Crime Story

I bought a set of CDs last month. I paid $60 for a two-box set representing the entire two-year run of "Crime Story".


Do you remember Crime Story? It was Dennis Farina's introduction to video entertainment, and a bold experiment in the way television presented violent events. This was my favorite TV show in the late '80s, and I considered it money well spent when I bought the DVD's.

Here's some of the blurb from the package:

Following the phenomenal success of MIAMI VICE, Executive Producer Michael Mann returned to television with a new kind of gritty crime drama, one that talked tougher and hit harder than anything the small screen had ever seen before. For two explosive seasons, CRIME STORY told the hard-boiled saga of hair-trigger cop Lieutenant Mike Torello [Dennis Farina] and his obsessive pursuit of ruthless gangster Ray Luca [Anthony Denison] from the mean streets of early '60s Chicago to the mean streets of mob-run Las Vegas. Today, CRIME STORY is considered a true cult classic as well as one of the most startling series in television history.

Executive Producer Michael Mann and co-creators Chuck Adamson and Gustave Reiminger envisioned CRIME STORY as a 22-hour movie for television, the chronicle of three obsessed men . . . hard-boiled Chicago Cop Mike Torello, visionary wise-guy Ray Luca and defense attorney David Abrams . . . in the evolution of organized crime before the Miranda Ruling and after the dreams of Camelot had been gunned down on a city street. "This isn't some Hollywood writer's idea of the nature of good and evil," Mann told reporters. "This is the real thing."

In an unprecedented show of support, NBC screened the two-hour pilot for the media and ad agencies at movie theatres (sic) across the country. On Thursday, September 18, 1986, the pilot followed the top-rated COSBY SHOW and FAMILY TIES, where it scored a whopping 32 share. The first episode, "Final Transmission" aired the next night after MIAMI VICE and repeated its 32 share. NBC previewed "Shadow Dancer" two weeks later in the same Friday night slot before setting the show into Tuesday night at 10PM opposite MOONLIGHTING on ABC and MATLOCK on CBS. CRIME STORY had hit the ground running.

You too can own this splendid series at bargain-basement prices. You can get Season One and Season Two from Amazon.com for the low low price of . . . not very much (Okay, it'll cost you sixty-eight bucks, plus shipping. Compare this with the cost of $26 to $36 for HALF the first season of WISEGUY, another on my Wish List, and it looks like an extremely affordable video package.)

Two 22-episode seasons for just over a dollar each. It took me over a month to watch the whole series, watching at least one episode per week-day while I ate dinner.

Dinner was often cold before