User Reviews

Especially when they happen to wander into the pop culture of middle America.

Mr. Grand, if you ever change your mind, I'd love a copy of your tapes of this abandonware. Seeing this program when it first appeared, I immediately recognized a class act, watched every episode I could, and was very disappointed, even angry, when the powers-that-be canceled it. "Heart of the city" (I suppose referring to Officer Kennedy, who definitely had one) was head and shoulders above most commercial TV fare, for which I've not had much time ever since.

In addition to the actors already commended, several of the last episodes featured a troubled boy 13-14 years old in which officer Kennedy took a special interest. Guest star Andre Gower so smoldered in that role, that I expected him to burn a hole in my TV screen any moment.

I'd be more of a fan of the police if I had any confidence that most of them were menschen with hearts like Officer Kennedy in this great series. Sadly, We the People are sticking them with such randomly and senselessly vindictive laws to enforce nowadays, and turning the American gulag into such a growth industry for opportunistic corporations, that any mensch must have more and more trouble doing such work in good conscience.

Wasn't this the show that the Patti LaBelle-Michael McDonald song On My Own was always played when the lead character had flashbacks to his late wife? I feel positive it is, but, can't find any info to support that thought.

I did not get to see Heart of the City during its original run on ABC in September of 1986. I was fortunate enough to see the program again a few years later on FoxNet when they re-ran old series to fill the off network slots before their syndicated series started. It was an excellent program about a police detective whose wife dies. So he works at night to stay at home during the daytime so he can keep an eye on his teen-aged children. Robert Desiderio was excellent in the lead. An emerging star also appeared in Christina Applegate in the role of Robin Kennedy. The show dealt with issues like sex, the death of a parent and troubled youth. All in all a wonderful, thought provoking piece of work that deserved better. I hope to see the episodes again. Catchy opening music as well.

"Heart of the City" was a first rate show, and it was rather controversial in its day. I think that the reason it was first rate was that it was made by people who were willing to *let it* provoke controversy.

One talking point I still remember to this day was the double-standard the father (Robert Desiderio) used when his son had sex for the first time and when his daughter wanted to give up her virginity, too. He would sit on his son's bed, as I recall, and explain the facts of life to him and say how proud he was that his son was being so mature about this monumental decision, etc., etc. When it came to his daughter, however, it was more like, "You're grounded until your 21 for even *thinking* about sex!"

Jonathan Ward and Christina Applegate were very good as the two kids, and they had a good on-screen chemistry with Robert Desiderio. It was a family situation which was realistic, unlike some of the contrived garbage TeeVee tries to foist on us most of the time.

The police procedures were done very realistically. I still remember that (unlike most shows!) the writers managed to get the police unit designations right for radio chatter. The father, for example, was a "King" unit -- the designation for an LAPD detective.

This was a very good series and deserves to be on DVD. I have the whole series on tape, but I would *still* buy a DVD of it. BTW, as I say on the message board, sorry -- I won't make copies of the tapes for anyone. :(