Once a Thief (TV series)

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Once a Thief (also billed as John Woo's Once a Thief) was a 1997 television show inspired by the 1996 film of the same name.

Contents

[edit] Premise

Li Ann Tsei, an orphan who grew up amongst the Chinese Tang family - a ruthless criminal operation - falls in love with Mac Ramsey, a thief who works for the family. However, when she is betrothed to Tang heir Michael, the two fake their deaths in an attempt to flee the country. Li Ann escapes, but Mac is arrested and left to rot in a Chinese prison.

Two years later, he is released and taken to Canada where a mysterious woman known as the Director employs him to work for her crime-fighting institution. He soon learns, however, that he will be working as part of a team with Li Ann, and the man she was engaged to, former police officer Victor Mansfield.

The trio soon are forced to work together under the manipulative Director.

After the success of the 1996 film, which was used as a pilot for the series, Glenn Davis and William Laurin created the series, which premiered in September 1997, with John Woo as executive producer. The show started out with strong ratings, which quickly fell, and the show was put on hiatus in November after 9 episodes. When it returned, in January 1998, ratings had significantly decreased. All 22 episodes of the show aired during the season, but it was not renewed, a fact which the producers were informed of before filming the last episodes of the series.

[edit] Main cast

[edit] Recurring Cast

  • Robert Ito as the Tang Godfather
  • Michael Wong as Michael Tang, his son, originally betrothed to Li Ann
  • Howard Dell as Agent Dobrinsky, the Director's hard-nosed lapdog.
  • James Allodi as Nathan Muckle, the paranoid librarian at the agency who believes everyone but Vic to be aliens.
  • Greg Kramer as Mr. Murphy, one of the "cleaners", assassins who makes problems go away.
  • Julian Richings as Mr. Camier, Murphy's partner.
  • Victoria Pratt as Jackie Janczyk, the daughter of a mob boss, who comes to work for the Agency.

[edit] Trivia

  • Nathaniel Deveaux played Dobrinsky in the movie, but was replaced by Howard Dell for the series.
  • Episode 1 The Big Bang Theory was number 7 in the Canadian Neilsen ratings, and episode 2 Rave On was number 14. By the end of its run, the show was at the bottom of the list.
  • James Allodi was initially cast as a guest star for episode 2 but the producers liked the idea of his paranoia so much they brought him back for several episodes in the second half of the season.
  • Episode 9, Jaded Love, spoofed black and white mystery movies of the '40s and '50s.
  • Episode 11, That Old Gang of Mine, and episode 12 Last Temptation of Vic were released together as a video movie - Once a Thief: Family Business.
  • Victoria Pratt joined the recurring cast in episode 11, with the idea of bringing her on full time to the show.
  • In episode 11, we see another group - similar to Vic, Li Ann and Mac - indicating that there are more groups working there, despite the Director's denials of this.
  • Episode 14, Li Ann's Choice, uses pop-up windows at times to convey information to the viewers.
  • Episode 18 is the only episode where the Director is a)the focus of the story, and b)humbled.
  • Episode 18 also features several scenes which are parodies of The X-Files, the show on which Nicholas Lea played Alex Krycek:
    • The characters of Agent Clancy (Alexa Gilmour) and Agent Diller (Graham Abbey) are spoofs of Agents Agent Mulder and Scully
    • The investigation is often done by torchlight, and timestamps appear at the bottom of the screen.
    • The Mulder lookalike has a scene in which he calls Vic "Ratboy" (the nickname of Krycek) and Vic calls him "Spooky" (the nickname of Mulder)
    • Nathan serves as a kind of The Lone Gunmen-esque figure.
    • Agent Clancy and Agent Diller have a cell phone conversation like Scully and Mulder often do. However, they are within a few feet of each other and in plain view at the time.
  • Episode 19, Shaken Not Stirred, spoofs James Bond-esque spy dramas.
  • Episode 19's subplot, featuring the organisation's assassins Camier and Murphy, is a parody of the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot.
  • Episode 20, Politics of Love, expanded on a new element of the show's mythology, the Government Advisory Council, introduced in The Director Files. Politics of Love explored fact that the Director is a part of it. This element would have been explored further in the show's second season.
  • In episode 20, there is a reference to the audience's unfavorable reaction to the show: when the Director is told that the trio is coming along well, she replies "that depends on who you talk to."
  • The final episodes - Episode 21 Family Reunion, and episode 22 Endgame - were released on video as Once a Thief: Brother Against Brother.
  • The character of Michael Tang, presumed dead after the pilot, was resurrected for the series finale when the producers learnt that the show would be cancelled.
  • The final episode ended with Vic, Li Ann and Mac dying in an explosion, and the Director walking away from the crime scene as music played over a montage of clips from the series' run. When the series was finally aired in the United States, a few years after it originally aired in Canada, the ending was changed to show the trio walking out of the building, still alive.
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