A Chicago cop heads South in A&E's 'The Glades'

Detective Jim Longworth will soon find out what Florida residents and visitors have known for a long time: It's a weird place.

"The Glades," a police drama set to premiere Sunday, July 11, on A&E, follows a Chicago detective who relocates to South Florida, expecting to slide into a cushy job with plenty of time to hit the beaches and golf courses. But he quickly realizes that life isn't going to be as simple or as relaxing as he thought it would be.

Besides being set in South Florida, the show is filmed in the Fort Lauderdale area - most Florida-themed shows, like "CSI: Miami," are filmed primarily in California.

The Glades' creator and executive producer, Clifton Campbell, grew up near Miami and knew he couldn't capture South Florida's essence anywhere else.

"I've noticed a lot of shows that try to be set there without actually shooting there, and it's always sort of rankled me a little bit," Campbell said. "So I decided that I wanted to set a show there, not just in South Florida, but in my South Florida, the part of the world that I grew up in, that I think is just as stunningly attractive and interesting and weird and cool as South Beach."

Clifton's South Florida - for the purposes of the show - is the fictional town of Palm Glade. As a detective with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the show's protagonist covers an area that includes beautiful beaches and gator-infested swamps.

Regardless of the setting, the show's success or failure could ultimately hang on how audiences respond to its lead, Matt Passmore.

As an Australian, Passmore said he's just as much a fish-out-of-water as Longworth.

"I'm an Aussie playing a Chicago cop who's down in Florida," Passmore said.

After appearing on several television series in his native country, Passmore came to the U.S. to shoot a pilot for Fox. It didn't get picked up, but that cleared the way for him to land on "The Glades."

"When this script came along, the characters kind of jumped off the page," Passmore said. "It wasn't your average cop show. And this character, it just looked like there was a lot of fun to be had."

Despite the fun Passmore is having, his character might not be so lucky. In the series premiere, Longworth gets pulled away from the golf course when he has to investigate a decapitated body found in a swamp. Other distractions in subsequent episodes include a corpse inside a plane on a nature preserve and a man found dead at a bikini contest. All the while, he's trying to kindle a romance with a medical student and single mother played by Carol Stream native Kiele Sanchez.

While hiring an outsider to play an outsider, producers have filled the cast with quite a few Floridians.

Carlos Gomez, a Cuban actor who grew up in Miami, has been working in television and film for more than two decades. Now he's playing a Cuban character named Carlos Sanchez, the medical examiner at the FDLE substation.

"It's Carlos playing Carlos," Gomez said. "It's really coming home. I've worked in Florida a few times doing different projects. ... Being in Florida, seeing the sights, I have family here, so I get to see them more often. It's really cool."

"The Glades"

Debuts 9 p.m. Sunday, July 11, on A&E