tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627742036212857903.post4933660115577885826..comments2024-03-07T09:43:00.322-08:00Comments on Television's New Frontier: The 1960s: 87th Precinct (1962)P. Borellihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11092250745923532096noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627742036212857903.post-48039043695490314622021-01-28T09:46:05.767-08:002021-01-28T09:46:05.767-08:00Thanks for the insight. No, I have not read the Mc...Thanks for the insight. No, I have not read the McBain books. My comment about the introduction of the Hawes character for a single episode was merely that given that the main impetus for the TV series seemed to be showing police detectives as multi-dimensional characters rather than the one-dimensional caricatures of shows like "Dragnet" and "M Squad," the series already had its hands full in fleshing out the four principle characters without adding more characters to the mix. Your conjectures about future developments for the series had it continued are interesting, but I wonder if they would have killed off Havilland --in this era, TV characters usually just vanished without explanation, although there are a few exceptions, such as Anthony George's character getting killed in "The Untouchables" when he wanted out of his contract to star on "Checkmate."Beestguyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05072681883529061108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627742036212857903.post-28318852465325484722021-01-15T08:01:04.973-08:002021-01-15T08:01:04.973-08:00I'll make the educated guess that you're n...I'll make the educated guess that you're not that familiar with the <i>87th Precinct</i> books, as Ed McBain originally wrote them.<br />Evan Hunter had planned for there to be comings and goings within the 87th Squad, and that was one reason for the addition of Cotton Hawes, who had become established in the books by the time the series aired.<br />This is guesswork on my part, but I think that had <i>87th</i> gone to Season Two, Roger Havilland, who'd been killed off in the books early on, would have met that fate in the series, and Cotton Hawes would have joined the cast full time.<br />Had <i>87th Precinct</i> run longer that two seasons, we might have also seen such later McBain creations as Andy Parker, Arthur Brown, Peter Genero, and several others.<br /><br />By the way, "Feel Of The Trigger" was based on a story from another detective book series: the Levine stories by Donald E. Westlake, about a middle-aged Jewish cop.<br />Westlake and Evan Hunter were old friends from the Scott Meredith literary agency; when Hunter was looking for likely stories to use on <i>87th</i>, he made a deal with Westlake to use this story on the show, changing Levine to Meyer for the occasion (there was a series of Levine stories, so if <i>87th</i> had run longer, it's possible that this could happen again; alas, we'll never know ...).Mike Doranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14427528138598549103noreply@blogger.com