Greetings,
So, how do you like the wordplay in that post title? In all seriousness, though, I am on a mission, to tell those in the world, who don't already know, how amazing The Commish was, and still is. Today, I'm going to give a nice, detailed explanation of all the things that made this show one of my favorites. If you're a fan, you may enjoy this as a way of reminiscing on the wonder that was The Commish. If the most you know about the show is that it exists, read on. I won't be giving a boat load of spoilers (those will come later), so you can see what all of us love about this series, maybe get intrigued and be able to check it out for yourself. So let's get started.
The Commish was a cop drama that aired in the early to mid nineties and centered around Commissioner Anthony J. Scali of Eastbridge, New York, his precinct and his family. Right from the start, you could see that this was not a typical, cold, procedural cop show. No, this delved into personal things quite a bit, and how the job of law enforcement could have an affect on someone. Of course, we could follow along with how things work when it comes to investigating and solving crimes, but it always equally juxtaposed with the home life of our lead character. I think that was the appeal of the show. It wasn't just a cop show; it was a show about a cop, and cops often have families and lives outside of work that can be impacted by what they do. In short, it had a lot of heart to it. And I love shows that go beyond what you expect and give you a lot more. Now, like most successful shows, this relied on a few things to make it as such. The stories, the writing and of course, the actors. Let's get to them first.
In case you didn't already know, our titular character, Tony Scali, was portrayed by the incomparable Michael Chiklis. This is probably where everyone got a first glance at him, but not a last one, obviously. Now, you may be thinking something, like "Oh, he played a cop here. Kind of like he did on The Shield". To that, I say, "NO! NO! NOTHING LIKE THE SHIELD!" Okay, admittedly, I didn't watch The Shield, outside of the first few episodes. I mean, I know it was an extremely, well-made series, but I just couldn't handle the change, something I've written about on this blog before. From what I gather, Vic Mackey was a little, let's say, mean. Not my beloved Tony Scali, not my cute, cuddly Commish. Now don't get me wrong. If someone needed to be yelled at, he certainly did it. I mean, he was in charge, and he was a cop who came from the mean streets of Brooklyn. Pre-Hipster Brooklyn, mind you. He was tough when he needed to be, as well he should have been. But Tony also was a kind, loving man, who cared deeply about a lot of people and wasn't afraid to show that. Also, he was hilarious. That was the thing about The Commish and the writing of it. It did do its duty as a straight up cop drama, but it knew how to inject the funny in there, as well. And a lot of that came from the star himself. To be frank, Michael Chiklis played this role perfectly. He made Tony Scali a real person, not a joke and not a stereo-typical, hard-edged guy. A real, balanced man. Brilliant. Still, as good of a star as he was, he needed some backup. Get it. Cops, backup. I am a comedy genius. Yeah. So let's get to that supporting cast, shall we?
I will begin with the people closest to Tony Scali, his lovely family. First is his wonderful, loyal wife Rachel, played by Theresa Saldana, one of my personal heroes in life. Seriously, look into her story. She is a true survivor and will, no doubt, inspire you. Anyway, Tony and Rachel have known each other, basically, forever, and that led to them falling in love, getting married, and building a beautiful life together. All that, despite the obstacles they faced. Well, possible obstacles, like his being Catholic and her being Jewish. I only bring this up because the show did. Not constantly, but naturally. It was a part of their lives, and thus, it came up on occasion, but not to a point where it became too much. Now Tony and Rachel were not alone. They had two children. David, played by Kaj-Erik Eriksen, was their son, who ultimately grew up during the course of the show, going from child to teenager and into his young adulthood. And they didn't leave David out when it came to dealing with those effects that the cop job had on the family. There were a few episodes wherein this was the focus. Of course. Also, they had daughter named Sarah. She was born in the second season and by the fourth season ... she looked like a two-year-old. Wait, what? They didn't age her ten years between seasons to get some cheap 'cute kid lines' out of her? Wow, this show really did want to be original. And that is the immediate family. Now let's go to work.
Due to the success of Law and Order and its offspring, I think we've been trained to see TV crime investigations in a certain way. That being, two detectives, who are partners, go off to work a case together. You know, your Briscoe and Green, your Benson and Stabler, your Goren and Eames. You get the picture. Things were a little different with The Commish. It tended to be a group effort, with Scali at the helm. Even though I am about %100 sure that the job of commissioner is a desk job. But who cares? He went out there and got his hands dirty like everyone else. And he had some good help with that. For example, he had some #1 detectives at his side. First up was Irv Wallerstein played by Alex Bruhanski. He was a long-time friend of Tony's, but wasn't on the show for an extended period of time. He was pretty good for what he contributed, though. After that, there was my personal favorite, Paulie Pentangeli, played by John Cygan. And when I say favorite, I mean, yes, I had kind of a crush on this guy. Blame me not. He was awesome. Now he came on in season one, visiting as Tony's best friend from childhood who was also a cop. By the end of that episode, he agreed to come and work for him, leading to about a two year stint, though not consecutively. But, my word, we had some good times with him. During the years when Paulie wasn't there, we had Cyd Madison played by Melinda McGraw. Cyd, by the way, was short for Cydavia, something that is brought up only once,I think, mostly due to her threats of gunfire should anyone ever call her that. I did really like her, though, and I have no idea why she isn't held up as one of the iconic, strong, female characters in television. Because people suck, that's why. Moving on.
Besides the head honcho detectives, we also had a bunch of cool, blue-shirted cops. Why blue shirts? Because red shirts only lead to trouble. Am I right, Star Trek fans? Seriously, though, there were a lot of great cop characters, and I do mean 'characters'. They did a fine job of giving all the guys different personalities that we could all remember. We had Hartley (Peter Outerbridge), the quirky one, Caruso (Nicholas Lea), the hot and hot-headed one, Rose (Pat Bermel), the one who sometimes was a quasi-bad cop, and Papadakis (Evan Tylor), the one whose name we liked to hear over and over again. In addition to them, we had Hibbs(Ian Tracey), McGinley(William McManus) and Ronnie Lopez(Jason Schombing), who was a bit in the background for the first couple of years, but really started to shine in the last season. And lest we forget our ONE female cop on the show, Carmela, played by Gina Belafonte. Okay, technically, she wasn't the only one. We did have Cyd, and you could occasionally see other female cops in the background. She was just the only one they let talk. I'm not kidding. Also, they kind of made her...I don't want to say unfeminine, but they sure did 'tomboy' her up quite a bit. For real, I do not doubt that she could have beat the crap out of every guy she worked with. Some of them twice, probably. Still, she was extremely likable. Of course, when it came to the blue shirts, one stood head and shoulders above the rest. That was Stan Kelly played by Geoffrey Nauffts. Stan was another one of my favorites, and I think a lot of other people felt that way. He was a really good cop, a bit young, but he did well at his job. The thing is, he could be a bit of, for lack of a better word, a 'woobie'. Like, you really felt the need to take care of him and look out for him, even at his most competent. Perhaps, this is why The Commish took him under his wing the way he did, treating him as a little brother or even a son. Still, Stan was the one we saw the most for a while, and he was well-loved by a lot of the fans. I know. I'm one of them.
Okay, I know I've talked about a lot of characters already, but whilst we are still discussing Tony Scali's work life, I must bring up a few more. For example, we have Lucille (Kimberly Scott), who served as secretary to The Commish. She...was...fun! A lot. And she never took crap from anyone. Good times. Then, there was Freddie (Dave 'Squatch' Ward), the maintenance man, in theory. Yeah, he pretty much sucked at his job, but they never fired him, because, I don't know, comic relief? And also we had D.A. Alex Beebee played by the fantastic Richard Kind, who some of you might remember from Spin City, Curb Your Enthusiasm and tons of voice over work. In fact, he and the aforementioned, John Cygan, were both in Toy Story 3. What a twist! Anyway, he was a character we took seriously, for the most part, but there was a bit of a 'bumbling' aspect to him, if you know what I mean. Still, enjoyable as all heck.
All of those characters were the ones who we saw on a regular to semi-regular basis, but I have to make a point of mentioning how many amazing guest actors showed up in this series. Some you know by name; some you recognize because they are well-known as character actors; some are downright legends. I'll be mentioning several later this week, but, just to name a few now, we had Wendie Malick, Ray Walston, Giovanni Ribisi, Bruce McGill, Gerald McRaney, Danielle Harris, and late, great Academy Award winners, Dr. Haing S. Ngor and Ernest Borgnine. Uh...YEAH, this show was MAGIC!
I understand that a lot of factors went into making this show what it was, but none of it would have been possible without the two men who created it - Stephen Kronish and Stephen J. Cannell. A dream team, if ever there was one. Besides his work on The Commish, Stephen Kronish has been a producer on some other well-known shows, like Wiseguy, Profiler and 24, as well as the quite good miniseries, The Kennedys. He was also a writer on a lot of shows, too. And Stephen J. Cannell has one of the longest resumes I have ever seen in my life. I kid you not. He is responsible for some of the most well-known crime shows of all time, at the very least, being somewhat involved to, at most, being the creator. We can thank him for such gems as The Rockford Files, Hunter, Baretta, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero. Okay, that last one wasn't exactly a crime show, but whatever. Oh, and do we have any Johnny Depp fans in the house? Well, Mr. Cannell also was a creator of 21 Jump Street. Look, you wanna give Wes Craven credit for introducing Johnny Depp to the world, fine, but I say he honed his craft on this series. In addition to that, Stephen J. Cannell was also a novelist and an occasional actor. In fact, some of you may recognize him as part of the author's poker game on Castle in season one. Sadly, he passed away in 2010, but they kept an empty chair at that poker table for quite awhile in his honor. That was nice. He was great man.
So, this post has gotten quite long. I better wrap things up. Anyway, that is The Commish, and I love it. Yes, love, in the present tense. And every fan of this show knows what I'm talking about. I hope they enjoyed reminiscing with me. And for those of you not so much into The Commish, or those who may never have seen it, I hope this encouraged you to do some DVD renting or even buying. It's all worth it. Plus, if you don't know what went down on the show, my next several posts will probably not be for you. But for the rest of the ... Commish-ionaries (Yeah, I went there!) join me tomorrow, as I reveal my favorite episodes. Spoilers galore!.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
