Crossing Jordan is an American television crime/drama series that aired on NBC from September 24 2001 to May 16 2007. It stars Jill Hennessy as the crime-solving medical examiner, Jordan Cavanaugh. The show uses an ensemble cast approach featuring a group of Jordan's co-workers, members of the Boston Medical Examiner's Office and police detectives assigned to the various cases. It was created by Tim Kring. The title references the biblical metaphor of the ancient Hebrews crossing the Jordan River, commonly used in spiritual songs to represent death and passage to the afterlife.
During the first two seasons, the series uses a gimmick whereby Jordan and her retired-police-detective father (Ken Howard) role-play the events leading up to that week's murder, which are depicted by showing Jordan playing the part of the victim or suspect in a recreation of the scene. (The idea being that such role-playing would allow Jordan to figure out the circumstances of the crime, like a profiler.) This element of the series was mostly dropped when Howard left the series as a regular; however, there are instances of Jordan role-playing with Woody or Macy.
After 6 seasons and 117 episodes, on May 14, 2007, the series was unexpectedly cancelled by NBC.
Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh is a forensic pathologist who lost her job with the Boston medical examiner's office because her passion for solving homicides frequently extended beyond the autopsy table. Years later, an old ally rescues Jordan from court-ordered anger management training in Los Angeles and rehires her to her former job in Boston. Jordan is still feisty and mercurial and a pain in the butt, but management tolerates her because she is good at her job. She and her father, a disgraced former Boston police detective, often solve crimes together by using a role-playing game they've played since Jordan's childhood. It goes: "You be the killer, and I'll be the victim and we'll figure out how this happened." The driving force in Jordan's life and career is the crime she took the longest time to solve -- her mother's murder. Written by A.B. Gilpin
