S.W.A.T. - The Complete First Season (1975) Review

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(More customer reviews)Ah, those unforgettable words...especially poignant since they were said to me by Steve Forrest (Hondo)a number of times. Yep, I played T.J. McCabe in the original series, the guy with the bolt action scope rifle who'd climb up on high places (technically the sniper was called the "high man"), yank my cap around and try to emulate Steve McQueen's smooth moves with guns. So it's a real gas to see the original 13 come out on DVD...especially because I never had good copies of the originals!
SWAT was a great experience, with a bunch of great guys. We were surprised when they cancelled the show...it had been doing great, #1 all summer...then ABC switched it to try to win another night...good old network TV wisdom...and we lost our audience.
The scuttlebutt around the 20th Fox lot was that Aaron Spelling hated the show...it wasn't what he felt his name should be associated with...you may remember he went on to do Family and Dallas after that...so he allegedly swapped us out for Starsky and Hutch, which was a more character-driven show. Can't say I blame him...the writing got pretty stale pretty quick, because at least one of the line producers would take good scripts and turn them around to focus on Hondo and also dumb 'em up in favor of action, whereas we kept hoping they'd give us more of a shot at a Rookies-style, character-strong program.
We did have a lot of fun in that short 35 episodes...and I was particularly happy to find out that Rod Perry (Deke), whom I believed, thanks to a story Mark Shera (Luca)told me in the mid-80s, had died of a heart attack way back then, is in fact still very much alive!
But still sad that my old pal Bob Urich (Jim Street in SWAT, Dan Tana in Vegas, Spencer in Spencer for Hire)is gone for real. He was a good and good hearted man.
The only bummer about the new movie is that at least a couple of the guys from the old show did brief cameos in the flick, but since I live in NY, and the casting agent told me there was no real effort to include all of us anyway as in a reunion scene, I got left out of the movie. That was a little disappointing, I would have loved to do a bit in it, especially since they reprised our original character names (and made my character into a bad guy!) Well, that's Hollywood for you.
Best news is I'm happy to hear our old fans are still out there and rooting for good over evil on the streets of L.A. Thanks for still digging the show, everybody!
your ever-lovin', crime-fightin' T.J.
James Coleman

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Spenser For Hire - the Movie Collection (1994) Review

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(More customer reviews)Perhaps the signature role in Robert Urich's too short career. Spenser, with an 's' like the poet, was a tough talking Private Eye in Boston. He likes to cook, and he loves Susan Silverman. He garners help on a regular basis from Hawk, a former mob enforcer who respects what Spenser stands for.
The first two of these movies are decent enough. They capture some of the flavor of the TV show. Although the production moved from Boston to Toronto to cut costs. Also in a cost-cutting measure, they replaced the series' Susan (Barbara Stock) with Barbara Williams and later Wendy Crewson. (A move that Urich admitted was a bad one.) ABC produced the first two movies after cancelling the series. The latter two were produced for Lifetime Television.
Robert B. Parker, who penned the novels on which the series was based, co-wrote the first two of these movies with his wife. The quality of the first two scripts notwithstanding, the productions suffered from the move to Toronto. While it is a beautiful city, it doesn't have the same feel as Beantown.
The latter two cable movies are a hollow shell of what made the show great. It's basically a cut-and-paste job.
That having been said, I would guess that Warner Bros. is keeping a close eye on the sales of this set to decide if they'll release the great series on DVD. So, if you want to see the real "Spenser: For Hire" you'll have to go through here to get it.

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For The First Time Ever The Four Top-Rated SPENSER Movies In One Explosive CollectionFollowing the surprise cancellation of the hit series Spenser: For Hire, ABC produced four full-length movies starring the late Robert Urich as the wisecracking-but-deadly Boston detective. Avery Brooks (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) co-stars as ‘Hawk' in these television events based on the best-selling books by Robert B. Parker that The New York Times calls "one of the great series in the history of the American detective story." SPENSER: CEREMONY Starring Robert Urich, Avery Brooks, Barbara Williams Screenplay by Robert P. Parker & Joan H. ParkerWhen a 16-year-old girl disappears into Boston's sleazy underbelly, Spenser and Hawk pull the trigger on a teen pornography ring that leads to a shocking final twist. SPENSER: PALE KINGS AND PRINCES Starring Robert Urich, Avery Brooks, Barbara Williams, Alex Carter (CSI), Matthew Ferguson (La Femme Nikita) Screenplay by Robert P. Parker & Joan H. ParkerSpenser, his ‘lady shrink' girlfriend Susan Silverman, and Hawk investigate a brutal murder in a quaint New England town where snow falls in kilo packages. SPENSER: THE JUDAS GOAT Starring Robert Urich, Avery Brooks, Wendy Crewson (24, AIR FORCE ONE)Spenser is hired out-of-town and may be out of his league when a terrorist group with a taste for car bombs targets a controversial African leader. SPENSER: A SAVAGE PLACE Starring Robert Urich, Avery Brooks, Cynthia Dale, Wendy Crewson A TV news cameraman is found murdered, and Spencer is hired by an old flame to investigate a movie producer who may be shooting more than film.

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