New York Undercover
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| New York Undercover | |
|---|---|
 The cast of New York Undercover, Season 2 |
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| Genre | Crime drama |
| Creator(s) | Dick Wolf |
| Starring | Malik Yoba Michael DeLorenzo Lauren Velez George O. Gore II Jonathan LaPaglia Josh Hopkins Marisa Ryan Thomas Mikal Ford Patti D'Arbanville-Quinn |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 89 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 45 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Fox Broadcasting Company |
| Original run | September 8, 1994 – June 25, 1998 |
| Links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
New York Undercover was a one-hour urban police drama, which ran on the Fox Broadcasting Company network from 1994 to 1998. The program, popular among its hip-hop target audience, starred Malik Yoba as Detective J.C. Williams and Michael DeLorenzo as Detective Eddie Torres, two undercover detectives for New York City's 4th Precinct, assigned to investigate various criminal and gang-related cases. The cast also included Patti D'Arbanville-Quinn as their boss, Lieutenant Virginia Cooper, and Lauren Vélez, who joined the cast in the second season as fellow detective Nina Moreno.
Contents |
[edit] About the show
Besides solving each week's case, the show, produced by Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, also explored the private lives of its characters. For example, Detective Williams struggled to raise his young son, G (George O. Gore II), while Torres was shown to be fighting family and other related dramas.
At the beginning of the third season, a new detective, Tommy McNamara (Jonathan LaPaglia), was introduced as a principal character. In the third-season finale in May 1997, Torres and Moreno were married. However, in that same episode, Torres and McNamara were both killed by a gang of bank robbers. Many viewers believe that these events -- particularly the death of Torres and the departure of Michael DeLorenzo -- caused New York Undercover to "jump the shark", since the friendship of Williams and Torres was a major dynamic of the series.
New York Undercover returned with a new cast for its fourth and final season in January 1998. Williams and Moreno were assigned to a new unit, resulting in D'Arbanville-Quinn being dropped from the cast. Joining them were Thomas Mikal Ford as Lieutenant Malcolm Barker, Marisa Ryan as Detective Nell Delaney, and Josh Hopkins as Detective Alec Stone.
Each episode of the first three seasons of New York Undercover featured several hip hop and R&B songs for its soundtrack. At some point during each episode, one or more of the principal characters would end up in Natalie's, a fictitious New York R&B cafe owned by Gladys Knight's character Natalie (and later by Torres' father), where a popular live performer would do a set. Among the performers featured on the show were Erykah Badu, the Temptations, Gladys Knight, the O'Jays, Boyz II Men, Mary J. Blige, Xscape, 112, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz and more.
New York Undercover won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Drama Series in both 1996 and 1997. Malik Yoba won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for starring in this series in 1996, 1997, and 1998. For their supporting roles as recurring characters on the show, Fatima Faloye and Ice-T were awarded the NAACP's awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, respectively, in 1996.
[edit] Cast
- Malik Yoba as Julius Clarence "J.C." Williams
- Michael DeLorenzo as Eduardo "Eddie" Torres (Seasons 1-3)
- Patti D'Arbanville-Quinn as Virginia Cooper (Seasons 1-3)
- Lauren Vélez as Nina Moreno (Seasons 2-4)
- Jonathan LaPaglia as Tommy McNamara (Season 3)
- Josh Hopkins as Alec Stone (Season 4)
- Marisa Ryan as Nell Delaney (Season 4)
- Thomas Mikal Ford as Malcolm Barker (Season 4)
Recurring
- George O. Gore II as Gregory "G" Williams
- Michael Michele as Sandy Gill (Season 1)
- Fatima Faloye as Chantal Tierney (Seasons 1-3)
- Jose Perez as Mike Torres (Seasons 1-2)
- Lisa Vidal as Carmen Torres (Seasons 1-2)
- Jose Zuniga as Father Jimmy Torres (Seasons 1-2)
- Frank Pellegrino as Ricciarelli (Seasons 1-2)
- Lee Wong as Wong (Seasons 1-2)
- Ice T as Danny Cort (Seasons 1-2)
- John Costelloe as John Santucci (Seasons 1-3)
- Dana Eskelson as Nadine Jordan (Season 3-4)
[edit] Trivia
- New York Undercover is notable for being the first police drama on American television to feature two non-Caucasians in the starring roles.
- As the series was filmed years before September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center is seen prominently in both the opening credits and all 89 episodes.
- Malik Yoba is the only actor to appear in every episode.
- J.C. (Malik Yoba) and G (George O. Gore II) are the only characters depicted in all four seasons.
- Each episode during seasons one through three begins with a brief montage of scenes leading up to the main crime that will be investigated. These sequences are notable for the fact they have no dialogue or sound effects and are accompanied by music, usually hip-hop or R&B. This signature opening was dropped in the fourth season.
- This was Ice-T's first collaboration with Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, where he was cast as J.C.'s archenemy Danny Cort. Ice-T now appears on Wolf's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
- In one episode, Nina states that Eddie has a "dancer's body". Michael DeLorenzo is actually a talented dancer, and was in the cast of both the 1980 film Fame and the TV series of the same name. Additionally, in 1983 he was one of the dancers in Michael Jackson's Beat It, one of the most popular music videos of all time.
- The setting for almost all of the musical performances from the first three seasons was Natalie's. The two exceptions were a first-season episode where The Notorious B.I.G. performs at a rap concert, and the two-episode third-season premiere, where Kirk Franklin and the Family portray a church choir.
- In the first-season episode "The Eyewitness Blues", Salli Richardson portrays a popular singer in need of police protection from a professional killer. This is the only episode from the first three seasons without a musical performance by a recording artist. In "The Eyewitness Blues", Richardson does the singing herself.
- In the first-season episode "Mama Said Knock You Out", Torres goes undercover as an aspiring boxer. This foreshadows DeLorenzo's later role in the Showtime series Resurrection Blvd.
- In the fourth-season episode "Quid Pro Quo", Williams, undercover as a Jamaican business man, leaves a room after saying Cool Runnings, a nod to the 1993 comedy in which Yoba portrayed a member of the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team.
- Supermodels Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell both portrayed romantic interests for J.C. Additionally, in one of his first acting roles, male model Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje appeared in the first-season episode "Downtown Girl".
- Several actors made appearances in two or more episodes portraying different characters, including Jude Ciccolella, Kirk "Sticky Fingaz" Jones, Jesse L. Martin, and Mekhi Phifer. Lauren Velez appeared in the first-season episode "Olde Tyme Religion" as a believer in Santeria before joining the cast in Season 2 as Nina Moreno.
- Two of the Law & Order police psychiatrists -- Elizabeth Olivet (Carolyn McCormick) and Emil Skoda (J.K. Simmons) -- made crossover appearances on New York Undercover, placing the series firmly in the Law & Order universe.
- Before making his appearance as Law & Order psychiatrist Emil Skoda on New York Undercover, J.K. Simmons guest starred as Sergeant Treadway in the episode "Unis".
- In contrast to the popularity of NBC's "Must See TV" on Thursday nights in the 90s, many African-American viewers flocked to FOX's Thursday night line-up of Martin, Living Single, and New York Undercover.
- Reruns of the series currently air on TV One and Sí TV cable networks.
