Shannon's Deal

Shannon's Deal was one of the best TV shows ever. Writing by John Sayles, soundtrack by Wynton Marsalis, great acting. It was also interesting in that the endings were not the pat predictable type.

I think part of what damaged the show was its bad luck in timing. The pilot episode aired on the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre--not the sort of event to put one in the mood for light comedy. The next fall, the show was entirely overshadowed by another new show--Twin Peaks. The subtlety of Sayles's writing was lost under the weight of Twin Peaks's bizarreness. It got some favorable press later in the season, but I guess it never built the audience it needed.

I tried to catch the show, but the network kept changing when it was on. The last episode I saw, at the end of a season, was a cliffhanger: Shannon was about to sue his old law firm for mishandling his father's union's pension fund. I don't know if they ever made the episode that was supposed to start the next season.