis there was something deeper at the heart of this series. The first would be an examination of shifting and often contradictory "allegiances" we can feel to our different identities: Wraich's character, Sabrina, most directly shows this as she juggles working as a rookie police officer and trying to exonerate her father who has been accused of serious crimes.

"The other thing was trying to look at justice in a new way," Ali said. When crafting the show, she said she was most inspired by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Chicago's "Cure Violence" crime prevention program and Gladue courts for people accused of a crime who self-identify as Indigenous, Métis, First Nations, or Inuit.

Power, privilege and class

As the concept of restorative justice gained ground, Ali said she wanted to make a police procedural that focused both on that, but also how the justice system can fail. A large part of that is shown in how Wraich's character witnesses an institution aligned against her father, who is Sikh, in a way that may not have happened if it weren't for his background.

And while Allegiance is the first police drama to focus on a Sikh Punjabi officer, Ali wanted the examinations to extend even deeper than that. 

"For Sabrina, even though ... the premise is around these prejudices and these allegiances and these differences and biases, it's more than about just race," she said. "It's also about power and privilege and class."

That is shown in her relationship with Colantoni's character, Vince, a veteran on the force who is often the one to challenge Sabrina — a middle-class woman and daughter of a politician  — on her assumptions about the marginalized citizens in their community. 

For his part, Colantoni said he was also worried about taking on another show about police. But he took the role for the opportunity it represented: to showcase the motivation of officers joining the force, he said.

"[When] you're talking about policing on television, it's all science fiction. It's all what we want policing to look like. It's not what it is, because it is broken," he said. Due to the sometimes critical (and other times complimentary) depiction of what it is like to be a police officer, he said he has no doubt that Allegiance will raise some hackles.

But at the same time, he said, he believes officers will see what they're trying to do: depict challenges, while also showing where he believes their hearts are. 

"I embrace the opportunity to represent police in this light…. We represent the heart and soul of what they're trying to do."

'I didn't see that part of myself'

For Wraich, she said she wasn't worried about making a show focused on policing and community — she was simply concerned with portraying the young woman at its centre.

Alongside the opportunity to tell a story around a Sikh family, and one living in Surrey, she was apprehensive about putting herself out there as such a strong character

"When I saw the audition notice I didn't see that part of myself," she said. 

The reaction so far though, she said, has started to change her mind. 

"Just in terms of my group of friends and family — young South Asian women who have seen the trailer so far — a lot of what they say is like, 'Oh my God, you're so bad ass,'" she said, laughing. "And again, I'm like, 'Am I?'"