| In The Heat Of The Night (tv Series) |
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''In the Heat of the Night'' is a television series based on the Motion Picture , '' In The Heat Of The Night '' that ran from 1988 to 1994 . It starred Carroll O'Connor as William Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Virgil Tibbs. Tibbs had traveled to the Sparta area for his mother's funeral. He was persuaded to remain by the city government, who had felt the need to make the city's police department more diverse. William "Bill" Champlin of the band Chicago sings the opening theme song. The series originally ran on NBC for five seasons, premiering in March 1988 and running there until it was dropped from the NBC lineup in the spring of 1992 . CBS then picked it up for two more seasons, with the series coming to an end in May 1994 . OVERVIEW Commonly dealt issues The show dealt with a variety of issues. These included racism, drug abuse, rape, murder, incest, government corruption, drunk driving, among others. Second season The show used creative measures to explain the absences of its key characters at times. Howard Rollins also had problems of his own with Drugs . While Rollins was in rehab, Rollins absence was explained as Virgil being in New Orleans doing work with the FBI . When Carroll O'Connor had open heart surgery during the closing weeks of the second season, his absence was explained as Gillespie having traveled out of town to attend a police convention as well as being kidnapped by white supremacists. During this time Joe Don Baker was brought in to replace him as the acting chief. The second season Ended in a cliffhanger in which Gillespie had been kidnapped by white supremacists. The second part of the cliffhanger was delayed because Carroll O'Connor wanted first to have the Episode shown in which Althea Tibbs was raped shown at the beginning of the third season. This second part of the cliff hanger - " Anniversary " - was shown several weeks later as a flash back in which Gillespie was discussing with a government official the aftermath of his kidnapping at the end of the second season. Seventh season In the seventh and final season of the series, a number of changes were made to the show. Anne-Marie Johnson had left the series to star on '' In Living Color '', and Howard Rollins had been dropped from the show due to continued legal problems. Their characters were written out of the series. (Howard Rollins would make a few more guest appearances until further legal troubles led to his being banned entirely from the county where the series was filmed). The police uniforms had undergone subtle alterations. Gillespie was finally fired by the city council after several of its members conspired to remove him from the police force. Gillespie was replaced by former FBI agent Hampton Forbes, played by Carl Weathers . Gillespie was soon appointed Sheriff by the county after the previous Sheriff had become too ill to continue his duties. Also, in the opening, instead of still drawings of the cast, the images were now chroma-keyed moving images. THE CAST Recurring cast Three of the actors who played main characters in the series have since Died . Hugh O'Connor, who had played Jamison, committed suicide on March 28 , 1995 , after having had problems with Drugs for many years. He was then followed by Howard Rollins on December 8 , 1996 , who had died of complications from lymphoma. Finally, on June 28 , 2001 , Carroll O'Connor, who had been suffering from diabetes, died after having had a Heart Attack . EPISODES
LOCATIONS The television series also took place in a fictionalized version of Sparta, Mississippi . While there is a real Sparta, the version of Sparta shown on television is very different than the real town. For example, the TV Sparta is situated along Interstate 20 , while the real town is nowhere near any Interstate . During the first season, Hammond, Louisiana was the site of the show's production. In the second season, the show was moved to Georgia , and it remained there for the rest of its run. The principal area of Sparta was in fact downtown Covington, Georgia . Rural scenes were filmed in a wide surrounding area, in the Georgia counties of Newton (where Covington is located), Rockdale , Walton , and Morgan . EXTERNAL LINKS |
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