Wiseguy

Had something special about it from the start: the mood, the writing, the acting. All the great series establish a mis-en-scene, a special environment that you can cut with a knife. I felt I was in a different place watching "Wiseguy." [30 May 1988]

It's a simple idea with deceptively intriguing permutations. Plus, it's extremely well- made, to boot -- if, occasionally, inevitably, cliche-crazed. But hey -- it is TV. [16 Sept 1987, p.D1]

Coming from Cannell, Wiseguy is, of course, all sweat and swagger, bullets and babes, breeziness and bravado. Men's bowling teams are advised to schedule their nights around this one.[16 Sept 1987, p.7C]

Mr. Wahl has the kind of brooding good looks that could attract ratings - that is, if the public is ready for still another blood-and-guts romp on television.

The cliches just keep on coming, from crooked cops to a mobster's innocent daughter in law school (at UCLA, no less) to those great, great lines: "Come on, Sonny, let's go. [16 Sept 1987, p.F-9]

The notion that a two-bit pug with Geraldo Rivera's swagger could work his way into the highest echelons of organized crime is absurd, but consistent with the rest of the story. It's a tossup which has more holes, the plot or the bodies that pile up here in one of those all-purpose, everyone-gets-blown-away-who-deserves-to-get-blown-away endings...With any luck, this show is history.

Wiseguy deposits blank-faced lump Ken Wahl onto the screen for a preposterous and desultory crime saga about a sullen undercover cop who infiltrates the mob and will spend each episode almost getting found out, but miraculously squeaking through. [16 Sept 1987, p.D1]