Unsub

Talk about a show YEARS ahead of it's time...I caught this show one night when I was a freshman in high school and fell in love with it! It was so original and mysterious. Unfortunately, it was the only episode I ever got to see. It was sadly cancelled.

I remember watching all 8 episodes of this brilliant show. David Soul did a stellar job not only heading up the cast, but his portrayal of John Grayson was a terrific follow up to Starsky and Hutch. As the other reviewers have noted, this show predates all the great crime TV shows: CSI, Criminal Minds, L&O, etc., and that was also the reason for its downfall.

During the Reagan-Bush era, the late 1980s when the show was on, Bible- thumping groups of Americans felt it was their God given right to ruin the fun for everyone else. They launched a campaign against Unsub and subsequently the sponsors pulled out. Thank Dog they didn't succeed with their narrow-minded attempt to also remove the Simpsons, unfortunately, Unsub could not sustain their wrath. My hope is that the shows are re-released on DVD.

This was one of my favorite TV series of the past 20 years. It was, perhaps unfortunately, too dark and too realistic for its time and did not run sufficiently long to gain a dedicated following. Some of the scenes showing crime victims were disturbing for that day, although they pale in comparison to what is shown on current crime dramas. The cast was great, Walsh and Soul were perfectly cast for their parts. Kent McKord and Richard Kind were also in the cast. Great music by Mike Post and definite Stephen Cannell-style directing touches. Excellent subplots and good character development. As I recall, most of the episodes dealt with serial killers and one of the best was a 2-part episode involving a clergyman. UNSUB certainly prepared the way for series such as CSI and Criminal Minds. There was nothing like it until CSI came out in its first incarnation (Las Vegas) in 2000.

This television series of eight episodes was so far ahead of its time I am not surprised that it did not last more than a few episodes. I do not feel that it was the inspiration for the Crime Scene Investigation shows. I feel that the new series Criminal Minds might have been a clone - right down to the team plane. The one similarity to Crime Scene Investigation is the lab connection. Criminal Minds doesn't appear to show a lot of lab time. Unsub was a very dark show but excellent television. I got to watch old old taped copies and wish the series would come out on disk. David Soul had visibly matured from his Starsky & Hutch persona and was very believable as head of a country wide forensic team. Many parts of the show were much more realistic than Crime Scene Investigation (no blonde women with flowing locks gathering evidence at the scene of a crime) these people went in with booties and head coverings. Their cases were also much more grisly than the Crime Scene Investigation shows...comparable with Criminal Minds...not quite up to Bones. It was also made at a time when most television shows were still more eye candy than realism. David Soul showed his chops as an actor in this series.

It's the Behavioral Analysis Unit in the FBI led by John Westley "Westy" Grayson (David Soul). M. Emmet Walsh, Jennifer Hetrick, and Richard Kind play three of his subordinates.

I love the forensics coveralls when they go into a crime scene. They even put on booties over their shoes. This is a 1989 TV show from 80's TV impresario Stephen J. Cannell. The forensics work is much more realistic than the flashier modern shows like CSI which would come a decade later. Quite frankly, this is much closer to Criminal Minds including the private plane flying the group to their investigations. I would look to do less with empathic profiling. It comes off as hokey on screen. The pilot is a bit of a mess but that does happen sometimes. It's filmed in Vancouver when those productions are still a step behind Hollywood. Overall, this show is well ahead of its time. David Soul is great but the star of this show has to be M. Emmet Walsh.