"Jack Killian is an ex-cop in San Francisco. He quit the police force after accidentally shooting his partner. He was approached by Devon King, the manager of a local radio station, and accepted a job as a talk-back host. Ever the humanitarian, Jack (together with his side-kick Billy Po) often gets personally involved with the plight of those who call his show."
There are TV rips up on dailymotion, if anybody wants to relive this.
posted
This is a show crying out for a DVD release. It's a modern noir with stunning night time scenes and a brilliant lead in Gary Cole. It is an extremely dark show, tackling serious subjects like AIDS and capital punishment. When it was on, NBC did it no favors by bouncing it all over the schedule. It never really found an audience, but over the years, the cult has grown.
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aTomiK
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posted
I would like to own a dvd/blu-ray collection. I´m not going to watch the series from Dailymotion, just not my style Love the neon Midnight Caller sign and the cast looks awesome!
[ 20. March 2015, 04:13: Message edited by: aTomiK ]
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quote:Originally posted by Crash: This is a show crying out for a DVD release. It's a modern noir with stunning night time scenes and a brilliant lead in Gary Cole. It is an extremely dark show, tackling serious subjects like AIDS and capital punishment. When it was on, NBC did it no favors by bouncing it all over the schedule. It never really found an audience, but over the years, the cult has grown.
Amen!
quote:Originally posted by aTomiK: I would like to own a dvd/blu-ray collection. I´m not going to watch the series from Dailymotion, just not my style Love the neon Midnight Caller sign and the cast looks awesome!
That's cool, aTomiK. I'd be all over a DVD/Blu release, unfortunately, this doesn't look it's going to happen any time soon...so....
posted
"Midnight Caller" sounds like an amazing show; I've never heard of it before this thread, but by the late '80's I wasn't watching much TV so a lot of shows passed me by.
If this show never gets a physical DVD/Blu-ray release, I think streaming would work really well. Maybe Netflix can pick this up. It definitely sounds like a series that needs to be made available again to modern audiences.
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posted
I found it on Dailymotion.com. I have never heard of dailymotion. Any other good shows or movies on the website? I plan on finishing episode 1 tonight. Thanks!
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posted
I think that you will really like it. The Midnight Caller pilot was directed by Thomas Carter, an amazing TV director, who was a master of directing pilots like Miami Vice and St. Elsewhere.
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posted
Thanks again to those who posted that "Midnight Caller" was available online.
I started watching S01 E01 recently, but got interrupted. I definitely plan on watching the whole episode at some point. Just from my brief viewing, this looks to be an amazing show. Really digging the night-time setting, neon lights, and jazzy feel/tone.
It's a darn shame that this show hasn't been remastered & made available on home video, or at least streaming. The portion I saw was obviously a VHS tape rip that looked like a tape someone had made of the show in the '80's - which makes sense, since the series has never been available in an official home video format. Well, at least this is a lot better than nothing!
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posted
I just realized that one of the reasons this show has never been released to home video is probably because the studio won't spend the money for the music rights. As I recall, a lot of episodes featured songs. Unless the show has a huge built-in audience for home video--like The Wonder Years--there's no way that the studio will go after the music rights to a show that might sell only 5,000 DVD box sets.
My research reveals that the show is now owned by Warner Communications so if it ever gets a release, it would most likely be through the Warner Archive website where old, forgotten, and cult movies and shows go to be manufactured-on-demand to the small number of fans who want copies.
[ 11. December 2016, 22:09: Message edited by: Crash ]
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posted
Last night, I told my husband about this thread. Although he never watched Midnight Caller, it got us on the subject of a few other late 80's/early 90 s shows which never had a proper release. Vengeance Unlimited was included, One show I enjoyed watching late at night when I would get home from my crappy waitressing job was the Canadian detective show Night Heat. My husband and I both said we watched Silk Stalkings late night, and he also watched a show called Dangerous Curves, both detective type shows. I think Dangerous Curves did get released to DVD, but it goes for outrageous prices on eBay.
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posted
PGHgirl, there are quite a few Canadian shows that need to be on DVD, if they aren't already: "Night Heat," which originally ran in the US on the CBS Late Movie, was excellent, very low-keyed and intelligent. "Silk Stalkings" was a guilty pleasure that also ran on the CBS Late Movie and eventually ended its run on the USA Network. It was OK. There were a bunch of weird, completely forgotten shows that ran for short time on the CBS Late Movie or on CBS Crimetime after Primetime, as they called it briefly. There was "Scene of the Crime," which was a Stephen J. Cannell-produced mystery anthology; "The Exile" about a spy, which was filmed in Paris; "Dangerous Curves" about two sexy female PIs; "Sweating Bullets," another Canadian PI drama, this time set in the Caribbean, a show which became a sensation in Serbia, of all places; "Fly by Night," with Shannon Tweed and a cheap-o airline; "Dark Justice," a cult favorite filmed in Spain for a while about a vigilante judge and his team; "Hot Shots," a Canadian thing about a male and female journalist duo; "Diamonds," another Canadian show about a male and female PI team; and my personal favorite, "Adderly," a Canadian show about an injured spy reduced to a basement desk job in Miscellaneous Affairs. And I almost forgot "Forever Knight," another cult sensation, which popped up on CBS and later the USA Network in various incarnations, about a cop who was also a vampire.
[ 19. October 2016, 07:47: Message edited by: Crash ]
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quote:Originally posted by Crash: PGHgirl, there are quite a few Canadian shows that need to be on DVD, if they aren't already: "Night Heat," which originally ran in the US on the CBS Late Movie, was excellent, very low-keyed and intelligent. "Silk Stalkings" was a guilty pleasure that also ran on the CBS Late Movie and eventually ended its run on the USA Network. It was OK. There were a bunch of weird, completely forgotten shows that ran for short time on the CBS Late Movie or on CBS Crimetime after Primetime, as they called it briefly. There was "Scene of the Crime," which was a Stephen J. Cannell-produced mystery anthology; "The Exile" about a spy, which was filmed in Paris; "Dangerous Curves" about two sexy female PIs; "Sweating Bullets," another Canadian PI drama, this time set in the Caribbean, a show which became a sensation in Serbia, of all places; "Fly by Night," with Shannon Tweed and a cheap-o airline; "Dark Justice," a cult favorite filmed in Spain for a while about a vigilante judge and his team; "Hot Shots," a Canadian thing about a male and female journalist duo; "Diamonds," another Canadian show about a male and female PI team; and my personal favorite, "Adderly," a Canadian show about an injured spy reduced to a basement desk job in Miscellaneous Affairs. And I almost forgot "Forever Knight," another cult sensation, which popped up on CBS and later the USA Network in various incarnations, about a cop who was also a vampire.
quote:Originally posted by Pittsburghgirl: Last night, I told my husband about this thread. Although he never watched Midnight Caller, it got us on the subject of a few other late 80's/early 90 s shows which never had a proper release. Vengeance Unlimited was included, One show I enjoyed watching late at night when I would get home from my crappy waitressing job was the Canadian detective show Night Heat. My husband and I both said we watched Silk Stalkings late night, and he also watched a show called Dangerous Curves, both detective type shows. I think Dangerous Curves did get released to DVD, but it goes for outrageous prices on eBay.
Never even heard of any of these shows! They sound very interesting. I guess I missed them due to their playing late at night on some channels back in the '80's.
Thanks for the info. I hope at some point these can be made available for streaming, since I doubt most of them will ever hit DVD/Blu-ray.
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aTomiK
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posted
They aired Silk Stalkings here back in the day and i thought it was just a silly detective series with nice scenery and beautiful girls. I´m sure i would enjoy it more now Posts: 7053 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2008 | Site Updates: 7
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posted
I agree that Silk Stalkings was very silly but at least looked good. And the first female lead has one of the greatest actress names of all time for genre stuff: Mitzi Kapture!
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posted
Crash, we were trying to figure out the name of Dark Justice! I have never seen it, but hubby was describing it but couldn't remember the name.
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posted
Just rewatched the first ep of Midnight Caller - Sade, Wilson Pickett - and others. Music rights are deffo the issue with this show!
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posted
I like Dark Justice, but it's one of those shows where if you think about it even for a couple of minutes, it's pretty silly. Here you have a judge whose family was murdered, I think by a car bomb. He realizes that the system is skewed to protect the bad guys so he decides that he'll even the score by becoming a vigilante. He puts together a team of cons whom he sentenced who all have special skills to help him. So far, so good. That's not at all a bad plot, somewhat like the Peter Hyams film Star Chamber.
Then they show the courtroom proceedings which are so ridiculous that you don't have to be a lawyer to know that it's all unrealistic. Then the judge puts his long hair down (apparently he must wear lots of bobby pins during court) and gets on his motorcycle to do justice at night. And much like Superman without the Clark Kent glasses, no one recognizes him. If you take it like a mindless comic book, it's an entertaining show, with a fantastic tag line that the judge uses when he has to let a criminal walk: "Justice is blind, but she can see in the dark." If you turn on your brain... LOL Anyway, it's also notable for an early role for Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss, later extraordinarily recognizable as Trinity in The Matrix series, who plays the judge's clerk.
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posted
I'll say it again, and agree with you, J2ME: If you haven't seen Midnight Caller, track it down on Daily Motion or wherever on line. It is great. I can't recall any bad episodes over three seasons, and the show, mostly filmed at night, looked spectacular--moody and noir-ish. Gary Cole, one of our great underrated actors, has done some wonderful stuff in his career like American Gothic, The Brady Bunch movies, A Simple Plan, Office Space, The Gift, Harvey Birdman, and Veep. But I think that Midnight Caller is some of his finest work in TV or film. While his character of Jack Killian is a troubled and flawed hero beset by lots of demons, you just always root for him and want him to succeed. It's a haunting performance in a haunting show, one of the best overlooked shows from the era.
[ 11. December 2016, 22:08: Message edited by: Crash ]
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posted
Recently finished watching S01, E01 of "Midnight Caller" - wow! This was an excellent episode! Very sultry & dark; really digging the setting & storyline.
The jazzy score was great, and the Gary Cole character also played the Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" at one point while on the air. Though I haven't seen the rest of the episodes yet, this makes me wonder if the unavailability of this series on DVD/Blu-ray is at least partially due to music/copyright issues?!
I was not expecting the Gary Cole character to have been a detective when the show started, who later got pulled into hosting the talk show by the owner of the radio station. Very interesting premise.
This is definitely a show that is best watched/appreciated very late at night
Thanks again to everyone who recommended this!
The picture quality in the stream I saw was poor; however, it was also nostalgic in a way - it was an obvious VHS rip of someone who taped the show off TV - probably when it originally aired. I remember those days Posts: 400 | Registered: Sep 2016 | Site Updates: 0
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Due to other issues taking up my time, it's taken me a while to watch more episodes of "Midnight Caller". So, I just finished seeing Episode 2 - and found it amazing! I'm surprised I'm this enthusiastic about an almost 30-year old series, but I never saw it when it originally aired - so I'm discovering this for the first time.
Episode 2 focused on a guy who had a fixation on a physical therapist/nurse, and was stalking her - he was calling Killian on the radio show as a cry for help. The stalker was played by Ed O'Neill (who is obviously best known for his role on the late '80's/early '90's comedy "Married with Children"). It's too bad O'Neill never played more dramatic roles, since he was very convincing in this episode.
As a teen in the late '80's, I worked at a restaurant @ night. The show somewhat reminds me of when the workers at the restaurant listened to the radio late while closing down - primarily because of the rock music. I always thought it would be cool to have a late-night D.J.-ing job, which would let you be awake & interacting with others (who were also awake) - while almost everyone else was asleep.
It also somewhat reminds me of staying up late at night as a kid & flicking the channels on my old Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TV set, looking for something to watch...
quote:Originally posted by Pittsburghgirl: Yes! Definitely would like to see Midnight Caller!
quote:Originally posted by Crash: Come on Warner Archive! Give us Midnight Caller!
I agree that MC would be amazing on DVD/Blu-ray. The VHS rips that are available via streaming are, obviously, not that great re: the Picture Quality, etc. - though it's better than not being able to see the show at all.
However, I feel that the possibility of seeing this series on modern home video is not that likely, given the extreme obscurity of the show...also the inevitable musical copyright issues that would result if a company wanted to look into releasing the series with all of the original music intact.
Conversely (and relating to another thread), the '87-'89 series Hooperman was obscure, but at the same time did star a well-known actor (John Ritter) and, as such, is probably more marketable re: a modern home video release....even though I thought the possibility of that series coming out on DVD/Blu was unlikely as well.
That being said, based on what I've seen so far Midnight Caller is far superior to Hooperman - and I liked Hooperman!
[ 16. February 2017, 14:55: Message edited by: Nostalgic for the '80's ]
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Nft80s, as I have trumpeted for years in these threads, Midnight Caller is a small masterpiece. What makes it so different than the typical detective/cop show is the human element--a decent, but flawed, hero struggling to help those in need. It's not about car chases or shootouts. I'm so glad that even after 30 years you are discovering it and really enjoying it. I've seen those Vimeo streaming rips that don't come close to doing the show justice on its visual sheen and color palette. It would look great on DVD/Bluray. I also totally agree that it's all about the music rights. The Warner Archive will not pay to license the music to a show that won't sell more than 10,000 box sets and has to be manufactured on demand.
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quote:Originally posted by Crash: Nft80s, as I have trumpeted for years in these threads, Midnight Caller is a small masterpiece. What makes it so different than the typical detective/cop show is the human element--a decent, but flawed, hero struggling to help those in need. It's not about car chases or shootouts. I'm so glad that even after 30 years you are discovering it and really enjoying it. I've seen those Vimeo streaming rips that don't come close to doing the show justice on its visual sheen and color palette. It would look great on DVD/Bluray. I also totally agree that it's all about the music rights. The Warner Archive will not pay to license the music to a show that won't sell more than 10,000 box sets and has to be manufactured on demand.
Agree with all of the above. MC is definitely a "lost classic". Again, if you weren't watching a lot of TV back in the late '80's/early '90's (like me) and/or you didn't have access the the channel the series was featured on, you probably weren't even aware of it's existence. I never had cable in those days, so only got a handful of channels that I was even able to see without snow.
Now with DVD's/Blu-ray's, streaming, HD cable stations with a hundred channels, etc. things are a lot different. However, back in the day it was easy for a show like this to unfortunately go unnoticed.
I'm just glad the rips of this series are available at all, so that people who are interested in the series can see the show. If it weren't for streaming, I still wouldn't be able to watch this. The streams appear to be VHS rips, and I thank whoever transferred them online - this is obviously much appreciated. It's somewhat nostalgic, seeing the series this way - because it reminds of the days when I used to sometimes tape shows on VHS. And, back when the show was broadcast on TV I doubt it looked that much better than these rips....
Yes, in a perfect world it would be great if this series were made available on DVD/Blu, but it's unlikely. I know that in some cases, TV series with a rock/pop soundtrack have the music changed/modified to get around the music rights issues. For example, I know the great Vietnam War Drama "Tour of Duty" (1987-1991) released on DVD back in the 200X's had the music unfortunately changed in many cases...notably the opening theme song, the Rolling Stones' iconic classic "Paint it Black" - which to me ruined the whole experience.
So, unless a company that's looking to make the show available on home video can get the music copyright issues straightened out & keep all of the original music intact, I don't want to see this on DVD/Blu. I'll stick with the streaming rips.
[ 17. February 2017, 04:48: Message edited by: Nostalgic for the '80's ]
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