Smoldering Lust (Black Tie Affair)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105953/




Jay Tarses (Buffalo Bill, The 'Slap' Maxwell Story, The Days And Nights Of Molly Dodd) produced this offbeat, quirky comedy satirizing 1940s detectives movies.



Tarses, who was given a thirteen-episode commitment and creative control by NBC in 1992, intended his show to examine contemporary adult relationships in a film noirish milleau. The cast included Bradley Whitford as Dave Brodsky, a part-time private eye; Kate Capshaw as Margo Cody, who hired Brodsky to watch her philandering husband; and John Calvin as the husband in question. No sooner did Brodsky uncover Cody's love item, voluptuous model Eve, than he found himself entangled in a murder case and the serialized series followed the case through various twists and turns.



Although production on all thirteen episodes was completed by September 1992, the network waited eight more months before deciding to run it. The series debuted in a highly inauspicious time slot - 10 p.m. on the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend - with a few changes: NBC had rechristened it Black Tie Affair and had stripped the lyrics from the show's theme song. Hardly surprised when the series was cancelled after five telecasts, an infruiated Tarses vowed never to work for NBC again.



(Compiled from "Total Television" by Alex McNeil, and "Complete Directory To Prime Time" by Tim Brooks & Earle Marsh)



While I do have all 13 episodes I have not watched them in almost 15 years so I can't remember what sort of ending it has: a revelation or just another cliff-hanger. It's a great show, though.