Espionage on television usually comes with glamour, danger, and elaborate missions. The Service starts somewhere considerably less cinematic: the workplace. CBC’s new eight-part, half-hour dramedy takes viewers inside the Toronto office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), where national-security work exists alongside office politics, competing egos and what the series describes as “decidedly unglamorous tradecraft.”
Created, showrun and executive produced by Canadian writer Aubrey Nealon, The Service follows Drew, an ambitious idealist whose potential is not always recognized, and Mia, a pragmatic realist whose personal life is becoming increasingly difficult to control. As the two spend their working days watching and listening to others, an unexpected romantic connection begins to develop between them.
Produced by Sphere Media, the series is part of CBC’s 2026–27 programming slate and is scheduled to film in Toronto from September 23 through November 9, 2026, ahead of a planned 2027 premiere.
Rather than promising another high-octane spy thriller, The Service offers a different proposition: what happens when the secret world of intelligence is treated as a workplace, complete with professional ambitions, personal complications, and the awkward business of human connection?
Who Is Aubrey Nealon?
Aubrey Nealon has spent much of his career working in Canadian television, building a résumé that spans crime drama, science fiction, historical drama and serialized television. He studied at Vancouver Film School in the 1990s before moving into short films and feature filmmaking. His feature directorial debut, A Simple Curve, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005 and was subsequently selected for Canada’s Top Ten.
Television, however, became the larger part of Nealon’s career. His credits include writing and producing work on series such as Flashpoint, Rookie Blue, Orphan Black, The Porter and Snowpiercer.
He also served as creator and showrunner of Cardinal, the Canadian crime drama based on Giles Blunt’s novels. His work has earned Canadian Screen Award recognition, including a 2013 award for Best Writing in a Dramatic Series for Flashpoint.
That background makes The Service an interesting change of emphasis. Nealon is moving from the more overtly dramatic worlds that have defined much of his television work into a half-hour dramedy built around workplace dynamics, romantic tension and the deliberately unglamorous side of intelligence work.
The shift is not a complete departure from his previous interests, however. Cardinal, Flashpoint and The Porter all placed characters inside institutions where professional responsibilities could collide with personal pressures.
The Service takes that tension into a different setting: the Toronto office of CSIS, where the stakes may involve national security, but the immediate problems can be much more familiar: ambition, relationships, office politics and trying to figure out where one belongs.
The Premise: Espionage as an Office Job
At the centre of The Service is an unusual contradiction: its characters work inside one of Canada’s most secretive institutions, yet much of the drama comes from the ordinary pressures of working life.
Set in the Toronto office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the series focuses on the people behind the machinery of intelligence rather than presenting espionage primarily through spectacular field operations.
Drew is an idealistic newcomer with ambitious expectations about his career and a relatively low position within the organization. He believes he has more potential than his colleagues recognize, with his mother apparently among the few people who share that confidence.
Mia approaches the same workplace from a different perspective. A pragmatic realist, she is trying to maintain some sense of order while her marriage is gradually coming apart.
Their professional lives eventually intersect in a way neither quite expects. While Drew and Mia spend their working days watching and listening to other people, they begin to discover something about themselves: an attraction that develops into an unexpected romantic connection.
The wider ensemble reflects the less glamorous side of the profession. CBC’s description points to a collection of gearheads and careerists whose work helps keep the institution functioning. That emphasis is important to the show’s identity.
Rather than treating intelligence work solely as a succession of dangerous missions, The Service appears interested in the personalities, ambitions and frustrations of the people who spend their working lives inside the system.
The result is positioned as a dramedy, combining the stakes associated with national security with the everyday complications of relationships and office life. Its characters operate in a world built around secrecy and half-truths, yet the emotional question at the centre is comparatively straightforward: how do people find purpose and connection when so much of their professional lives depends on what they cannot say?
Production, Commissioning and the 2027 Timeline
The Service was commissioned by CBC as part of the broadcaster’s 2026–27 programming slate. The series is planned as eight half-hour episodes and is being produced by Sphere Media, with Aubrey Nealon serving as creator, showrunner and executive producer. CBC has placed the series within its 2027 programming lineup, although a specific premiere date has not yet been announced.
The project has now moved beyond the initial announcement stage and into production. Ontario Creates’ current production listing gives The Service a Toronto shooting period running from September 23 through November 9, 2026. The listing identifies the production entity as Sphere Productions 10 Inc. and names Jennifer Kawaja, Elise Cousineau and Nealon as executive producers. Jessica Daniel is listed as producer, while David Wellington, John Fawcett and Aleysa Young are credited as directors.
That production timeline gives the series a more concrete place on CBC’s upcoming schedule. Rather than being a project that is still awaiting a production commitment, The Service is now entering its principal filming period in Toronto, with its 2027 broadcast window already established.
The lack of a precise premiere date is not unusual at this stage. CBC has confirmed the year, but viewers will have to wait for a later scheduling announcement for the exact launch date.
Wrapping Up
The Service is entering production with a premise that deliberately looks away from the most familiar conventions of television espionage. Instead of centring its story on glamorous operations or larger-than-life agents, the series places its characters inside a Canadian workplace where national-security responsibilities exist alongside ambition, bureaucracy, relationships and the everyday complications of working life.
That combination gives the series a clear identity before its debut. Aubrey Nealon brings extensive experience in Canadian television drama to a half-hour format built around an ensemble and the developing relationship between Drew and Mia, while Sphere Media and CBC provide the production and broadcast framework for the project.
There is still plenty that viewers do not know. CBC has announced a 2027 premiere but has not yet provided a specific launch date, and the series’ eventual tone, pacing and approach to its fictionalized intelligence setting will only become clear once the finished episodes reach the screen. For now, however, The Service offers a distinctly Canadian proposition: a story about people working in one of the country’s most secretive institutions, told not only through what they know and what they conceal, but through the much more ordinary problems of how they work, relate to one another and find their place.