Reviews

Caution: some spoilers, of necessity.... I cannot praise the "Stingray" pilot (1985, NBC) highly enough. Ditto the first season of this show (which was canceled, then brought back, albeit with episodes that I don't feel lived up to the surprisingly cool writing of the pilot or the first season episodes). My recommendation: see it however you can. I, myself--for my own use/collection--would love to obtain an UNCUT pilot of this pilot in pristine condition. Regrettably, the pilot--when shown in two parts during season one--cut a couple of minutes from the TV movie. When we first see Mancuso's character, he's talking to a waitress about her missing daughter when the D.A. Investigator approaches the table. The waitress passes "Stingray" a photo of both the missing girl and her dog, giving a response of "She's one heck of a cute kid", and promises to help. Later in the pilot, he does. Let's understate it: "Stingray" was way to good for television, and should have been a movie series. Even CineFantastique magazine gave rave reviews to the show, and they normally restricted themselves to fantasy and SF shows... There must be SOMEONE out there with a pristine, uncut copy of the pilot as origionally aired on NBC, July 14, 1985...If so, please contact FSJ@USA.COM.

If you are half the fanatic about Nick Mancuso in "Stingray" that I am , you'll enjoy this earlier outing, if only to watch Mancuso's moves in the spy realm. The scenes on board the plane pitting him against an adversary alone are well worth making the effort to locate and watch this film, and displays a sense of style VERY much in keeping with the later "Stingray" character.... Why Cannel productions doesn't offer this--and even more so, Stingray--on DVD, I cannot imagine. Cannel and Mancuso were a great match; I only regret that more people haven't had the pleasure of seeing their efforts together... If anyone knows of a source of uncut versions of this movie or the Stingray pilot, I'd love to correspond..