Good news and bad news, delivered at the same time. Today and tomorrow on
Decades, the digital network offering vintage TV shows is rerunning the outstanding and influential 1987-90 CBS series
Wiseguy, the undercover detective show that introduced half-season story arcs as an extended way to tell an ongoing narrative. It starred Ken Wahl as the undercover Organized Crime Bureau agent, and future
Breaking Bad and
Better Call Saul star Jonathan Banks as his handler – but the real stars, and scene-stealers, were the villains (another way in which
Wiseguy predated, and influenced, the great dramatic TV series to come). Ray Sharkey, as rising mobster Sonny Steelgrave, set the show’s gold standard, and his arc begins this two-day Decades retrospective. But while other extended stories in the series are presented in their entirety and in sequence, one entire half-season arc – the show’s all-time best – is omitted entirely. It’s the one, from 1988, about a twisted brother-sister crime duo. Joan Severance plays the sister, and – the reason I suspect this arc is now missing from this Decades presentation – the brother is played by Kevin Spacey, in an early, and magnificent, TV role. But as a TV historian, and a lover of quality TV, I feel it’s wrong to erase a performance so good from our cultural record and memory. The entire series, though, including the Spacey episodes, is available to stream on Hulu, so it’s not gone yet. But it’s vanishing quickly: On Amazon, DVD complete sets of
Wiseguy are going for $250 and up…