Ontario is well represented on screen in film and television. A combination of tax incentives and the low Canadian dollar against its American counterpart has been drawing budget-conscious Hollywood studios north of the border for decades. While it is common for Ontario, and especially Toronto, to stand in for American locations, it’s always a treat when the province has the opportunity to play itself.
As part of our ongoing coverage of pop culture and entertainment in Canada’s most populous province, we’re taking a break from covering legal Ontario sportsbooks and gambling to celebrate the best TV shows set in Ontario.
To determine the best, OntarioBets.com began by considering all of the television series Wikipedia has categorized as “set in Ontario.” Then we created a ranking using a combination of IMDb rating, Rotten Tomatoes Audience score, Rotten Tomatoes Critic score and TV awards recognition. According to our weighted scoring system, here are the best TV shows set in Ontario.
It should be no surprise to see “Schitt’s Creek” ranked as the No. 1 series set in Ontario. Starring Canadian comedy legends Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy — the latter of whom co-created the series with his son, Dan Levy — “Schitt’s Creek” follows a millionaire family that has gone broke and is forced to relocate to rural Ontario to save money.
A sleeper hit that exploded into a cultural sensation following the CBC series debut on Netflix, “Schitt’s Creek” broke an Emmys record when it swept the comedy category in 2020 — collecting a total of nine awards. No comedy before it had ever won as many Emmys in a single year.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” is rated the second-best TV series set in Ontario. Based on the groundbreaking novel by Canadian literary all-star Margret Atwood, the series is set in a dystopian America where religious zealots have overtaken the country, rolling back women’s rights to the point where their only function in society is rearing children. Though the series is set in New England, it is filmed in Toronto. Nevertheless, several scenes happen in Ontario, with characters escaping “Gilead,” the totalitarian state that has overthrown the American government.
Third on our list is perhaps best known as the show that introduced the world to rapper Drake. “Degrassi: The Next Generation” is a re-boot of the beloved young adult series from the late 1980s. It follows a group of teenagers navigating the trials and tribulations of high school life.
“Orphan Black” lands at No. 4. The series made a star out of Tatiana Maslany, who portrays a cohort of human clones in the sci-fi series. A native of Regina, Saskatchewan, she earned the 2016 Emmy award as best lead actress in a drama series for the role in 2016.
In “Yellowjackets” a high school soccer team crash-lands in the Canadian wilderness while flying to compete in the national championships. The vast forest could theoretically be in Ontario, though that’s not explicitly clear. Nevertheless, it’s filmed British Columbia.
“Kim’s Convenience” was a CBC sitcom about a Korean-Canadian family that operates a downtown-Toronto convenience store. The sixth-highest rated series on our list, it ran for four seasons before being cancelled in 2021. The show’s break-out star, Simu Liu, was most recently seen in the gigantic box office hit “Barbie,” starring alongside Margot Robbie and his fellow Ken, Ryan Gosling.
At No. 7 is Flashpoint, a crime procedural following a tactical police unit. “Flashpoint” ran for five seasons on CTV in Canada and CBS in the U.S. between 2008 and 2012. Filming took place in Toronto, but the show’s location is never mentioned during the series. This is presumably intended to make the show more appealing to an American audience. Nevertheless, for those familiar with Toronto, it’s not hard to tell where “Flashpoint” is set.
“ReGenesis,” the eighth-best Ontario-set show, is a science fiction series about a fictional biotechnology company and its Toronto Lab. Each episode follows the team of scientists who are investigating high-profile cases related to the field of molecular biology. The series racked up 52 episodes from 2004 to 2008, airing on the bygone cable network TMN (AKA The Movie Network).
A classic of Canadian TV, “Street Legal” lands at No. 9 on the list. The long-running legal drama aired for eight seasons on CBC in the late-80s and early-90s. It was briefly re-booted in 2019.
Two series are tied for the final spot on our list of the best Ontario-set TV shows. The investigative drama “Coroner” began airing on the CBC in 2019, but its future is looking grim following star Serinda Swan’s departure from the series last year. Meanwhile, “E.N.G.” —an acronym that stands for “electronic news gathering” — was a drama series about a fictional TV news station. It lasted four seasons in the early 1990s.
We’ll keep bringing you more pop culture coverage, plus the best Ontario online casinos information, right here at OntarioBets.com.
Author
Jeff Parker is an entertainment writer for OntarioBets.com. A writer for film, television and the internet, Jeff is a life long movie buff, with a Masters Degree in Popular Culture. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he works full time as documentary filmmaker and producer.
Cited by leading media organizations, such as:
