TV Reviews : CBS’ ‘Wolf’: Its Bark Is Tamer Than Its Bite

It’s easy to be blase about TV’s multitude of private eyes, but at least CBS gets credit for originality.

Has there ever been another TV private eye named Tony Wolf who is a former San Francisco cop living on a shabby fishing boat with his father and working for the lawyer who helped drive him from the police department on a bum rap and is now married to Wolf’s sister-in-law who is a TV reporter?

There has? All right, but not in the last few years.

“Wolf” premieres in two-hour form at 9 tonight on Channels 2 and 8, hereafter to air as an hour drama at 9 p.m. Tuesdays between “Rescue 911” and “Island Son,” other new series on a night that figures to be a ratings struggle for CBS.

Filmed in San Francisco, “Wolf” is a fine-looking pilot with attractive human-interest possibilities. In this case, however, the looks are skin-deep and the possibilities aren’t realized.

Ending a two-year disappearance after being framed and then bounced from the force, Wolf (Jack Scalia) returns to his old wharf neighborhood, where he is greeted enthusiastically by everyone but his crotchety father, Sal (Joseph Sirola), an aging fisherman who has lost his boat to a finance company. Trying to patch up things with Sal, Wolf buys back the boat. The two men begin living together on the craft while continuing to bicker endlessly.

Wolf also hangs out with his old friend, Connie Bacarri (Mimi Kuzyk), who runs her family’s cafe at Fisherman’s Wharf. Meanwhile, he reluctantly agrees to do some investigative work for Dylan Elliott (Nicolas Surovy), the attorney who prosecuted the police department’s phony charges against Wolf but who now believes in his innocence and will work toward reopening his case.

The mystery components of “Wolf” are routine and unarresting. It’s the tenuous bond between father and son that is potentially the most intriguing element of co-executive producer David Peckinpah’s script. Yet here, too, “Wolf” is a flat monotone.

The major problem is Scalia and Sirola, neither of whom is convincing. The bumpy relationship they depict is defined by the words that are written for them, but not feelings you can believe. Their performances are vacant. There are no layers here, no history, no sparks, no edge, nothing between them that would compel you to return to their story week after week to see if they can smooth their differences.

This “Wolf” is in sheep’s clothing. Its exterior is seductive, but without father and son as a solid center, it looms as just another series about a private eye.