Who Killed “New York’s Toughest Detective”? — An Ironside Post-Mortem


Ironside - Season PilotBlame it on the economy. Blame it on the mediocrity that dominates network television. Blame it on Breaking Bad and other bracingly original shows on cable and streaming services.

But whatever you do, don’t blame the failure of NBC’s Ironside reboot on anything to do with disability and its depiction on film and TV. As TV cops and rednecks are so fond of saying, that dog don’t hunt.

If anything, the revival of Ironside was a modest victory for people with disabilities, who stood to benefit from the modernized profile of paraplegic detective Robert Ironside, played by Blair Underwood, as a streetwise, team-leading professional. Had the series lasted for even a season or two, we might’ve seen unprecedented exploration of disability issues as “New York’s Toughest Detective” (as promo ads described the revamped Ironside) went about his crime-solving business.

Accessibility, health care, discrimination, exclusion, sexuality — everything that’s important to us could’ve been examined in the context of a weekly, hour-long crime drama. Regardless of protest over the casting of nondisabled Underwood, his character’s context made it likely that disabled actors would’ve been sought for guest-starring roles. All that and more could’ve happened had the series offered more than a shred of original plotting. It didn’t.

As the major networks struggle to compete against the boundary-pushing freedom of basic-cable nets like FX and AMC, as well as premium-cable hits on HBO and Showtime (not to mention the advent of original programming from Netflix and Hulu), they have two choices: Take serious risks with original ideas, or copy proven formulas that make sponsors feel happy and safe. And since network executives are the most risk-averse creatures in Hollywood, we inevitably get a dozen variations of Law & Order, C.S.I., NCIS and popular talent competitions.

That’s why “franchise” is Hollywood’s favorite buzzword, and it’s also the reason studios “reimagine” properties they already own. Starring Raymond Burr as San Francisco’s paraplegic chief of detectives (who was paralyzed by a sniper’s bullet), the original Ironside, produced by Universal, earned respectable ratings over eight seasons (1967-75), but was anyone begging for a reboot? Was there a fan-driven campaign to revive the series, like the one that led Netflix to rescue Arrested Development after seven years in limbo? No, the original Ironside (parodied in MAD magazine as “Ironbutt”) seemed destined to remain a relic of the past, with less than half of its 199 episodes currently available via Hulu Plus.

Apparently, Michael Caleo felt otherwise. A writer/director enjoying career momentum after selling his script for The Family (the Mafia comedy starring Ironside - Season 1Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, released in September to mixed reviews and middling box-office), Caleo got a development deal at Universal, where his ideas for an updated Ironside were deemed promising enough to warrant production of a pilot.

Then and Now: Some Progress
With Burr sporting off-the-rack suits and using a heavyweight, standard-issue Everest & Jennings wheelchair, the original Ironside came across like a dull, sexless sleuth who could happily spend Friday nights at home reading Sherlock Holmes stories. He commanded a small but diverse team resembling 1968’s The Mod Squad, including a token black jive-talker and a fashionable young blonde woman.

Burr’s Ironside sat on the pivot point between post-World War II and Korean War perspectives (as depicted in Marlon Brando’s 1950 debut film, The Men) and the demoralizing war in Vietnam. He’s an old-school mentor to new-school detectives, calmly issuing orders as his underlings drove him around in a huge, lift-equipped police van. (In later episodes he used a late-model modified van.) The closest he came to sin was the glass of bourbon he savored after solving a case — a detail that survives in the reboot.

Jump-cut to 2013 and Blair Underwood’s Ironside: The once-token black is now elevated, Obama-like, to leadership status, always on the move in his stripped-down TiLite (except for the pilot episode, in which Underwood used a Roughrider chair from Whirlwind International). He’s a rule-bending maverick (cliché alert!), defiant enough to challenge his pushy Asian captain and experienced enough to command a trio of eager young “whatever it takes” detectives.

Caleo’s most dramatically effective development saw Underwood’s Ironside paralyzed by friendly fire when, two years earlier, his senior partner Gary (Brent Sexton, from AMC’s The Killing) accidentally shot him while they were chasing a drug dealer on a dark city sidewalk. The anguished rapport between Ironside and his former partner, who guilt-trips himself into alcoholic despair, provided the series’ most authentic relationship, inspiring Underwood and Sexton to shine in their scenes together.

While burdening Ironside with barely-suppressed anger, the accident also gave him the kind of compensation that only Hollywood can conjure: In addition to a lucrative settlement, Ironside is reinstated as a full-time detective with a hand-picked team, provided with modified police vans and an entire building (yeah, right!) to house himself and his luxurious base of operations. Jealous resentment from nondisabled colleagues added an interesting hint of real-world behavior, but aside from that, Ironside’s crib was routine TV fantasy. (Pity Burr’s Ironside: All he got was a dingy attic apartment above SFPD headquarters, equipped with a steep ramp that’s dangerously pre-ADA.)

Ironside - Season 1Caleo did an admirable job of retooling a musty old property for contemporary mass consumption, and NBC ordered a 13-episode season. With its potential as an enlightening forum for disability-related drama, the Ironside reboot held genuine promise, and Underwood recruited low-level para David Bryant as a technical consultant. To honor his mother, who uses a wheelchair due to multiple sclerosis, Underwood knew that his own wheeling — while positioning his legs to look sufficiently atrophied — had to be convincingly authentic.

A Lost Opportunity for Disability Awareness
That’s the good stuff; here’s the bad: In both iterations of Ironside, the titular hero is burdened with the common assumption that paralysis is a waking nightmare of non-stop misery. When asked “How do you live with it?” in the original series pilot, Burr’s Ironside says “I don’t live with it. I die with it, every day and every way.” So much for acceptance! Forty-six years later, Underwood’s Ironside is a tortured soul, prone to private outbursts of anguish. Within reason, perhaps, but his tantrums, especially at two years post-injury, felt forced and melodramatic.

And while it was great to see Underwood’s Ironside getting some action in the sack, it should be noted that the two sex scenes in the four-episode run were, strictly speaking, pre- and-post coital, and both scenes are interrupted by urgent police business. David Bryant reportedly informed Underwood that all spinal cord injuries differ in degrees of sexual function, prompting Underwood to define the character as sexually “able”, but we’ll never know if Ironside would’ve offered a more intimate exploration of disabled sexuality.

More troubling was the depiction of “New York’s Toughest Detective” as a barely-disabled man of action. In its direction and editing, the new series cut too many corners to minimize the daily realities of life in a wheelchair. Simply put, Underwood’s Ironside, who’s into strenuous daily workouts and coaching hockey during off-hours, is a super-para, able to exit vehicles in a flash; smooth-talking an attractive woman (later seen in bed with him) before arm-twisting her crip-insulting boyfriend; and somehow reaching the rooftop of an old building with no elevator in sight. Indeed, the New York in the program appears to be virtually barrier-free. Would future episodes have avoided this editorial cheating? Again, we’ll never know.

As far as casting is concerned, Ironside was re-conceived to include pre-injury flashbacks, legitimately justifying the casting of a nondisabled actor. It would’ve been historic to see a disabled actor in the role, but I choose to believe that had it been successful, the new Ironside would have benefited people with disabilities in other, similarly tangible ways.

Ironside - Season PilotOh, but the plotting. It was wretchedly indistinguishable from any other crime drama. Whether they were infiltrating a high-stakes poker ring, tracking a serial killer, uncovering the sinister truth behind an apparent suicide or searching for a missing girl, the Ironside team had nothing new to offer. Viewers sensed this even before the show’s premiere, resulting in death-knell ratings that killed the series in less than a month.

Disability was never the problem, behind or in front of the cameras. The series failed because nobody asked for it, nobody wanted it, and it was doomed from the get-go. Up against CBS’s C.S.I. and ABC’s Nashville at 10 p.m. on Wednesdays, Ironside never had a chance.

The four episodes of 2013’s Ironside can still be viewed on Hulu and NBC.com.


Support New Mobility

Wait! Before you wander off to other parts of the internet, please consider supporting New Mobility. For more than three decades, New Mobility has published groundbreaking content for active wheelchair users. We share practical advice from wheelchair users across the country, review life-changing technology and demand equity in healthcare, travel and all facets of life. But none of this is cheap, easy or profitable. Your support helps us give wheelchair users the resources to build a fulfilling life.

donate today

2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Lawrence Carter-Long
Lawrence Carter-Long
10 years ago

I think Jeff is half right. People with disabilities didn’t get behind it and neither did anyone else because they ignored their base in casting, production, development and direction. Part of the reason the show failed is because the producers flubbed the details and those few who tuned in saw it even if they didn’t know why. That’s a problem because if a show gets a crucial element like the lived experience of disability wrong they are likely to handicap other aspects of the show as well. That said, Jeff’s final assessment is spot on: It’s a real shame and a missed opportunity. So much more could’ve been done. Too bad it wasn’t.

Andrew Pulrang
10 years ago

The show wasn’t good enough to survive. However, it might be fun to see the character Ironside make some guest appearances on other NYC cop shows. They seem to exist in the same “universe”, and crossovers like that have been done before.