"It's not about who you are. It's about what you are. If I don't take myself seriously, who else will?" - Ken Wahl as Vinnie Terranova
Wiseguy Season One Part One: Sonny Steelgrave and the Mob DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
On September 16, 1987, Wiseguy premiered on CBS. Co-created by prolific hit-maker Stephen J. Cannell (The Rockford Files, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street), the series centered on Vinnie Terranova (Ken Wahl), a thirty year old undercover agent with the Organized Crime Bureau, a special task force set up by the F.B.I. Vinnie has just been released from an eighteen month stay in the Newark State Penitentiary, where he had been incarcerated on minor charges to help build his cover. After four years with the Bureau, Vinnie wants out. He is so deep undercover that even his sick mother (Elsa Raven) does not know that her son is a cop. Viewing him as a criminal, she has disowned her son, and Vinnie wants to make amends before she dies. In his family, only Vinnie's older brother Peter (Gerald Anthony), a priest, knows his secret.
Vinnie's hopes of retiring are dashed when his mentor is killed by a mobster in whose trial he was about to testify. Saddled with a new boss he hates - grim, sardonic Frank McPike (Jonathan Banks) - Vinnie vows to avenge his friend's death, and agrees to go back undercover. He infiltrates the mob with the help of his "Lifeguard" (Jim Byrnes), a computer-connected go-between who provides Vinnie with the information he needs to maintain his cover.
Wiseguy's innovation is that rather than chasing a different bad guy in each episode, Vinnie's cases unfold in multi-episode story arcs. This boxed set presents all of the episodes in the series' first arc, centered on Atlantic City mob boss Sonny Steelgrave (Ray Sharkey). Vinnie uses his chutzpah (and the knowledge that both he and Steelgrave boxed in their youth) to worm his way into the boss' good graces. Steelgrave runs a hotel and casino as a front for his illicit activities, but the death of his brother in an arms deal gone bad throws his empire into turmoil. Brooklyn Mafioso Paul Patrice (Andy Warhol stud Joe Dallesandro) wants to protect his interests by forcing his Harvard-trained accountant Sid Royce (Moonlighting pilot's creepy heavy Dennis Lipscomb) onto a reluctant Sonny. Not to be outdone, the Philly mob sends over Harry "The Hunchback" Schanstra (Eric Christmas), an ancient, cane-carrying relic in Frankenstein shoes. With his business relationships in flux, Sonny turns to his new right hand man, Vinnie, for support.
Over nine episodes, Vinnie earns the gangster's trust while gathering evidence against him. Vinnie surprises himself, however, when he realizes that he is beginning to empathize with the man he is trying to put away. Wiseguy is so effective because it is essentially a platonic romance between Vinnie and Sonny. Their mating dance as they attempt to figure each other out and gain the other's trust is, frankly, more thrilling to watch - and more sexually charged - than traditional romances. Sonny respects and cares for his new employee, and the irony that this supposed thug treats him better than his O.C.B. bosses is not lost on Vinnie. But, as Mama Terranova points out, "What good is a man who loves his children and murders someone else's?"
As the conflicted agent, Wahl is a likeable lug. He is matched by the electrifying Sharkey. His Sonny demands attention, and when he is onscreen, it is impossible to look anywhere else. Banks is also good in the less showy role of Frank McPike. His world weary persona works well with some of the dark humor of the early episodes, as when McPike arranges for his secret meetings with Vinnie to take place in the euthanasia room of a dog pound and in a dentist's office. Really, though the cast is uniformly strong, down to even the smallest of characters. Special guests include Annette Benning as a ballet company fundraiser with a secret (not to mention incredibly tall 1980s Jersey hair), singer Billy Vera ("At This Moment") as a nightclub performer who clashes with Sonny, and The Wonder Years' Dan Lauria as a crooked cop.
Also included are three standalone episodes. Of the three, only "Last Rites for Lucci" immediately followed the Sonny Steelgrave arc. The other two, "People Do It All the Time" and "Meet Mike McPike," are actually from season three. These were probably included here to help spread the episodes evenly over several boxed sets, but, frankly, it may have been a smarter move to leave the episodes in chronological order. As it is, after becoming enmeshed in the scope of the Steelgrave arc, it is harder for the viewer to become lost in these standalone episodes.
The twelve episodes in this boxed set are divided onto four discs. The episodes, unfortunately, are not divided into chapters. This forces the viewer to watch the entire episode in one sitting or to fast forward to their stopping point later on. There is a play all feature.
