Something Streaming This Way Comes: "UNSUB" (1989)

If you’re a newcomer to this newsletter, let me just take the intro of this piece to underline that the biggest reason I started doing this newsletter is because it provides me with the opportunity to focus on whatever decidedly niche topics strike my fancy. Sometimes they’re topics that I might well be able to sell to another outlet, but the lengthy process of trying to find such an outlet can quickly become soul-crushing, and my soul’s already been crushed plenty over the years, thanks, so the way I figure it, it’s an emotionally-healthier alternative—if not necessarily a financially solid one—to just skip the possible of further trauma and run the piece here.

And that, dear readers, is why you’re about to embark on a collection of interviews with the stars of a show that lasted for eight episodes in 1989, is out of print on DVD, isn’t available for digital purchase, and can’t be streamed anywhere other than YouTube.

Welcome…to UNSUB.

I’ve already said this elsewhere, and I think I say it in the midst of this piece, too, but the fact of the matter is that it’s true: UNSUB plays like the missing link between Michael Mann’s Manhunter and Criminal Minds. It was a show that was ahead of its time in 1989, and it also contains moments that you’d never be able to get away with in prime-time TV in 2023. In addition, it features a multi-generational cast which includes a then-young upstart named Richard Kind, former Adam-12 star Kent McCord, well-documented curmudgeon M. Emmet Walsh, and Jennifer Hetrick, who would soon play opposite Patrick Stewart as Picard’s brief love interest, Vash. There are also some great guest “villains,” including alleged real-world villain Kevin Spacey. I’ve embedded a full playlist of the show’s eight episodes on YouTube, and I’ll post it directly below this paragraph, after which I'll offer up a little oral history that combines the story of the show’s origins with the probable explanation for its quick demise, followed by a mix of interviews with a trio of cast members. I hope you enjoy the piece, and I hope you do indeed check out the show, if only to see what I’m talking about in terms of how ahead of its time it was.

Richard Kind (“Jimmy Bello”): Stephen Cannell takes a lunch with these two guys who’ve worked with him on Wiseguy [David J. Burke and Stephen Kronish], and they say they want to develop a show based on Manhunter about the FBI unit that chases serial killers. So Cannell goes, "Great!" They create the show, and Cannell goes and meets with Brandon Tartikoff, and he says, "This is the show." They order it right from the get-go – because it's Cannell! – and we make the pilot.

Kent McCord (“Alan McWhirter”): The unfortunate thing about UNSUB is that right at the time that Steve and Burke and Kronish had created the show about this subject matter, Geraldo Rivera had done a special on Satanism, and I guess NBC got pilloried with criticism, and it was just this unholy attack on the network.

Kind: Tartikoff was blasted. The critics called this Geraldo special "the nadir of TV" and asked, "Can television get any lower? And this actually airs the night before they screen the pilot of UNSUB for Tartikoff.

McCord: So they were in the screening room, and they're screening [the first episode] "White Bone Demon" for Brandon, and they come to this thing where the wallpaper starts to shimmer, and this Satan-like image comes on and starts saying, "Kill, Joe! KILL!"

Kind: And there was a scene where the villain puts a razor blade into the heel of a woman's shoe - he's a cobbler - and she bends over in pain, and he stabs her in the back of the neck with an awl.

McCord: And Brandon started yelling, "What is this? What are you doing?”

Kind: Tartikoff stands up and screams, "What the fuck are you trying to do, take down this network singlehandedly?"

McCord: And Steve says, "Brandon, this is what we talked about! A group of investigators!" Brandon said, "No, that's not what I meant!”

Kind: It turns out Tartikoff thinks he's getting The A-Team, but chasing serial killers. He thinks there's gonna be a Mr. T, he thinks it's gonna be these guys going around with a George Peppard-type leader and the beautiful women and everything. And that's what he’s signed on for: The A-Team, but for the FBI, chasing serial killers.

McCord: Steve said, "I knew at that moment that it was eight episodes and out."

Kind: Every time I see Peter Roth—who was head of Cannell [Productions] at the time, then went famously went on to head Warner Brothers TV—he hugs me and he says, "We were the first!" Because UNSUB was the first of the procedurals, like Criminal Minds and C.S.I.

McCord: It was a great idea, and a really groundbreaking, ahead-of-the-pack show. I later talked to Steve, and I don't remember show it was—maybe it was C.S.I.—but I said, "You need to sue!" [Laughs.] But there's an old saying: "You can't copyright reality.” And an idea belongs to a man who can use it, so you're into that area, where good ideas don't occur to just one person. If it's a good idea, it's a good idea. But we were way ahead of the game.

Kind: There's a scene in the pilot where the cobbler comes in, he's out of breath, he's going, "Mother! Mother!" And the great Grace Zabriskie is playing the mother…and she's spread-eagled with her legs outside the tub in a bubble bath as her son comes running in. And I'm thinking, "Oh, my God! This is network TV!" They can't do that today!

I remember once being in a sports bar or something - I was on vacation with my kids - and there was there, like, three 70" screens all over the place. It was in the afternoon, there weren't any people in there, and what was on TV was Criminal Minds. The most gruesome show in the world. And yet the violence is so banal that we don't even look at the TV as we're eating! But I did. And I'm looking, and I'm going, "Oh, my God! The violence that these people are perpetrating on television! It's horrible. We were the first!"

Kent McCord (“Alan McWhirter”)

Kent McCord: Everybody got along really well up there [in Vancouver] when we were filming. David Soul is a little...interesting to work with, let me put it that way. He's a good man, I like him a lot. I haven't seen him in a long time now, and it's hard to look back on this and realize that this was 1989, so we're looking at, what, almost 35 years now? But it gave me the opportunity to work with some people that I'd really admired in the industry for a long time. Corey Allen, who was from Rebel Without a Cause, and Bill Fraker, who started out on Ozzie and Harriet as a camera assistant and then moved up and became a legendary cinematographer. As a director, he made a great Western movie: Monte Walsh, one of the best ever made. So there were some really great people that Steve brought in.

Richard Kind: I will tell you a couple of things about Corey Allen. First of all, a great guy. Corey's real name was Alan Cohen. and as an actor... I can't remember the name of it, but there was a war film that all of these young kids were in, and they want this good-looking young kid to be in the movie, and his agent calls the casting director and he says, "I've got this kid." And they say, "Oh, is he very, very WASP-y?" Which Corey Allen was. So the agent says, "Yeah!" And the casting director goes, "What's his name?" And the agent goes, "Alan, uh..." And he realizes he can't say the last name. But he looks on the wall, and there is a poster for a movie starring Jeff Corey. And he says, "Allen! Corey Allen!" And that's how he got his name. Corey Allen was also a good luck charm for Stephen Cannell, because he directed several of his pilots for Stephen. 

[Writer's note: Allen directed the pilots for Stone and J.J. Starbuck.]

Kind: But my favorite director... Did you see all the directors?

I did. 

What director do you think was my favorite?

Hold on, let me look at the list again...

Read off the list! Because I don't remember who's on there!

Okay, you've got Corey Allen, James Contner, Bill Corcoran, William Fraker, Jim Johnston, Jorge Montesi, Gus Trikonis, and Reynaldo Villalobos.

And which name do you know the best out of all of them?

Um... Well, I guess Corey Allen, just because I know him for more than directing. Who was your favorite?

[Long pause.] Well, I am surprised...and, Will, I'm a little disappointed.

I'm sorry.

Do you have any idea who William Fraker is?

No, but now I obviously have to look up his credits and... Oh, now I see his credits as a director of photography. Oh, and he's the one who directed Monte Walsh. Yeah, Kent mentioned him because he directed that film.

Oh, yeah, but Monte Walsh was the least of his accomplishments. He was the DP on Bullitt, he was the DP on Rosemary's Baby, I think he was the DP on 1941. He's one of the great cinematographers of all time! He's truly one of the greats. And at the time, car chases were thing. You had Bullitt, you had The French Connection, you had The Blues Brothers... They were all car chases. And I told him, "You are responsible for the demise of movies." [Laughs.] Because Bullitt was the first big car chase, and he was the DP on that. And I used to take him up to the bar after we shot, and I would just pummel him with questions and ask for stories. And he used to curse me, because he'd be tired the next day because he was up longer than he needed to be, talking to me. He was fantastic. Fantastic. And there's a movie called Visions of Light. Have you ever heard of it?

You've stumped me. I've never even heard the title before.

It's a documentary about cinematographers. Do yourself a favor and watch it. One of my favorite movie stories of all time is his story about Roman Polanski and Rosemary's Baby. It will kill you. You should watch the movie, but definitely watch his section where he talks about Rosemary's Baby. It's one of the great stories of cinema, and I can't do it justice because it's a physical story. You have to see it. It's a heck of a movie, but that's one of the best movie-making stories of all time.

McCord: When I was talking about Chief earlier, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I hadn't seen Manhunter when I put Chief together. I mean, Pierce Brooks was with us for an episode of Adam-12, so we're going back to '68. He was a cop's cop. And I had stayed in touch with Pierce because, as a matter of fact, he traveled on a road trip with Marty [Milner] and me. It was coming up for the premiere episode of Adam-12, and we went on the road—Marty and me and Pierce Brooks—to promote the show. In those days, you actually went to a city. You went to all the majors. You went Atlanta and Pittsburgh and...I remember we went to Green Bay, and it took a week to get out of there because it was snowing! [Laughs.] And then we went to New York and Chicago and Philly.

I think we were on the road for, like, 10 days to promote the premiere. And Pierce traveled with us, so when we were doing all those talk shows and they'd say, "Well, what about this? And what about that?" we'd turn to Pierce and say, "Maybe Pierce can answer that question. How many times have you fired your gun?" "Well, I take it out about once a year to clean it, and I've never fired it in anger." That kind of thing. So Pierce and his legend—and it is legendary in L.A.—was something that I was really well aware of. And when he started doing his stuff and all the behavioral science stuff started happening in law enforcement, I was right there on that, coming up with this concept. 

But like I said, when I took it to Steve originally and he said, "I'd do what I did with Brian Keith and Danny Kelly [on Hardcastle and McCormick]: I'd have a guy like Jim Garner starring in it, and you guys would be together," I just didn't want to hear that. I probably should've said, "Oh, yes, let's do that!" [Laughs.] I probably would've made a lot of money! But at that point, I thought I'd earned my chops, and if I was going to put this thing together, then that wasn't where it was gonna go. I will say, though, that the name of my character in the series—Alan McWhirter—was particularly nice, because that’s my actual last name!

When was the last time you saw UNSUB?

Oh, I haven't looked at UNSUB in a long time. I bought that box set, and I think the two-parter, which was the last two episodes, is what I looked at. But I haven't really put it on to look all the way through it. 

What I remember is that we went up to Vancouver, and the very first thing—and I've got this in my mind's eye—the very first shot that we're shooting... We're out on location, and we're doing the entry into the house where we later put all the furniture on blocks and do altered light or something like that, and then Joe goes back in to do his thing about the killer. But it was morning, Vancouver, colder than a witch's tit. [Laughs.] And they call us, and I get out of my dressing room trailer, and I'm walking to the set - the practical set outside the house - and I hit black ice, and I went ass over tea kettle. And when I landed, I put my hand down to break my fall, and I thought I broke my wrist. So I didn't say a word to anybody. I went in, and we shot that first scene to establish us, and then I went over to somebody and said [Quietly.] "Check my wrist. I think I broke it." And it wasn't broken, thankfully. It was just hurting like a son of a bitch. But I wasn't gonna say anything until they got that first shot in the can! 

You mentioned that David Soul was interesting to work with, but what do you remember about working with M. Emmet Walsh?

Emmet was really a neat guy. Complicated, but a wonderful guy. He knew his stuff, and he had a great attack on work and everything. I just remember that everybody got along really well. From what I remember. When you're all thrown together like that... [Suddenly starts to laugh.] I just remembered one other thing. You know, Emmet is one of those guys who... Well, certainly, everybody when they see him knows him. They might not know his name, but they know him. Well, I had seen Straight Time, and I'm talking about the film, and...Emmet may have thought I was putting him on or something, but it had just gone out of my head, and I said to him, "You know, there was a good film I saw the other night. It was Straight Time." And he said [Growling.] "I was in it, goddammit!" 

That might be the most perfect M. Emmet Walsh response ever.

[Laughs.] It might be!

What do you remember about working with Emmet Walsh?

Richard Kind: All right, I don't know how much of this you can print. I will start out by saying that Emmet Walsh is truly one of my favorite people, along with being one of my favorite actors. He was fantastic. He was absolutely fantastic. As an actor, he was very dedicated to his craft. He was certainly great all the time. There are various words you could use, and I'll use them: he was a curmudgeon, he was a stickler, he was a hard worker, he was an asshole, and he was contentious. But Emmet, I will tell you, is shockingly athletic. He was a golf hustler. He was a scratch golfer. You take a look at him, and you go, "Well, this guy can't play golf." He was a golf hustler. I believe he was a Golden Gloves boxer. He's a very good athlete. You wouldn't know it from what he looks like now, but he was a very, very good athlete. His father was an immigration officer, which I always found interesting. He was from Northern New York.

I have a great story. It's a long story, but I'll tell it, and I don't know if you're gonna use it or not, but…there was a guy, sort of a pain-in-the-ass golfer. The guy called himself an actor. This guy was not a working actor. His name was Harvey. And because he was a good golfer, he would ingratiate himself to famous people, thinking that he could get in good with them because he was a good golfer. But he dressed in jeans and sort of a checked-flannel shirt, so he wasn't dressed as a country club golfer. He was a scrappy but good golfer, this guy Harvey, and he befriended himself to Jack Lemmon, who was a good golfer. He once took me out and invited me to play with Bobby Morse. Bobby Morse was my hero! Because of How to Succeed in Business and A Guide for the Married Man and The Loved One. I loved Bobby Morse! He invited me to play with Bobby Morse, I couldn't believe it. So he was sort of an ass-kisser to these famous actors. 

Cut to a different part of the story. Emmet used to play in this golfing league, they'd probably meet once a week at various clubs and public courses in the L.A. area, and it was all set up. They got tee times and stuff like that. It was all arranged by the actor Don Porter. Gidget's father. And Emmet would talk about this particular club, of which there were maybe 24 actors, and you'd just sign up. You'd call up Don and say, "I want to play this Thursday," and he would sign you up, and then you'd come in, you'd check in, you'd pay your money, and it was all organized by Don. Emmet used to talk about this.

Well, one time this guy Harvey calls me up and invited me to join this particular outing, this group of guys, something that Emmet never did. Harvey says, "Do you want to play?" I said, "Yeah!" And I call Emmet, and I say, "Emmet, I think I'm playing in that group that you always play in." Emmet goes [Doing a solid Emmet Walsh impression.] "Oh, yeah? Who asked ya?" I go, "It was Harvey. And he knows that I know you, and he wants to know if you'll play in our foursome." And this is what Emmet says: "I wouldn't play with that ass-kissing sycophant for all the money in the world!" And I go, "Oh, my God..." Because this guy Harvey was a nice guy. I didn't know that Emmet knew him and everything. But he just couldn't stand him.

We get there the next day, Harvey has already signed up and has requested to play with Emmet. Emmet comes in to sign up, Don Porter says, "You're playing with Harvey and Richard Kind." Emmet goes, "I'm not playing with that guy!" And Don goes, "Well, you have to." "No, I'm not." And he just starts insulting him in front of everybody! He has no regard that Harvey is there, and he's insulting him, and everybody's hearing him! Now, was he worthy of every insult? Absolutely. But you don't do that. Emmet didn't care. He says, "I'm not playing with him!" Don says, "You have to!" Emmet says, "Then I'm not playing!" And he leaves. Don calls Emmet up that night and says, "You've got to apologize to Harvey. What you did today was terrible." Emmet goes, "I'm not apologizing!" Don goes, "If you don't apologize, you're never coming back to the golf club again." Emmet goes, "Then so be it!" And he never played again. 

I feel like that's the only way that story could've ended, based on what I've heard about him.

That's right. Very strong-willed, pain in the ass... Okay, I'll tell you another Unsub story! We were running over as far as filming. Weather may have gotten in the way. We had to shoot... I think it was Christmas Eve, but we had to shoot an extra day to finish the episode, and then we were gonna fly home Christmas Day. So we shoot in Christmas Eve day, and then we all go out to dinner on Christmas Eve. We had all arranged to go. And I called Emmet, who wasn't there when we planned it, and I said, "Emmet, we're all going to such and such a restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner. Do you want to go?" And he goes, "Is Soul gonna be there?" Meaning David Soul. And I go, "Yeah." And he goes, "Well, I ain't going. Guy's gonna hold court the whole time. Nobody'll get a word in edgewise." So he didn't go!

I loved David Soul. I thought he was a great, great guy, and a very good actor, and really cared about what he was doing. That said, after we shot, he would...write notes in the script about the scenes and about his character or maybe about plot. He wrote and he wrote, and he wrote a lot in the margins and on the other side of the page of the script. And that's another reason why we knew it wasn't going to go [beyond eight episodes]: they didn't want to hear from him. They never want to hear from the actors. I mean, you may have a note here or there, or a question or something like that, but...that's what David was. But he was a really good actor and a really good man. He was really good, and he would talk to you.

Everybody was great. Everybody was truly, truly great. Kent was very magnanimous and helping, loaded with stories. He was very different than what his persona was on TV. Emmet sort of insulted him and said, "You're this pretty boy who can't act." But that wasn't true.

There’s an episode in particular where you really get to shine. It’s called “And They Swam Right Over the Dam.”

Yeah, they had an episode where they had to concentrate on me, and I was the key. It was nice! I just remember the little boy and being by the dolphins. Oh, I know what I remember! The two villains of the episode became friends of mine: Sherman Howard and Matt Landers. I don't think Matt is around anymore. He was a lovely guy. Both of them were great. And there was an episode with Kevin Spacey... Had he already been on Wiseguy?

I think he must have.

I remember him being on set. I remember that now because he was at the hotel. Biggest insult of my life: he never hit on me.

Well, you can't win 'em all. 

We had some great guest stars. In the last episode, which was a two-parter, Jason Bernard was great. And then I believe he went on to be a regular on Herman's Head. I had friends who worked with him on there. He was a lovely man. And there was a great advisor on the show, Bill Clark, who was very good friends with David Milch and Bill Finkelstein, who's running East New York. He was legendary. A great cop and a great guy. He's the one who used to tell all these stories. Because the stories on the show were based on fact.

One other thing I wanted to ask you about was the fact that, with your character, it was like they couldn't decide whether they wanted him to be the funny guy or the big lummox or the young upstart.

Yeah, I don't know what he was supposed to be, either. [Laughs.] Oh, but I do remember a good story. I had come from Second City, and I wanted my first job to be drama, so people could see, "Oh, he can act!" So that's why I especially wanted this particular show. So my first show out of Second City was this police drama. And when I went in for the audition with the casting people, I read for Simon Ayer, and I'm looking at Simon, and over his shoulder, right behind him, sitting in a chair, is Stephen Cannell. And he is grinning, ear to ear, like, "Oh, my God, I've never seen a better performance! Oh, my God, this guy is magic! It's unbelievable!" That's what it looks like. It's like he's going, "I can't believe who's reading! He's so good!" I then come out and I'm, like, "He thought I was great! He was smiling! He was so happy!" And they go, "Oh, no, he's like that with everybody. He just loves his own words." And that just killed me. That really made me laugh.

Joe Maruzzo (“Tony D’Agostino”)

“It was such a pivotal show in my career. I was a young actor in New York City, I think I spent years in Manhattan doing theater and TV - but mostly theater - and studying at the Actors Studio and everywhere. And I get this audition for this thing called UNSUB in California. I was living in Manhattan, I had, like, $300 in the bank, and I'm, like, ‘What's UNSUB? How'd they even find me?’ And it turned out that Steven Cannell... The casting agent was looking for this character Tony D'Agostino, the character I played, the psychic cop. And from an audition that I did for Wiseguy... I did this small audition about a year prior for this mob character, and I remember thinking, ‘God, that was good in there. That felt really good!’ But I didn't get it. But from him seeing that audition from the casting agent, he flew me out to L.A. to test for this show.

“It was my first time in L.A., it was for NBC, and it was between me and this other guy. Anyway, they made the financial deal, and I won't say what that was, but it was very good. [Laughs.] And as I was walking in the room, I was saying to myself, ‘Okay, it's either $300 in the bank or...’ So I got in the room, and because of all the theater I was doing in New York at the Actors Studio - I was working on Shakespeare's Richard III  - I just blew them away with the monologue. I don't know if you remember, but it's in the pilot when I'm alone in the room and I'm getting my visions. So before I even left the room, Steven Cannell said, ‘You got the part!’ And it was a great experience. I moved out to L.A., and I lived there for 25 years.

“But we shot UNSUB in Canada—it was in Vancouver, which was great and so gorgeous—and David Soul was an amazing guy. He was the greatest. Just loveable, funny. Can't say enough about him. Richard and I had a couple of good episodes together. There's the one with the little boy (‘And They Swam Right Over the Dam’). Everybody was great! I also remember I flew my mother and father out to Vancouver just to see what we were doing any everything, and I got the flu. I couldn't even get out of bed that week. It was terrible. They wrote me out of one of the episodes because of it. 

“For that first episode, I had to do this monologue where I'm in a darkened room and I'm talking about this dead body, and then I look in the mirror, and so on. In the deal, you were awarded a certain amount of money per episode, but if it doesn't work out after the first two episodes, they could let us go and give us such and such amount of money and that's it. So everyone was sort of walking on eggshells and saying, ‘Shit, I hope we're doing good!’ But when we were shooting that first episode, that scene was the last scene of the night, it was something like 3 a.m., and I'm waiting to do the scene...and the director was actually the actor who was in Rebel Without a Cause (Corey Allen)! But we get ready to shoot, and he takes me outside, and he says, ‘All right, are you ready?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I'm ready!’ He said, ‘Okay, here's the deal. Have you ever lost a loved one? Has your mother died? Has your father died?’ And he went into this big thing about death and this and that, and he said, ‘That's the way the scene is, okay?’ Talk about blowing my mind.

“So he put all that shit in my mind, we go inside, I hear, ‘Action!’ And I just stood there. I forgot all my lines...and it was a two-page monologue! I couldn't remember a thing. I froze. I said, ‘All right, go back to the fucking trailer, because it's over. You're not going to be able to do it.’ And this went on all night. I couldn't do it. He just made me very self-conscious with what he said. So after it was over, I got to the hotel, I went to sleep, I woke up the next morning, and I called the producers. I said, ‘Look, we shot that scene last night... I'm telling you guys, you're not gonna get it. It's terrible.’ They called me back a day later, they said, ‘You're right. We told him to leave you alone and let you do it the way you did it in the audition.’ And then we reshot it. So the point is, the director really shouldn't get in your head about something. He was just being too enthusiastic and...it was ridiculous. I hadn't said a word to him, and he starts telling me about death and losing a family member and what he thinks the scene's about. Meanwhile, that's the scene I auditioned for to get the part! So that was interesting. Nothing against Corey Allen!

“I must say that all of my training at the Actors Studio is what got me connected to that role. Not that it was so hard to do, but it needed a certain nuance from the actor, and I think because of what I was working on at the studio, I just went in there and got the part. I must say that I really wasn't aware of Michael Mann's Manhunter at the time, although I did see it later on. 

“We shot eight episodes, and they all aired. I think we got good reviews, but the sponsors were so afraid of the subject matter just from the commercials. But I remember as we were leaving Vancouver, we were in the car, going to the airport, I think it was David Burke, one of the producers, who turned to me and said, ‘Buy a house, we're coming back for 23 episodes.’ [Laughs.] I mean, that would've been amazing! I heard they flipped a coin between us and Quantum Leap or something. That's what I heard, anyway.

“You can see it's a little dated, I guess, but it still holds up, I think. And it was beautifully shot in the woods of Vancouver. But I'm telling you, man, I never realized what we were doing and what was going on with serial killers back then. So many were still active, and here we were, actually doing a show about that kind of thing. And now crime shows are everything! Richard's friend, George Clooney, came up to me one time - I think I was in L.A. at the YMCA - and said, ‘You were fucking great in that show, man.’ It was nice! I thought I did a pretty good job. But it was unfortunate that it only lasted eight episodes. I can't even watch C.S.I. and all those shows, because I think of UNSUB. We could've had a hit show on our hands. But it was great. A great experience and a great part. It was my first big show. It would've been terrific if it had gone longer. I think it was a real letdown for Cannell. But that's showbiz.”