Watch The Commish Online

The series starred Michael Chiklis as Tony Scali, a police commissioner in a small Upstate New York town who worked through problems with humor and creativity more often than with violence or force. Theresa Saldana played Rachel Scali, Tony's wife, and Kaj-Erik Eriksen played their teen-aged son David. Also living with the family in the first season was Rachel's freeloading brother Arnie Metzger (David Paymer). A daughter, Sarah, played by twins Justine and Dayna Cornborough, was born to Tony and Rachel in the second season. The show focused as much on family situations as on police drama. Each episode ran at 60 minutes on air, and the show lasted five years. The series often dealt with a wide range of topical social issues such as racism, homophobia, drug addiction, disabilities, child abuse, illegal immigrants, and sexual harassment.

Commissioner Scali went through three lieutenants at his precinct during the run; Lt. Irv Wallerstein (Alex Bruhanski) was his long time buddy and second-in-command, who was succeeded only after a few episodes by Lt. Paulie Pentangeli (John Cygan). At the start of the second season, Paulie himself was replaced by a female lieutenant, Cyd Madison (Melinda McGraw). She lasted two seasons until John Cygan returned to the series as Paulie at the start of season four. The star cops who also worked closely with the Commish included Stan Kelly (Geoffrey Nauffts), young, hot-headed Ricky Caruso (Nicholas Lea) and his love interest, Carmela Pagan (Gina Belafonte), with whom he was also partnered.

Chiklis' character Tony Scali was at least ten years older than Chiklis' actual age at the time. At one point, the network worried that Chiklis' weight loss would have an effect on the ratings and reportedly asked him to stuff his clothing.[citation needed] He also was encouraged not to shave his head to look older still.

Although set in Upstate New York in the fictional town of Eastbridge, the show was filmed in and around Vancouver, British Columbia.

The character for Tony Scali was based on the real-life 30th Commissioner of New York City's Department of Correction, Anthony Schembri; Schembri also served as the Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice under Governor Jeb Bush. Schembri was "discovered" after being a technical consultant for the TV series. Schembri was serving as the Police Commissioner of Rye, New York during that time. The show was unrealistic in that Tony would do many things a real-life police commissioner wouldn't, such as chase criminals and investigate crimes.

Although this series aired on ABC, it was originally slated to be on CBS, but unresolved casting differences with CBS led Stephen Cannell to cease pre-production with that network. Eventually, Cannell took the series to ABC and it won the ratings war with CBS for that time slot (Saturday nights at 10pm).

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