Motive Returns To CTV For A Second season

I enjoyed chatting up the stars of CTV's police procedural series Motive when the first batch of episodes ran last season.
The show which is shot in and around Burnaby B.C. was an instant hit on both sides of the border (ABC runs it in the summers) and got a pick up for a well deserved second season.
I've previewed the first two new episodes which are even tighter edited than the first season and introduce the new character of Team Commander Sergeant Mark Cross played by Warren Christie.
It just so happens Cross is an ex-confidante of Homicide Agent Angie Flynn played with such dash by Kristin Lehman.
The first new episode premieres on CTV Thursday March 6 at 10 p.m.
It just so happens that I first interviewed the very talented Lehman on the Toronto set of  the series Forever Knight in 1995 --that was the one about the blond vampire.
Since then she's hopped and skipped through such series as King Fu (1996), Poltergeist (1998), Felicity (2001), Strange World (1999), Judging Amy (2002), Century City (2004), Tilt (2005), Killer Instinct (2005), The Killing (2011).
And always doing outstanding world with close attention to character.
In Motive she's finely cast as a breezy homicide officer who once had a relationship with new boss Cross and now knows what he is capable of in so many ways.
Last season the show also examined Angie's fractured home life as she tried to maker her teenaged son more motivational about his life --so far he has not even been mentioned this season.
Lehman told me she thinks Angie began focusing solely on her work as her personal life shut down.
Angie's partner seemed to look familiar to many readers of this column --it's veteran Louis Ferreira. Some readers wrote in to say they felt he was an older look alike to actor Justin Louis.
Actually folks it's the same talented guy --I first interviewed him on the set of CBC-TV's Urban Angel when he was using the name Justin Louis.
A few years he changed back to his original name to honor his mother. By either name he's just fine as the ballast in Angie's office relationship.
First of all Motive looks unlike any other TV procedural. It's the way cinematographers Matthies Herndl and  Ryan McAllister in the first two new episodes bathe everything in a glow that is unique to British Columbia.
And there's the twist because audiences at the first of each episode are told who the killer is --we then watch as the police squad sift through the evidence to try and find the culprit. Yeah, I know this was already done in the series Columbo.
The first hour looks at a suspected suicide and the clues that make Angie think it was all staged.
Far better is the second episode with big name guest stars Martin Donovan and Jennifer Beals as middle aged parents with one of them in a suspected romantic relationship that seems to go foul.
Also in every episode as the beauteous coroner is Lauren Holly.

Motive, created by Daniel Cerone, is just that different it shows how much to expect of an hour long procedural with all characters three dimensional.
More please.
MOTIVE RETURNS FOR SEASON TWO ON CTV THURSDAY MARCH 6 AT10 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.