Nick Slaughter
Created by Sam Egan

I can't beleive I used to watch this...

Originally broadcast as part of CBS's (pre-Letterman) Crime Time After Prime Time series back in the nineties, Sweating Bullets featured enough cleavage in its opening credits to (almost) pass itself off as an Aaron Spelling Production. But it didn't quite make it. That pretty much sets the tone for this teasy, cheesy late night series.

Hunky Rob Stewart hams it up as NICK SLAUGHTER (really!), a pony-tailed, open Hawaiian-shirted, ex-Mountie and ex-DEA agent (huh?) turned reluctant private eye in Key Mariah in, allegedly, the Florida Keys.

Thing is, Nick'd really rather do anything than work. Especially if it involved women. Only his long-suffering, common-sense secretary and office manager (and later, business partner) Sylvie Girard kept him from bankruptcy. Aiding and abetting Nick in his interuptions (ooops! investigations) was his bleached-blonde beach bimbo and former Aussie rock star Ian.

It certainly had an international flavor. Originally backed by Canadian and Mexican money, and filmed in Mexico, it became a Canadian/Israeli production in the second season, and was filmed in Eilat, Israel. Season three was at least partially shot in South Africa. Which might explain the mountains occasionally glimpsed in the background of what was supposedly still the Florida Keys.

A guilty pleasure? A relatively harmless piece of fluff, in the Hawaiian Eye vein? A cynical attempt to cash in on the then just recently cancelled Moonlighting? A tax write-off by a bunch of international money men hoping to cash in? Or was it, perhaps, the shape of things to come, a predecessor to shows like Baywatch, which in retrospect seem almost Shakespearean in comparison.

At the time, I thought I enjoyed it. But in recently re-viewing of a 1996 straight-to-disk movie, Crisscross, possibly cobbled together from a couple of the later episodes, I can't believe I ever did. I couldn't believe how lame it was; how awkward the writing, acting and directing was, or how utterly sexless the two leads were, possessing all the sizzle and chemistry of wet cardboard. The plot made little sense, motivatations came and went, the only consistency was a sort of ineptitude alternately horrifying and hilasrious to watch.

Was Crisscross a poor representation of a show I used to watch, or an accurate sample of how I used to waste my time. If the latter, then I have to ask myself:

What the hell was I thinking?

TELEVISION

............

• SWEATING BULLETS,. Buy the complete series on DVD
  (aka "Tropical Heat")
  (1991-93, Syndicated)
  66 60-minute episodes
  Created by Sam Egan
  Writers: Tim Burns, Scott Gemmil
  Directors: Timothy Bond, Mario Azzopardi
  Executive Producers: JAndras Hamorn and Susan Cavan
  Starring Rob Stewart as NICK SLAUGHTER
  and Carolyn Dunn as Sylvia Girard
  Also starring John David Bland, Pedro Armendarez, Eugene Clark

• Season One ,. Buy this on DVD
• "Hard Case" (April 8, 1991)
• "Fowl Play" (April 15, 1991)
• "Death's a Beach (pilot)" (April 22, 1991)
• "Family Affair" (April 29, 1991)
• "Roll of the Dice" (May 6, 1991)
• "Double Time" (May 13, 1991)
• "Forget Me Not" (May 20, 1991)
• "For a Song" (May 27, 1991)
• "Marissa" (June 3, 1991)
  
  
• Season Two,. Buy this on DVD
• "The Mariah Connection" (September 9, 1991)
• "Mafia Mistress" (September 16, 1991)
• "A Perfect .38" (September 23, 1991)
• "Dead Men Tell" (September 30, 1991)
• "Big Brother is Watching" (October 9, 1991)
• "This Year's Model" (October 14, 1991)
• "Writer Wrong" (October 21, 1991)
• "Runaway" (October 28, 1991)
• "Sex, Lies and Lullabies" (November 9, 1991)
• "She" (November 11, 1991)
• "Tara, Tara, Tara" (November 18, 1991)
• "Abandoned" (November 25, 1991)
• "Deceit" (February 24, 1992)
• "Party Girl" (April 13, 1992)
• "Double Fault" (April 20, 1992)
• "Alive and Kicking" (April 27, 1992)
• "Tattooed Lady" (May 4, 1992)
• "Users" (May 11, 1992)
• "Frame Up" (May 18, 1992)
• "Going to the Dogs" (May 25, 1992)
• "Dial 9 for Murder" (June 1, 1992)
  
  
• Season Three,. Buy this on DVD
• "Twice as Dead" (September 14, 1992)
• "Deadly Switch (Part One)" (September 28, 1992)
• "Deadly Switch (Part Two)" (October 5, 1992)
• "Over My Dead Body" (October 12, 1992)
• "White Hot" (October 26, 1992)
• "Stranger in Paradise" (November 9, 1992)
• "The Pro & the Con" (November 16, 1992)
• "Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby" (November 23, 1992)
• "Ocean Park" (November 30, 1992)
• "Jack of Diamonds" (December 7, 1992)
• "His Pal Joey" (February 8, 1993)
• "Grasping at Shadows" (February 15, 1993)
• "The Last of the Magnificent" (February 22, 1993)
• "The Patsy" (March 14, 1993)
• "May Divorce Be with You" (May 3, 1993)
• "Feedback" (May 10, 1993)
• "Basic Black" (May 17, 1993)
• "Born Tomorrow" (May 24, 1993)
• "Object of Desire" (May 31, 1993)
• "Royal Pain" (June 7, 1993)
• "Poison Ivy" (June 14, 1993)
• "Massage in a Bottle" (June 21, 1993)
• "Mutiny and the Bounty" (June 28, 1993)
• "Seen at the Crime" (July 5, 1993)
• "You Stole My Heart" (July 11, 1993)
• "Gun Shy" (July 19, 1993)
• "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (July 26, 1993)
• "Spider's Tale" (August 2, 1993)
• "Turning Screws" (August 9, 1993)
• "Tess" (August 16, 1993)
• "Deal of a Lifetime" (August 23, 1993)
• "Katie's Secret" (September 13, 1993)
• "Slummin' It" (September 20, 1993)
• "Man with the Midas Touch" (September 27, 1993)
• "Forbidden Fruit" (October 4, 1993)
• "Smut and Nothin' But" (October 18, 1993)

FILM

• CRISS CROSS,. Buy this on DVD
  (1996, Tango Entertainment)
  Created by Sam Egan
  Written by Vince Grittani and Dan Horowitz
  Directors: Timothy Bond, Mario Azzopardi
  Starring Rob Stewart as NICK SLAUGHTER
  and Carolyn Dunn as Sylvia Girard
  Also starring Ari Sorko-Ram, Cynthia Belliveau, Ingrid Lacey, Robert Wisden

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.