25 years later, Stratford's Cynthia Dale returns as Olivia Novak in Street Legal reboot

As the notion of rebooting popular television series from the 80’s and 90’s continues to gain favour among modern audiences, Canada’s national broadcaster has officially thrown its hat into the ring with the upcoming reboot of its hit drama, Street Legal, starring Stratford’s own Cynthia Dale.

Nearly 25 years after the show went off the air in November 1994, Dale’s Olivia Novak is returning to the small screen on March 4 to take on the Toronto legal world as it is today.

“It came out of the blue,” Dale told Postmedia Friday afternoon. “I’d never, in a million years, thought this could, or would, or should happen, but they asked me. It took me a few minutes to get my jaw off the floor, and then it was like, ‘Ya, why not? Sure. Absolutely.’”

Though the request seemingly came out of nowhere and it was a bit of a shock at first, once she found her bearings, Dale was eager to reprise her role as what she considers “the most delicious character on Canadian television.”

“She was smart and aggressive, full of moxy and passion. Her edges were really sharp and she was just a really go-getter, take-no-prisoners, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer, kind of character,” Dale said, adding that she enjoyed every minute she spent working on the series when it was first on from 1987 to 1994.

But a lot has changed for Novak since the CBC stopped broadcasting the lawyer’s exploits more than two decades ago. In what Dale — who is also a producer on the show — hopes will be the first of many seasons, she and co-star Eric Peterson (the now Judge Leon Robinovitch) are taking on a single case over the season’s six-episode arc.

Having continued her work at a big, Bay Street law firm in the years since the show went off the air, the Street Legal reboot begins as Novak is forced to leave the job she’s worked so hard at to join a much smaller firm led by three millennial lawyers — played by Cara Ricketts, Steve Lund and Yvonne Chapman.

“It’s about a young law firm. It’s about three young lawyers, and one older, seasoned Olivia Novak,” Dale explained. “. . . The big, Bay Street law firm implodes, and there’s too much back fighting, and they basically tell her to hang up her boots. Her best days are behind her. Well that doesn’t go over so well . . . She’s practicing the best law of her life, and she knows that it’s not time for her to give up. So she re-invents herself and she goes and works with these young lawyers.

“It’s not always easy, it’s not always smooth, but she makes it work.”

Thanks to the advent of streaming television, Dale said showrunner Bruce Smith took the opportunity to focus the first season’s six episodes around a single issue — the opioid crisis in Canada. During the show’s original run, Dale said focusing on a single issue over multiple episodes was next to impossible because the episodes would air on a weekly schedule and viewers would often have to wait for reruns to catch up on those they missed.

“As soon as an episode airs, you can stream it on the CBC streaming service, so it’s not like anything has to be missed or (people have) to catch up . . . I think that’s the way so many series are going — six-episode arcs are something that happens in a lot of TV series — so it worked really well for us,” Dale said.

“It was fantastic (as an actor) because you knew it was long-term. You knew you were going to develop, and become more enriched, and ripen (as a character). As the show went on, people would learn more about how this storyline affected each character. So it’s not just the cerebral way that we handle the law, it’s emotionally how this case affects people personally.”

And not only did Dale have the opportunity to embody Novak as she grew and developed over the course of the season, she also got to work with a handful of Canadian supporting actors, many of whom — including Rosemary Dunsmore, Tom McCamus, and Allan Hawco — either live in Stratford, have worked at the Stratford Festival, or both.

“We have all these great actors, and they all have connections to Stratford. It’s really wonderful,” Dale said.

Street Legal is set to return on March 4 at 9 p.m. on CBC. Each episode will be available on the CBC Gem streaming service after they air.

gsimmons@postmedia.com