The Stephen J. Cannell Thread - Page 2

Since I know you're all dying of anticipation - I finished season 3. I'm still waiting on traded home-burns of the music arc and the Wahl-less season 4, but the trend I've noticed is this - The Steelgrave arc starts on shaky ground and ends incredibly solidly. EVERY other arc, the opposite is true: great setup, loss of focus, rolls to a stop. This happens in the Kevin Spacey/Mel Profitt arc and never stops happening. Each new arc is very energized out of the gate, and then peters off.

The end of season three is so goddamn odd I don't know where to start. Vinny bugs out and leaves his assignment in Lynchboro, much like when he was written out of the garment district arc. Except Wahl isn't written out; he just goes off and has a separate non-adventure that's intercut with the leftover Lynchboro plot, which ends...with William Russ and Jonathan Banks pretending to be characters from the film Mr. Sardonicus, in order to make rich eccentric Volcheck snap out of his weirdness. Meanwhile Vinny is in a Seattle flophouse and takes a job dumping medical waste for a low-level mob guy who's slowly going insane from mercury poisoning. This guy eventually shoots Jonathan Banks, who dies for a minute, and we see him FOLLOWING HIS DEAD DOG TO THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. Then he haunts the guy who shot him. Maybe. This is the last episode with Ken Wahl (he comes back in a 1996 tv movie reunion, with Ted Levine). He's last seen ringing church bells to rouse Jonathan Banks from his coma.

My final tally on Wiseguy would have to be one very solid season (Steelgrave/Mel Profitt), one decent season (white supremacists/Garment district/music industry), and one spotty as hell season (mob wars/DC/Lynchboro). I haven't seen season 4 since 1990, but I'm doubtful it will be a hidden gem.

Odd fact: James Wong and Glen Morgan (X-Files, Final Destination, other shit) were producers on the Ken Wahl-less, Steven Bauer-full season 4.

Rath, PM me your address - gonna try to get you a DVD of the last two episodes of the first arc with the correct music.

I'm about to watch the last two, unaired, Ken Wahl-less episodes. It's a mixed goddamn bag for certain. The two hour premiere of season 4 (which starts off with Vincent Terranova abducted and possibly murdered by a Colombian death squad) starts off pretty wobbly, but is redeemed by some really strong moments from Jonathan Banks as McPike. McPike ends up in Miami, looking up disgraced US Attorney Michael Santana (Steven Bauer), the prosecutor who helped establish Vinnie's cover by jailing him, and who now might have information on the group responsible for Vinnie's disappearance.

One thing leads to another and we're into the primary season 4 arc involving a millionaire anti-Castro Cuban businessman (Maximillian Schell). The entire five-episode arc is noteworthy in that Santana and McPike are essentially vigilantes, working completely outside the system and with no authority of any kind.

The arc (like most of the show's arcs, I've recently learned) is sort of all over the place, but I appreciated the attempts to shake up the show's formula, even if they were shaking it up with warmed-over Miami Vice tropes. The theme song is given a Latin flair, Martika shows up as Santana's nightclub-owning singer/girlfriend (man, this show got love interests right exactly ONCE), and Depeche Mode turns up on the soundtrack!

Season 4 ends with three unaired episodes, the first of which is in the running for worst standalone Wiseguy episode ever. Just a boring, lifeless sidebar about Santana's brother-in-law (played by the same shitty actor who played Vinnie's pal in a season two episode).

He's great! The thing fans of the show don't seem to want to admit is that the arc with Denison is maybe the show's best - and it doesn't feature the lead. Ken Wahl tags out in episode 1 of that arc and it's Denison, Stanley Tucci, Ron Silver, Jerry Lewis (in King of Comedy, not Cinderfella, mode) and Jonathan Banks for the win.

Yeah, I remember watching that back in the day and being so surprised when the priceless John Santucci pops up. Denison had already done a stellar turn as Ray Luca in Crime Story, and he does another fantastic job here. They do a terrific job leaving his backstory untold.

You either don't remember the whole arc, or didn't watch it to the end. Eventually his backstory is pretty fairly revealed. I want to watch that arc again, as I digested it mostly on airplanes this last go round, but looking back, it might be the richest story.

The next to last episode of season 4 has Santana agreeing to join McPike on the OCB, followed by a slideshow of what the OCB is, followed IMMEDIATELY by McPike's superior coming in and telling him the OCB is being mothballed. So McPike and Santanta go to work for the US Attorney's office in NYC, where they investigate a cover-up involving faulty helicopter parts. McPike and Santana are barely in the episode, the main action left to Santana's lawyer girlfriend. It's like a crap version of Erin Brokovich.

Apparently Billy Dee Williams is the villain in the final episode of season 4, so that should be fun.

Fun fact: I barely remember typing any of the stuff in this thread!

Anyhoo, all four seasons of Wiseguy (minus the Tim Curry/Glen Frey/Debbie Harry arc) for $20 and change! That's a deal and a half.

Edit! But go through CHUD's front page to buy it if you can.

Sounds about right. Wiseguy takes a bit, but the last 3 episodes of the Steelgrave arc are pretty great, if I recall.

A couple of the following arcs are pretty solid as well. Anthony Denison, subbing for Wahl, does a solid job, and the music storyline w/ Curry and Winfield is good as well.

The Curry storyline isn't on DVD because of music rights issues. The Denison arc is arguably the best one.

The next arc is probably better.