Midnight Caller


Midnight Caller is an American drama television series created by Richard DiLello, which aired on NBC from October 25, 1988, to May 17, 1991. It was one of the first television series to address the dramatic possibilities of the then-growing phenomenon of talk radio.

Overview

Midnight Caller starred Gary Cole as Jack Killian, a former San Francisco police detective who had quit the force after he accidentally shot his partner to death in a confrontation with armed criminals. After lapsing into alcoholism, Killian receives an offer from Devon King, the beautiful and wealthy owner-operator of KJCM-FM, to become "The Nighthawk", host of an overnight talk show, taking calls from listeners and acting as a detective solving their problems during the day. Even though Killian snapped that he doesn't listen to FM radio, he accepted the offer.
Killian's adventures took him frequently back into the realm of police work, where several of his former colleagues were less than happy to see him again. He faced myriad problems, both personal and professional, and was at various points required to come to grips with the nature of his relationship with both his absentee father and his troubled siblings. What he never seemed to come to grips with, however, was his relationship, or lack of one, with Devon. Devon eventually became pregnant in a relationship with another man and sold the station. Despite hard-hitting topical episodes dealing with AIDS, capital punishment, and child abuse, among other topics, the show lost its audience when it was moved from its original time slot and was cancelled after three seasons.
Killian's radio show sign-off comment was « Good night, America, wherever you are ».
Midnight Caller's strength was in combination of well-created stories shaped by realistic and topical characters. The stories also rotated around the main cast, and its well-developed characters allowed the viewers to relate to them. The show's jazz music soundtrack also added to its popularity.
In October 1990, Wendy Kilbourne left the show for pregnancy reasons. Lisa Eilbacher became the new female lead role.

Episodes

Cast and characters

Title

Series creator Richard DiLello took the title of the series from a song written by Pete Ham for the band Badfinger. DiLello had previously authored The Longest Cocktail Party, a history of the rise and fall of The Beatles' corporation, Apple Corps, and their record label, Apple Records, where Badfinger had originally been signed. The song itself had no relation to the series' subject matter; it had been written by Ham in tribute to a friend of the band who had resorted to working as a high-priced prostitute to pay her bills.

"After It Happened" controversy

In the 1988 episode "After It Happened", a bisexual man is depicted as an AIDS carrier who deliberately infects heterosexual women. As originally conceived, the man is gunned down in a vigilante murder by one of the women that he infects, and a medical team in full Hazmat suits comes to take his body away as Jack Killian comforts the distraught shooter. In the broadcast version, the victim is stopped before she can kill the carrier. Coming in the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the US at a time when public understanding of the disease was quite low, the proposed episode was immediately criticized as sensationalistic, biphobic and scientifically inaccurate. Protests were launched by GLAAD, BiNet USA and BiPAC, among others. Additionally ACT UP pickets disrupted the show's filming. Then-NBC affiliate KRON-TV in San Francisco ran a disclaimer before the show with an AIDS hotline number and aired a half-hour live special, Midnight Caller: The Response during which activists and public health officials aired their grievances.

Awards and nominations

In 1989, Kay Lenz and Joe Spano won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, for their performances in the episodes "After It Happened" and "The Execution of John Saringo", respectively.
YearAwardCategoryNominated workResult
1989Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Guest Actor in a Drama SeriesPeter Boyle
1989Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Guest Actor in a Drama SeriesJoe Spano
1989Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Guest Actress in a Drama SeriesKay Lenz
1989Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Directing for a Drama SeriesThomas Carter, "Pilot"
1990Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Guest Actor in a Drama SeeriesBruce Weitz
1990Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Guest Actress in a Drama SeriesKay Lenz
1990Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Cinematography for a SeriesBradley B. Six
1990Primetime Emmy AwardsOutstanding Editing - Single CameraRoger Bondelli