Created by Stephan Blom-Cooper & V. Phipps-Wilson
Stormy Weathers was actress Cybill Shepherd’s post-Moonlighting stab at the P.I. genre. She didn’t even draw blood.
“Gorgeous and street-savvy” LA private eye SAMANTHA “SAM” WEATHERS may have had “a black belt in karate and a wisecracking view of life,” but it wasn’t enough to build a series on, in this failed TV pilot for a series of TV movies that attempted to jump start Shepherd’s career after the crash and burn of The Cybill-and-Bruno Show.
The flick was heavily-hyped by ABC, but it was disappointing standard TV fare. Sam’s father was a cop who had left the LAPD under a cloud to start his own agency. When he passed away, Sam, a recent divorcée, took over the agency, relying on Squirrel, a young computer nerd, to help her out.
But the writers couldn’t seem to agree on the approach to take, so the show ended up being an uneven mixture of several different ones, including lots of shots of the star in various outfits. Worse, they seemed to have blown all the wit and cleverness they may have possessed on the title.
Sorry, Cybill, you were better on Moonlighting.
TELEVISION
- STORMY WEATHERS
(1992, ABC)
Television pilot
2 hours
Premiere: May 4, 1992
Story by Stephan Blom-Cooper & V. Phipps-Wilson
Teleplay by Stephan Blom-Cooper & V. Phipps-Wilson and Gerald Ayres
Directed by Will Mackenzie
Produced by Vahan Moosekian
Executive producers: Steven Haft, Marcia Nasitar and Cybill Shepherd
Starring Cybill Shepherd as SAM WEATHERS
and Charlie Schlatter, as Squirrel
Also starring Robert Beltran, Kurt Fuller, Diane Salinger, Roy Thinnes, Mimi Kuzyk, Kene Holliday, Philip Baker Hall, Vonetta McGee and Tony LoBianco
