The Commish

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The Commish
The Commish 2nd Season DVD Cover
Genre	Comedy / Drama
Creator(s)	Stephen J. Cannell Stephen Kronish
Starring	Michael Chiklis Theresa Saldana Kaj-Erik Eriksen
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	94
Production
Running time	60 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	September 28, 1991 – January 11, 1996
Links

The Commish was a television series that aired on ABC in the United States from 1991 to 1995. It also screened on the Nine Network in Australia.

The series starred Michael Chiklis as Tony Scali, a police commissioner in a small Upstate New York town who worked through problems with humor and creativity more often than with violence or force. Theresa Saldana played Rachel Scali, Tony's wife, and Kaj-Erik Eriksen played his teen-aged son David. The show focused as much on family situations as on police drama. Each episode ran at 60 minutes on air, and the show lasted four years. Michael Chiklis was so effective at portraying a good natured, kind-hearted family man that his later starring role on The Shield was perceived by viewers as strongly against type.

Interestingly, Chiklis' character Tony Scali was at least ten years older than Chiklis' actual age at the time. At one point, the network worried that Chiklis' weight loss would have an effect on the ratings and reportedly asked him to stuff his clothing.^{[citation needed]}

Although set in Upstate New York town in the fictional town of Eastbridge, the show was filmed in and around Vancouver, British Columbia.

The character for Tony Scali was based on the real-life 30th Commissioner of New York City's Department of Correction, Anthony Schembri; Schembri also served as the Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice under Governor Jeb Bush. Schembri was "discovered" after being a technical consultant for the TV series. Schembri was serving as the Police Commissioner of Rye, New York during that time.

Although this series aired on ABC, it was originally slated to be on CBS, but unresolved casting differences with CBS led Stephen Cannell to cease pre-production with that network. Eventually, Cannell took the series to ABC and it won the ratings war with CBS for that time slot (Saturday nights at 10pm).

[edit] DVD Releases

Anchor Bay Entertainment has released the first 2 seasons of The Commish on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. It is unknown if the remaining 3 seasons will be released at some point.