Mike Olshansky (Hack)

Created by David Koepp

“Could we just leave my soul out of this… for once?”
— Mike warns Grizz in “Domestic Disturbance”

Get the angst-meter a-running…

In Hack, possibly the most downbeat new drama of the Fall 2002 TV season, David Morse starred as MIKE OLSHANSKY, a disgraced ex-cop from Philadelphia (“I took a bullet in the shoulder for this city”) turned cabbie who “seeks redemption by fighting for and righting the wrongs of others.”

Uh-huh.

Once a decorated police detective, Mike is caught taking eight thousand dollars from a crime scene. Rather than rat out his partner, Marcellus Washington (Andre Braugher), Mike stands mute, and takes his licks. It costs him his job, his marriage and, most hurtful of all, the love of his son, who now views his dad not as a hero, but a loser.

Frustrated, hurt, at times seething with rage and prone to violence, Mike turns to his new life as a cabbie, working long shifts, living on coffee and eye drops. In the first episode, Mike rescues one of his passengers from a severe beating by a gang of thugs, and helps another track down his missing daughter.

The realization that he can still make a difference and help people comes as a revelation to Mike, and offers him a way out of his hell. He enlists the aid of the guilt-ridden Marcellus, who feels obliged to his former partner for keeping silent, and thereby saving his own police career. In return, Mike helps him by doing the work a cop can’t do. Mike’s also aided, albeit sometimes reluctantly, by Father Tom “Grizz” Grzelak, a drinking buddy and friend. Meanwhile, on the homefront, Mike tries to win back his ex-wife, Heather, and son, Michael.

Yeah, there were plausibility problems eventually with this one and that angst-meter was almost always in the red, but it was a swell ride in the mean time. Forget about atoning for his sins–that’s something that should be a subtle context buried beneath the action, an underlying theme the writers should have trusted the viewers to pick up on (and let the excellent cast play it that way), instead of hitting them over the head with it. What Morse’s character should have been was just a cabbie, scrounging for a living, taking odd P.I.-like jobs and occasionally helping out people, but always with the notion there might be something in it for him.

The milieu of a late night cabbie was rife with possibilities, what with the sort of people a night hack deals with: hookers, drunks, loners, strippers, other cabbies, couples out celebrating, the lost, the lonely, etc… in fact, there’s often an almost surrealistic tone to the show reminiscent at times of such classic film noir as Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil.

At its best, it was an almost noirish version of the old sitcom Taxi or a kick-ass update of Steve Midnight, the old pulp series by John K. Butler. The talent involved certainly was up to the task–so far, this has to have been one of the best-looking and decidedly adult network shows during its run, the direction was razor-sharp, and Morse and Braugher were two of the most compelling actors around.

Which is why its absence from streaming or even DVD (save a suspiciously expensive set, available only through Amazon.com) is so mystifying. And frustrating.

FURTHER EVIDENCE

When Marcellus warns him “Mike, the cops are already all over this,” Mike’s reply is “Yeah, but they have to obey the law.”

UNDER OATH

“Hack is probably my favorite new show. Superior cast. Top-drawer performances by all. Humane, believable stories. Controlled sentimentality. Unique location. It seems to be gathering viewers. I think the only reason it wasn’t an immediate hit is the premise: it sounds like the Firesign Theatre’s old time radio satire Crime Cabbie. The lead should (simply) be a private eye. I guess tvland is more open to injustice-fighting cabbies than PIs. You might want to think of Mike as a private eye who uses his vehicle for an office. But actually, there was a very funny novel using that premise, Stanley’s Crawford’s Gascoyne… (meanwhile) the bad guys are almost likeable, particularly the gambling-vice lord who seems genuinely fond of Hack. That, too, is why the show works. When you pitch a TV series, the powers that be always ask “do we like the characters?” My theory is that a series’ success depends on not liking the characters. From Jack Benny to Tony Soprano, there’s a rich history of TV characters who have won the hearts of viewers by being cranky, annoying or downright unpleasant… Anyway, it works for me.”
— Dick Lochte (from a November 2002 post on CrimeSeen)
“(Hack) finds a strange role for the talented David Morse — an ex-cop cab-driving vigilante. A low-rent Equalizer that has so far managed to waste the gifts of Andre Braugher as Morse’s guilt-ridden buddy still on the Philadelphia force.”
— John Leonard

TELEVISION

HACK
(2002-24, CBS)
Series
40 60-minute episodes
Created by David Koepp
Writers: David Koepp, Leonard Dick, Liz Friedman, Lawrence Kaplow, Lynne E. Litt , Frank Renzulli, Randy Anderson, Eugenie Ross-Leming, Brad Buckner, Thomas L. Moran, Steven Phillip Smith, George Schenck, Frank Cardea, David Ehrman
Directors: Philip Sgriccia, Robert Singer, Thomas Carter, David Platt, Michael Fields, Harry Winer, Fred Gerber, Felix Enriquez Alcala, Elodie Keene, Dan Lerner, Bobby Roth, Alex Zakrzewski, David Jones, Kristoffer Tabori, Bill L. Norton, Michael Zinberg
Producer: Lynne E. Litt
Consulting producer: Frank Renzulli
Co-producers: Leonard Dick, Thomas L. Moran
Co-executive producer: Randall Anderson
Executive producers: Thomas Carter, Gavin Polone, David Koepp, David Shore
Original theme song: Bosshouse
Starring David Morse as MIKE OLSHANSKY
and Andre Braugher as Marseilles Washington
Also starring Matthew Borich as Michael Olshansky
George Dzundza as Tom ‘Grizz’ Grzelak
and Donna Murphy as Heather Olshansky
Guest stars: Fisher Stevens, Bebe Neuwirth, Jason Ritter, John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Nick Mancuso, Gary Cole, Chad Lowe, Martha Plimpton
- SEASON ONE | Buy the DVD
- “Pilot” (September 27, 2002)
- “Favors” (October 4, 2002)
- “Domestic Disturbance” (October 11, 2002)
- “My Alibi” (October 18, 2002)
- “My Brother’s Keeper” (October 25, 2002)
- “Slippery Slope” (November 1, 2002)
- “Husbands and Wives” (November 8, 2002)
- “Songs in the Night” (November 15, 2002)
- “Bad Choices” (November 22, 2002)
- “All Night Long” (December 6, 2002)
- “Obsession” (December 20, 2002)
- “A Dangerous Game” (January 10, 2003)
- “Death of Innocence” (January 17, 2003)
- “Forgive, But Don’t Forget” (January 31, 2003)
- “Brothers in Arms” (February 7, 2003)
- “Black Eye” (February 14, 2003)
- “Third Strike” (February 21, 2003)
- “Sinners and Saints” (March 14, 2003)
- “Signature” (April 4, 2003)
- “All Others Pay Cash” (April 18, 2003)
- “True Lies” (April 25, 2003)
- “The Squeeze” (May, 2003)
- SEASON TWO
- “See No Evil” (September 27, 2003)
- “Hidden Agenda” (October 4, 2003)
- “Presumed Guilty” (October 11, 2003)
- “Collateral Damage” (October 18, 2003)
- “Out of the Ashes” (October 25, 2003)
- “My Fare Lady” (November 1, 2003)
- “The Looking Glass” (November 8, 2003)
- “Blind Faith” (November 15, 2003)
- “To Have and Have Not” (November 22, 2003)
- “Dial O for Murder” (December 13, 2003)
- “Gone” (December 20, 2003)
- “Calibrated Arguments” (January 17, 2004)
- “Double Exposure” (January 24, 2004)
- “Fog of War” (February 7, 2004)
- “Extreme Commerce” (February 7, 2004)
- “Misty Blue” (February 7, 2004)
- “One for My Baby” (March 6, 2004)
- “The Reckoning” (March 13, 2004)