Bowing in 1985, Spenser: For Hire starred Robert Urich as the title character, Avery Brooks as his friend Hawk and Barbara Stock as the love of his life, Susan Silverman. The show lasted three seasons and used some of the same cast for four TV movies following its cancellation. It did fairly well ratings-wise, but the cost of location shooting in Boston meant it needed to do better than "fairly well." Season 2 showrunners swapped Susan Silverman for prosecutor Rita Fiori (Carolyn McCormick) to the consternation of book fans, and the combination of the changes and being bounced around the schedule kept the show from ever really breaking out.
As mentioned in the item about the Mark Wahlberg movie, the late Robert Urich was probably a little lighter in tone than Parker envisioned for Spenser. But Urich was able to balance the different aspects that had made the character a fan favorite, switching pretty smoothly between a smartass remark, a hightone literary quote and a well-placed stiff right hand. His size helped, as he matched the larger presence Parker describes Spenser to have. Barbara Stock gives the Susan Silverman role more effort than it really deserves; although Parker sometimes keeps her in the wings he also can place her center stage as a character with agency in her own right. That's not something a lot of 1980s-era private-eye shows pulled off very well, but Stock frequently pushes the role into a much higher profile than the scripts had provided as well as greater weight. McCormick is a talented actress, but the show never really developed Fiori sufficiently.
In one sense it's hard to judge a 35-year-old television show. Spenser: For Hire is full of 80's-isms like at least one car chase and gunfight per episode and next to no season-long continuity. Since only reruns would air during the hiatus, they might air out of order and episodes needed to be more standalone than linked in an arc. It would be very interesting to see a modernly conceived show using these actors playing these characters, even one airing on a network. Current sensibilities would smooth out some of what today looks silly but was an essential part of a private eye/cop show of the mid-1980s.
For many Spenser book readers who watched the show, each of the characters is probably now a little bit of a mix of the actor and the written character. Frank Belson is written as a thin detective, but Ron McLarty's doughy image springs to mind when he comes onto the page. It's not hard to hear Urich's voice in the two or three scene-setting sentences Parker used to open some chapters (It's impossible to hear Wahlberg's. Trust me).
But in one case, the onscreen character simply took over the printed one and it's now next to impossible to read him without hearing and seeing the actor: Hawk, as played by Avery Brooks. Brooks' dominant personality, charisma and talent defined the character in ways that subsequent actors -- even decent ones like Ernie Hudson, Sheik Mahmud-Bey and Winston Duke -- can't match. If you try to tune your mental ear to "hear" dialogue in the books and you've seen even one Spenser: For Hire episode, you're going to hear Avery Brooks.
As mentioned above, Spenser: For Hire was unable to mount ratings that justified its production costs, which gave it a very short leash from early on. And its many dated characteristics leave it an uneven viewing experience today for at least half of its episodes. But when it does hit, it shows some of the quality of its source material and manages to stand almost as far above its contemporary productions as the best Spenser novels stand above their competition.
I always assumed that the second season's scripts were developed during Joan Parker's vacation--which coincided with Valediction and A Catskill Eagle in the books--and Susan came back both in the books and the television series the same time.
ReplyDeleteI started tracing the decline of or my dissatisfaction with the books with Parker's foray into Hollywood, though. The prose got a little more dialogish from that point on and lost a lot of its poetic depth as it was.
That said, I still have several scripts from the series in my collection.
I've told you about the time I met Robert B. Parker, ainna?
I knew you were a fan and I think I remember you relating that on your blog, but I could be mistaken.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I read, producer Juanita Bartlett was the one who gave the Susan character the axe and the subsequent viewer unrest led to Bartlett moving on down the road and Barbara Stock returning. McCormick's a good actress but Stock and Urich had better chemistry.
With few exceptions, starting in the late 80s and early 90s Parker began more or less phoning it in (which was still better than a lot of this genre). I told another friend who's a fan that it was like he had chapter macros that he'd just insert names into.
After Playmates, the only Spenser books that made it look like he actually worked to create them were the final two he wrote.