‘Shannon’ Gets a Raw Deal in Journey From Pilot to Series

Flashback:

The NBC movie “ Shannon’s Deal” airs June 4, 1989. It gets the highest Nielsen ratings in its time slot. What’s more, it finishes in the Nielsen Top 10. As a bonus, the critics love it too.

And no wonder, for “Shannon’s Deal” is one terrific zinger, an excellently made, distinctively crafted, mostly cream-of-the-crop series pilot that introduces one of the more interesting and appealing TV characters to come along in years.

Jack Shannon is a divorced, disenchanted Philadelphia lawyer who once made big money helping corporate polluters finesse environmental groups, but is now so much in debt from gambling that he’s stalked by a loan collector and has to borrow $10 from his precocious 12-year-old daughter to take her to lunch. He takes public transportation. He has a smoky office in a crummy building inhabited by a subculture of professional low - lifes. He’s a flawed hero who cuts corners and makes deals.

“You’re a good man,” his new secretary tells him. “No,” he replies, running his hand through his thick unruly hair. “But I’m a good lawyer . . . at least I used to be.”

It is that interestingly off-center filmmaker John Sayles (“Eight Men Out,” “Return of the Secaucus Seven,” “The Brother From Another Planet,” “Matewan”) who has created “Shannon’s Deal” and written the script interlaced with poker-playing metaphors. It’s director Lewis Teague who has guided the characters through this fascinatingly underlit, grainy haze. It’s Wynton Marsalis who has provided the simple score that gives musical resonance to the story’s moody urban tone.

And certainly not least, Shannon has been given a continuously charming presence by Jamey Sheridan, an actor whose rugged, furry browed street-fighter’s face belies his easy way with his character’s bemused humor.

Swell cast. Swell movie. Swell ratings. Swell ending to story, right?

Uh, not quite.

Cancel the flashback. We’re now in the present, with last year’s “Shannon’s Deal” pilot rerunning tonight at 9 on NBC (Channels 4, 36 and 39) in advance of Monday’s 10 p.m. premiere of “Shannon’s Deal” the series, a six-episode trial whose opener is shockingly unlike the admirable movie that spawned it. A leopard has given birth to a cocker spaniel.

Those choosing to watch both tonight’s and Monday’s programs will see a textbook example of a pilot being unrepresentative of the series it precedes.

Oh, Sheridan (in a goofy new yuppiesque hairstyle) remains as Shannon in this utterly artless, sanded-down premiere written by Sayles, who is supplying two of six scripts. But most everything else that made the pilot special has been diminished, if not eliminated.

The result is that “Shannon’s Deal” is now undistinguishable from the rest of TV. That intriguingly dark, brooding tone is gone, erased by simpleton brightness in an hour so overlit that you almost need sunglasses to watch.

Even worse, there is no mystery or edge Monday, only rosy comfortableness throughout a played-for-laughs hour in which Shannon reluctantly takes the case of a young country songwriter (Michelle Joyner) who claims one of her tunes has been ripped off by a shady recording firm. The romance between Shannon and this grating gee-whiz of a hillbilly is never convincing, nor is there any logic to her hickishly stereotyped Tennessean ex-husband (played by Sayles) being able to repeatedly locate Shannon in the big city and harass him. Meanwhile, real-life singers David Crosby and Tanya Tucker also have cameo roles.

Not only does the premiere soften Shannon, it also mostly squanders two of the pilot’s best and most-amusing supporting characters. One, a comic shyster lawyer played by Martin Ferrero, surfaces all right, but far too broadly. Even worse is the inexplicable near-omission of Shannon’s secretary Lucy, played so engagingly by Elizabeth Pena in the pilot. Better more of Pena than manufactured time for David Crosby.

Good as it was, the pilot could have been better. Its now-outdated plot--ensnaring Shannon in a conspiracy involving right-wingers, drugs and arms to the Contras--got ever thinner as it neared conclusion. At all times, however, the pilot held your interest, ending on an unconventional note that showed Shannon to be more pragmatist than idealist.

If not downbeat, this was at least refreshingly middlebeat, in contrast to Monday’s standard upbeat conclusion offering triumph, closure and predictability. Now that’s the old-fashioned television we’ve come to expect.