In the Heat of the Night (TV series)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| In the Heat of the Night | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Format | Crime / Drama |
| Created by | James Lee Barrett |
| Starring | Carroll O'Connor Howard E. Rollins Jr. Alan Autry David Hart Hugh O'Connor |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of seasons | 8 |
| No. of episodes | 150 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes per episode |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC / CBS |
| Original run | 1988-03-06 – 1995-05-16 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
In the Heat of the Night was a television series based on the motion picture, In the Heat of the Night, that ran from 1988 to 1995. It starred Carroll O'Connor as William Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Virgil Tibbs. Tibbs had traveled to the Sparta area for his mother's funeral. He was persuaded to remain by the city government, who had felt the need to make the city's police department more diverse.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The Executive Producers for the series were Fred Silverman, Juanita Bartlett, and Carroll O'Connor.
The series originally ran on NBC for five seasons, premiering in March 1988 and running there until it was dropped from the NBC lineup in the spring of 1992. CBS then picked it up for three more seasons, with the series coming to an end in May 1995.
William "Bill" Champlin of the band Chicago sings the opening theme song.
[edit] Themes
The show dealt with a variety of issues. These included racism, drug abuse, rape, murder, incest, government corruption, and drunk driving, among others.
[edit] First season
The first season of the show was filmed in Hammond, Louisiana. There were many conflicts between the first executive producer, Juniata Bartlett, and series star Carroll O'Connor. A total of 8 episodes (the two hour pilot) and six regular episodes were filmed. O'Connor threatened to walk at the end of the season if she remained executive producer so she was released from her duties. The episodes in this season did not really have a "theme" and were mostly what O'Connor called recycled material from other crime shows. He was promised the role of story editor but the scripts would come back marked FINAL NO REWRITES. Episodes often focused on grisly murders or crimes and not the lives of people in the new south that viewers would later come to appreciate. Anne-Marie Johnson summed up what it was like to film the show in the little town of Hammond: She says "My high school was bigger than this town". What did they do for fun you ask? The cast resorted to trips to the local wash and dry, which they dubbed the Soap Opera Laundromat because at least it had TV. Other than that she caught up on sleep most of the time!
[edit] Second season
The show used creative measures to explain the absences of its key characters at times. Howard Rollins also had problems of his own with drugs. While Rollins was in rehab, Rollins absence was explained as Virgil being in New Orleans doing work with the FBI. When Carroll O'Connor had open heart surgery during the closing weeks of the second season, his absence was explained as Gillespie having traveled out of town to attend a police convention as well as being kidnapped by white supremacists. During this time Joe Don Baker was brought in to replace him as the acting chief.
The second season ended in a cliffhanger in which Gillespie had been kidnapped by white supremacists. The second part of the cliffhanger was delayed because Carroll O'Connor wanted first to have the episode shown in which Althea Tibbs was raped shown at the beginning of the third season. This second part of the cliff hanger - "Anniversary" - was shown several weeks later as a flash back in which Gillespie was discussing with a government official the aftermath of his kidnapping at the end of the second season.
[edit] Third season
The third season saw a number of changes to the show. Carroll O'Connor was finally in charge and got to do the show that he wanted to do. The character of Joann St. John was eliminated to make room for council women Harriet Delong. Althea Tibbs received a lot of character development this season beginning with her rape. Howard Rollins drug problems escalated forcing him to miss 6 episodes due to his stay in rehab. In "First Girl," Gillespie hires the Sparta PD's first black officer. Her life was tragically cut short and this made room for her replacement Luanne Corbin. Dee Shaw also joined the cast as officer Dee Sheppard. We learn that Parker was a Vietnam veteran and someone abandons a baby on Bubba's doorstep.In perhaps the most important story of the year Harriet Delong's sister is murdered. Gillespie knows who committed the crime but can he bring him to justice? This story line was very special for Denise Nicholas. When Carroll O'Connor approached Denise about the story line she had to send him a note explaining how real this was for her. Ten years prior her real life sister was murdered. She agreed to do the story to bring some closure for herself and her family.
[edit] Fourth season
[edit] Fifth season
[edit] Sixth season
As season six began In the Heat of the Night moved from NBC to CBS. Originally, CBS opted only to pick up the series for a set of six two hour movies. However, it was eventually picked up for a full 22 episode order. The first two episodes of the season saw the affair between Gillespie and Delong intensify only to be interrupted by a crack war waged on Sparta with Eugene being involved. Althea Tibbs’ saw new trauma this season as she witnessed the suicide of one of her students causing a near mental break down. Only with the help of a tough psychologist recommended by Dr. Day did Althea come out of her “funk” and once again be able to do what she loves: teaching at Sparta High School. We also saw the story arc involving Virgil and his Aunt Ruda Gibson come to a bitter-sweet end as she was diagnosed with cancer and he did all he could to help her. She apparently did recover because it is mentioned by Etta in season seven that after Virgil and Althea left Sparta that she came to visit and sometimes stayed the whole weekend.
Also of interest this season, Bill Gillespie’s daughter returns for a three episode stint to resolve the case started in A Women Much Admired. She is testifying against the New Orleans thugs that her mama was involved with before her death. The case finally comes to a conclusion as the mob lead by their main Sparta connection Lewis Alvin Epp orders Lana’s farm house burnt down after she refuses to be bought out giving them access to Sparta’s south side.
Other highlights this season included the return of Luanne’s brother, a faded country music singer who ends up committing murder, Bubba being stalked by an obsessed admirer, Sweet being falsely accused of accepting a bribe, and a two part episode involving the “white supremacy” that still exists in the new south.
The season comes to a close when Eugene works hard to get his father’s death sentence stayed by the state of Mississippi only to have his efforts stopped by a mad man who ran the prison pastor off the road. Harriet also makes a critical decision at this point: to not let Eugene influence her relationship with Bill anymore. He may disapprove but as she tells him “one of these days you are going to walk away from me and I am just going to tell you to keep on going”.
Of note, Howard Rollins and Anne-Marie Johnson left the series at this point. Rollins was dropped because of drug issues and Johnson took a starring role on Fox’s In Living Color. Geoffrey Thorne also left the series with no explanation and his character was never really written out of the show.
[edit] Seventh season
Season seven of In the Heat of the Night kicked off with a bang. Gillespie was out and Forbes was in. After nearly three decades on the Sparta police force the city council decided not to renew Bill's contract because of his open relationship with Harriet Delong. It seemed as if Holly Colmer finally got his way or did he?
Colmer’s celebration is short lived however, when Gillespie is soon appointed as the Sheriff of Newman County because Nathan McComb suffers a heart attack and is too ill to continue his duties.
Hampton Forbes meantime, is getting to know his new town and his new officers whom are not happy that Gillespie is gone. The last official thing that Gillespie does on his way out the door is to give each of his officers a promotion.
The character of Virgil Tibbs was written out of the show due to the fact that Howard Rollins had continuing drug problems and was dropped from the show. He is often talked about but only seen in three episodes the entire season credited as a special guest star. Lonnie Jamison takes over the role of Chief of Detectives in Virgil’s absence.
Notable episodes this season include the daughter of a friend of Bubba’s contracting AIDS form someone who knowingly gave it to her, the personal storylines involving Luann which include her singing nights in a sexy blues club and helping take care of an abandoned baby – whom she falls in love with. It is later revealed that she can’t have children of her own and she decides to sign up to be a full-time foster parent. Other episodes include Parker being accused of police brutality, a deeper look at Lonnie’s life off the police force which is controlled by his cantankerous Aunt Cora, and Harriet Delong taking a bigger part in the story lines. Series co-star Denise Nicholas wrote four episodes this season.
Perhaps the most amusing episode of the season involved the return of Maybelle Chesboro the ex-madam. She has returned to operate a legal phone sex business. All is going well until one of her employees tries to blackmail one of Holly Colmer’s friends and ends up getting shot. Maybelle decides to hang it up for good but not before visiting bill and attempting to get romantic one last time.
While some wished the series were renewed for another full season it was beginning to wind down and with it came what has been a long time coming – the marriage of Bill Gillespie and Harriet Delong. However, some in Sparta were not happy about the event and death almost does the couple part when a sniper mistakes Gillespie for Sheriff McComb.
The wedding goes off without a hitch and in the final two-part episode of the season Bill and Harriet prepare to celebrate their honeymoon only to be interrupted when a cult invades Sparta with deadly results.
The series wraps up during the 8th season with four two hour made for television movies.
[edit] Eighth Season
The show aired four made-for-television movies during the 1994-1995 season. This is considered to be the eighth season of the show. Each movie was two hours in length, which would be the equivalent of eight regular episodes. The movies were:
- A Matter of Justice
- Who was Geli Bendl?
- By Duty Bound
- Grow Old Along with Me (Series Finale)
[edit] The cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Carroll O'Connor | Played the lead role of William O. "Bill" Gillespie. Gillespie was a crusty but honorable small town police chief. At first resentful of Virgil Tibbs, he would later become very close to Virgil and the rest of the Tibbs family. For the first six seasons he was the chief of the Sparta Police Department until he was fired at the beginning of the 7th season. He would then become interim Sheriff after the previous Sheriff became too ill to continue his duties. Gillespie was married at one time to Anna, who became pregnant - both she and their son would die in childbirth. He also had an older daughter, Lana, by Georgia Farren. Gillespie eventually fell in love with Harriett DeLong. |
| Howard Rollins | Starred in the lead role of Virgil Tibbs. An African-American, he had grown up in Sparta but later moved north and became a police detective. He would later return to Sparta after being offered a job as chief of detectives with the city police department. At first Tibbs and Gillespie butted heads, but would soon become close friends - Gillespie even became a godfather to Virgil and Althea's twins. Even though some city council members wanted to make him chief, Tibbs firmly rebuffed their offers, preferring to work with Gillespie. After continued legal problems, Rollins was dropped from the series in 1993, and Tibbs was written out of the series as having left the community following his graduation from law school. Tibbs would return as a guest star several times during the 7th season in his new role as an attorney before Rollins was permanently barred from the county where the series was filmed after another arrest. |
| Anne-Marie Johnson | Starred as Virgil's wife Althea Tibbs. She starred in that role for six seasons. Althea's life in Sparta was very rough, having been raped at the beginning of the third season, and suffering a mental breakdown later after witnessing the suicide of one of her students. Althea did not reappear for the seventh season, and her character was written out as Althea had divorced Virgil and moved back to Pennsylvania. In reality, Johnson left the show for a role on the Fox Television sketch comedy show In Living Color. |
| Alan Autry | Played "Bubba" Skinner. Skinner was something of a redneck. He was also a sort of ladies man around town. He eventually became close friends with the Tibbs family. Skinner was from a large family. Eventually he rose to the rank of Captain. |
| David Hart | Played Parker Williams. Parker generally sat behind the dispatcher's desk, although he would also be assigned to patrol duty. Parker was a Vietnam veteran. |
| Lois Nettleton | Played Joanne St. John from 1988 to 1989. She was the owner of the Magnolia Cafe, a popular eatery in Sparta (as seen in the show's opening). After it was revealed that Joanne was once a prostitute, she eventually left Sparta. |
| Hugh O'Connor | Played the role of Lonnie Jamison, an officer on the Sparta police force. O'Connor was the adopted son of Carroll O'Connor. O'Connor had gotten his son this role as a way of keeping Hugh close to him, and in the hopes of keeping him away from drugs. |
| Geoffrey A. Thorne | Joined the cast as Wilson Sweet in 1988. Aside from Tibbs, Sweet was one of the first African Americans to join the force. |
| Crystal R. Fox | Played Luanne Corbin. After the first African American woman to join the force died in the line of duty on her first day on the job, Corbin was recruited to take her place. |
| Carl Weathers | Joined the cast in the final season as Hampton Forbes. He was picked to lead the department after the firing of Bill Gillespie. Forbes was the first African-American chief of the department. Forbes became friends with Gillespie, and would often work closely with him when Gillespie became sheriff. Weathers was a replacement for Howard Rollins, who had been dropped from the series after continued legal problems. |
| Denise Nicholas | Played Sparta Counselwoman Harriet DeLong. Harriet's relationship with Chief Gillespie was deeply adversarial in the beginning, due to his somewhat racist personality and the two clashed often when she first appeared on the show. But over the course of the series, Harriet saw Gillespie's softer, more caring side and began to think more fondly of him. By the time Denise Nicholas became a series regular, Harriet and Gillespie were becoming a couple, much to the disapproval of her son, Eugene. Harriet's sister was the mistress of conniving businessman, V.J. Trundle, who later murdered her. They had a son named Eric from their illicit affair and Harriet eventually gained custody of him after Trundle committed suicide by deliberately crashing his private airplane after a confrontation about the murder with Gillespie. |
[edit] Recurring cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Jen Harper | Dr. Day |
| Thom Gossom Jr. | Ted Marcus |
| Fran Bennett | Ruda Gibson |
| Karen Carlson | Sarah Hallisey |
| Rugg Williams | Eugene Glendon |
| Wallace Merck | Colmer |
| Christine Elise | Lana Gillespie - Gillespie's daughter. |
| Bob Penny | Alvin Epp |
| Scott Brian Higgs | Randy Calhoun |
| Afemo Omilami | Jimmy Dawes |
| Burgess Meredeth | Judge |
| Stuart Culpepper | Judge |
| Joe Don Baker | Captain Tom Dugan - A retired police captain, Dugan appeared on the last four episodes of the second season. Baker was brought in as a stand-in for Carroll O'Connor while O'Connor was recovering from open heart surgery. Dugan was placed in the department by the FBI to uncover a plot by white supremacists to assassinate a civil rights leader. Dugan was murdered by these same white supremacists at the end of the second season. His nephew, who had become involved with these people, later agreed to help the police. |
| Ron Culbreth | Sheriff Nathan McComb - the former county sheriff. Culbreth appeared on nine episodes as Sheriff McComb. In the 7th season, McComb became too ill to continue his duties, and Gillespie was appointed as acting sheriff in his place. Prior to his appearances as McComb, Culbreth also appeared on the episode Missing in another guest role. |
| Maureen Dowdell | Tracy Boggs |
| Pat Hingle | Roy Eversole - Parker Williams' father. Hot tempered, Eversole had a great deal of difficulty maintaining steady employment. Eversole was once a murder suspect after getting into a heated argument with a former employer, who was subsequently found dead a short time later. |
Three of the actors who played main characters in the series have since died. Hugh O'Connor, who had played Jamison, committed suicide on March 28, 1995, after having had problems with drugs for many years. He was then followed by Howard Rollins on December 8, 1996, who had died of complications from lymphoma. Finally, on June 21, 2001, Carroll O'Connor, who had been suffering from diabetes, died after having had a heart attack.
[edit] Episodes
- Main article: In the Heat of the Night episodes
[edit] Locations
The television series also took place in a fictionalized version of Sparta, Mississippi. While there is a real Sparta, the version of Sparta shown on television is very different from the real town. For example, the TV Sparta is situated along Interstate 20, while the real town is nowhere near any interstate. During the first season, Hammond, Louisiana was the site of the show's production. In the second season, the show was moved to Georgia, and it remained there for the rest of its run. The principal area of Sparta was in fact downtown Covington, Georgia. Rural scenes were filmed in a wide surrounding area, in the Georgia counties of Newton (where Covington is located), Rockdale, Walton, and Morgan. In fact, during the series run, many of the cast members had homes in the area and were often spotted in local restaurants and retail stores. The cast members would also go around to local schools to speak to students.
