Night Heat is a Canadian police crime drama series that aired on both CTV in Canada and CBS in the United States. Original episodes were broadcast from 1985 to 1989. Night Heat was the first Canadian original drama series that was simultaneously aired on an American television network during its original broadcast. It was also the first original, first-run drama series to be aired during a late night time slot on a television network in the United States.

During its original run it was the highest-rated Canadian-produced original series in Canada. The show won the Gemini Award for Best Drama Series in both 1986 and 1987.

The show stars Scott Hylands and Jeff Wincott as police detectives Kevin O'Brien and Frank Giambone who work the graveyard shift in an unnamed northeastern North American metropolis. The series follows their nightly police beat as it is chronicled by journalist Tom Kirkwood (Allan Royal) in his newspaper column titled "Night Heat".

Synopsis

Allan Royal plays Tom Kirkwood, a journalist who writes a newspaper column titled "Night Heat" where he chronicles the nightly police beat of detectives Kevin O'Brien, played by Scott Hylands, and Frank Giambone, played by Jeff Wincott. Kirkwood also serves as the show's narrator; his voice-over commentary starts and ends each episode, recapping the lessons learned and acting as a sort of Greek chorus.

The name of the city in which the show takes place is never mentioned. Grosso served was the show's executive producer along with his partner, Larry Jacobson. He and his former NYPD partner, Eddie Egan, were the detectives responsible for bringing an end to the infamous drug smuggling ring known as the French Connection. Grosso served as technical adviser on the film based on the investigation.

Grosso and Jacobson were originally approached by CBS to produce a docudrama series following actual police officers, but they considered the potential risk in filming people who had not yet been convicted of a crime and decided against it. Grosso came up with the idea of creating a police series that would feature a realistic look at police work in a documentary style, similar to the 1950s/1960s police drama Naked City. He wanted to depict the life of the everyday police officer, in contrast to the slicker, high-action, high-drama, yuppie-oriented police series of the time such as Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues. The pilot episode was written by Don Flynn, a crime reporter with the New York Daily News.

Filming

left|thumb|The cast of Night Heat. From left to right, Stephen Mendel, [[Sean McCann (actor)|Sean McCann, Eugene A. Clark, Louise Vallance, Scott Hylands, Jeff Wincott, and Allan Royal.|220px]]

Grosso and Jacobson decided to produce their show in Toronto, Canada, otherwise the production costs would have been too expensive for CBS's late-night budget. The lower budget also meant that the show did not contain high speed car chases or shootouts with heavy calibre weapons. Much of the show was shot at the site of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, which served as the series' police station;

Filming a police drama aimed at both Canadian and American audiences in an unidentified city presented a unique set of challenges: The crew had to avoid capturing shots of landmarks and other objects that would give away that it was not an American city, such as Toronto Police cars, Esso stations and the CN Tower.

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (1985–86)

Season 2 (1986–87)

Season 3 (1987–88)

Season 4 (1988–89)

Broadcast

CBS aired Night Heat as part of CBS Late Night, a late-night block of drama programming.

In late 1988, CBS announced it had officially canceled Night Heat. In spite of the show's popularity, CBS decided that it could get even better ratings in the late-night timeslot with The Pat Sajak Show, a talk show fronted by Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak.

After the series was canceled, reruns continued to air on CBS for another two years, and on Canadian television well into the early 2000s.

Reception

Ratings

Night Heat received good ratings for CBS; the show drew an average of 20% of TV viewers in its timeslot

In Canada Night Heat attracted a million viewers a week. Critics such as Rick Salutin of The Globe and Mail expressed disappointment that the show hid or downplayed the fact that it was Canadian in order to appeal to US audiences: "they never say it's Toronto. It's just the city."

Accolades

Night Heat won the award for Best Drama Series at the 1986 Gemini Awards. At the 1987 Gemini Awards the series again won the award for Best Drama Series, actor Eugene Clark won the award for Best Performance by a Supporting Actor and writer Bob Carney won the award for Best Writing in a Dramatic Series for the episode titled "The Hit". Night Heat also won the 1987 Gemini award in the category of TV Guide's Most Popular Program, an award based on ballots submitted by the magazine's readers in Canada. In 1989 the series writer Chris Haddock won the Gemini Award for Best Writing in a Dramatic Series for the episode titled "False Witness".

References

  • https://web.archive.org/web/20210917225124/http://www.rickstv.com/midsouth/nightheat2.html