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Ended
January 22, 1984
August 7, 1987
Military/War
John comes to the aid of an old flame, who owns an aircraft charter service, whose husband was killed by drug dealers. They go after the man responsible, who wants the land for his lumber scheme.
Created by Donald P. Bellisario, who had already had such hits as 'Magnum p.i.' (1980-1988), 'Airwolf' followed the adventures of a hi-tech helicopter and it's reclusive pilot, Stringfellow Hawke.
Bellisario developed Airwolf (early working titles: Blackwolf, Lonewolf), from the… More loose concept of a third season 'Magnum, P.I.' episode he'd previously written, titled 'Two Birds Of A Feather' (1983) - an unsold pilot about a treasure-hunting, adventure-loving ace combat pilot named Sam Houston Hunter (William Lucking). Bellisario had come up with the concept after Lucking played a similar character in a couple of episodes of another Bellisario series, 'Tales Of The Gold Monkey' (1982-3). After the proposed new series wasn't picked up, Bellisario took the bare bones of the concept, and eventually developed the premise into 'Airwolf'.
Airwolf itself was a hi-tech attack helicopter, equipped with cutting-edge on-board computer, surveillance and radar systems, able to fly quicker than the fastest jets, and armed with awesome fire-power. Dubbed "The Lady" due to it's slender grace, Airwolf had been constructed by "The Firm", a mysterious, top-secret division of the C.I.A., distinguishable by it's agents all-white dress code.
At the start of the Pilot adventure, we see Airwolf on its maiden test flight, piloted by its creator, Dr. Moffet (David Hemmings). But after the successful test flight, the twisted Moffet turns the chopper's lethal fire-power onto the flight tower, causing carnage, before heading off to Libya in the machine.
Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III, codename "Archangel" (Alex Cord), the head of the division who built Airwolf, is badly wounded in the assault but not yet out of the game. Now wearing an eye-patch and walking with aid of a cane as a result of his injuries, he calls upon ace combat pilot Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent) to take the task of bringing back Airwolf from Libya.
Hawke is a cello-playing recluse, living in his scenaric cabin in the mountains – with a priceless art collection, and with only his dog Tet for company - ever since his brother St. John went Missing In Action in the Vietnam War, never to be found. Hawke eventually agrees to take the mission, aided by his only close friend, Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine). Much Hawke's senior, Dominic was very much his mentor, who was prone to the odd bout of grouchiness, but for the majority of the time was raucously cheerful. He owned Santini Air, a flight company that's main vehicles were decked out in stars and stripes, which specialised in performing arial stunts for films.
Hawke and Dominic prised Airwolf back from Moffet's clutches (blowing away it's twisted genius creator in the process), but Hawke wasn't ready to return it back over to the Firm just yet. Hiding it in a hollow mountain in the middle of the desert wilderness, he refused to return the super-chopper until the Firm found solid information about his M.I.A. brother St. John, be he dead or alive.
Thus was set the scenario for the series, with Archangel - usually accompanied by assistant Marella (Deborah Pratt) - calling upon Hawke in times of crisis to fly Airwolf on missions of national concern, with the occasional glimmer of hope regarding finding St. John - or at least solid information about his fate - thrown in for good measure.
The first season was intelligently written, with a very classy, elegant feel. It was in many ways ahead of it's time, being distinctly dark and dramatic, with heavy religious over-tones and symbolisms, and with stories revolving around cases of international espionage, spying, and such-like, and much talk of "the opposition" - be it taken to be Libyans, the Russians, or whichever assumptions one took.
The series did fairly well in the ratings, but CBS wanted to achieve even higher numbers, by "domesticating" the show more – to make stories less dark and symbolic, and to make things more light-hearted to try and win a wider audience.
When the second season arrived, it brought with it the most significant and notable change - the introduction of a regular female cast member, created by Bellisario after CBS's insistence. Introduced in the season's opening episode, 'Sweet Britches', Jean Bruce Scott was brought in as feisty Caitlin O'Shannessy, who within the season's first few episodes was set-up as a regular character, working at Santini Air, and before long became the occasional third Airwolf pilot. Also with the new season, The Firm was blended into the background somewhat, to allow more wider-ranging stories, again mostly due to CBS's insistence.
Overall the season did well, with much of the dark intrigue still surviving from the first series, mixed with the new slightly lighter-hearted, wider-reaching stories. In the meantime, Bellisario and Deborah Pratt, having met on the show, had married. But by the end of the season, Bellisario had grown increasingly tired of CBS' constant "interfering" with his original vision for the series, and eventually left, taking Pratt with him. The pair left to work on new projects of their own, the biggest and most popular to date being 'Quantum Leap' (with which Airwolf shares much of it's dark, religious over-tones, as well as also using a horde of the same Bellisario-favoured actors and crew).
Also behind the scenes, Jan-Michael Vincent's troubled personal life - including battles with drink and drugs, and frequence fights with his wife - were increasingly causing problems during production of the series. Vincent actually broke his arm during one such drunken row with his wife, mid-production of one episode, 'Sins Of The Past', with his right arm visibally hanging limp throughout much of the episode as a result.
CBS brought the series back for a third season, now without Bellisario's overseeing (his name on the show survived only as 'Created by' on the opening credits). While still offering up some good episodes, including some very impressive action set pieces (both airborne and otherwise), overall the previous sharp, clever script quality was now somewhat lower, and things were by now noticeably more watered down, with the series now acting as a more all-round "family" action-adventure show. Whilst they still occasionally had their moments, both Hawke's reclusive broodiness, and the whole eerie mysteriousness surrounding The Firm – two key factors in Bellisario's original vision - were by now very toned down. (Incidentally, with the third season, the Firm became spelt as an acronym, "the F.I.R.M.", though what these initials stood for was never explained.) The majority of episode plots were by now a far cry from the original season's dark themes; it's often commented (rightly so in several cases) that, far from the early stories of international emergencies, many of this season's stories seemed to revolve around little more than domestic feuds!
But the worst was yet to come... CBS finally called it a day with 'Airwolf' at the end of the third season in 1986 - the last episode being 'Birds Of Paradise', an avarage episode which didn't serve to round to series off in any way. Despite CBS's constant tampering trying to make it an even bigger hit, in the long-run was much the cause of the demise of the show, with ratings gradually dropping mostly as a result of the third season's many more "family friendly" story-lines which lost favour with many fans. Jan-Michael Vincent's ever increasingly troubled personal life had done nothing to ease production of the series, either. However, the rights to the series were brought by a small TV company, Atlantis, for the USA Network, and a new series was commissioned for syndication. The whole of the original cast were written out (no doubt due to cost) – both Hawke and Dominic are killed off in the opening episode (though only Jan-Michael Vincent is actually seen), Archangel is suddenly said to be assigned overseas, and what has become of Caitlin is never mentioned. Taking their place was an all new cast.
In the opening episode, 'Blackjack', Hawke's long-missing brother St. John (now seemingly his younger brother, not older, and played by Barry Van Dyke is suddenly located. The original series had several contradictions over St. John, but this new version completely threw any previous continuity out of the window! The Firm was now suddenly, unexplainedly called "The Company" (gone too were the trademark white suits), at which Jason Locke (Anthony Sherwood) is the new contact. He calls upon Major Mike Rivers (Geraint Wyn Davies) to help locate Airwolf – only to find that Dominic's niece, the - previously unmentioned - Jo Santini (Michelle Scarabelli) has already found it, and in it, they set off to rescue St. John. After his rescue began a new season of adventures, often with very little feel of connection to the original series.
The new series was filmed on a very low budget in Canada, and much of the aerial footage – including ALL footage of Airwolf in flight, was simply footage recycled from the original three seasons. Other times, very poor model effects of Airwolf were used. Special effects (bar the stock footage) were weak, most of the stories were incredibly dull and wooden, much of the acting was poor - the series was embarrassing at best. There seemed little place for logic, either - the new contact, Locke, clearly knew of Airwolf's location (and often flew it himself!!), yet made no attempt to return it to the Company.
In the original, Stringfellow Hawke, and at a push, Dominic or Caitlin, were capable of flying Airwolf – yet suddenly, each of the new characters could pilot it... the whole premise was full of holes. It seems maybe rather amazing (not to mention such a shame) that from the dark, classy, "ahead-of-it's-time" first season, things could end up as this. Understandably, many Airwolf "purists" will refuse to recognise this series as part of the "proper" Airwolf fodder.
Suddenly, despite all of the CBS third season's short-comings, fans now found themselves saying "come back third season, all is forgiven", and would have given anything to have the original series, in any of it's versions from the original three seasons, back in place of this crudely produced revamp! Airwolf wasn't the only "super helicopter" on air at the time of it's debut – there was also hi-tech police surveillance chopper 'Blue Thunder' (1984), spun-off from the 1983 movie of the same name; but even with that series having a big-screen film to kick it off, Airwolf generally emerged to be seen as the "ultimate" super-helicopter series, with - at it's peak - it's clever, cathartic scripts paling Blue Thunder's much wider, less serious take. Airwolf itself was a highly modified Bell 222b, with a number of fibreglass and aluminium sections fitted to give it its unique look. In the TV series Airwolf may have been capable of supersonic speeds, but in reality, the numerous additions resulted in only slowing the helicopter's speeds! Sadly, the aircraft used for Airwolf crashed in Germany in 1991 (however, most of the specially built modifications are still in existence in the depths of Universal Studios).
Note: This article, as well as episode guest cast lists, synopses and all other material in this guide (unless otherwise contributed) is written by the editor of this show. While it is intended for the reference and enjoyment of fellow fans of the show, please ask permission before using it, be it whole or in part, elsewhere.
^topic
I just watched episode 10 of season 1 today (And They are Us). At the beginning, a group of helicopters ambush a pair of Corsair jets. They blow one out of the sky, but only severely disable the other. The pilot is forced to bail. When he does, he removes his helmet, slides the hatch open and… More jumps out. That didn't seem very well researched. Maybe the ejection seat was disabled, but removing the helmet? That seemed screwy to me. Maybe someone who knows a little about fighter jet history could enlighten me.
I was watching TV last night (an episode of Airwolf, funnily enough) and I heard the unmistakable strains of the Airwolf theme during the ad break. On screen, there was a remote control helicopter flying about, trimming a hedge while some dude swigged a bottle of Bud Light. Hilarious!
This is one of my many personal Favorites, I love the original Characters hide show
The Original Cast made for a great TV show. Airwolf was the next best thing to Star Trek: The Next Generation at the time. Since it had not come out. What really Suprised me when the new cast came in one of the cast of the Lead role person in Forever Knight a another Guilty Pleasure show. But back to Airwolf, the helicopter was something from you would think Gene Roddenberry would think of or the creators or Knight Rider would come up with. Jan-Michaeal Vincent and ArcAngel (can't remember his name), Not to mention Dominic was great together.
The new cast which had Barry Van Dyke which I had forgotten was in it and really didn't pay attention to the other pilot (Forever Knights lead charcater before he went to it)
All in all a great show.
I have been looking long and hard at finding another Scale helicopter Kit that looks good, but also at a reasonable price. I have previously had a Moskito R22, Hirobo Lama and a still ongoing Hirobo KV-107II (early Chinook). Price is important to me, so after looking around for a while I finally decided on a Century Kit. But which one, well I wanted one with retracts, the Airwolf & Bell 222 fitted this well, but which one. I eventually went for the Airwolf as it was a bit different, and a fellow member at the club mentioned he wanted one. The next decision was whether to go for the ARF [CN1070A] (Almost Ready to Fly) or the assembly kit [CN1070]. Well I wanted a different colour scheme than the original Airwolf which I find a bit drab so I decided on the Assembly kit
one of coolest flight movie i've watched at the time!!! hide show
Air wolf, the best action packed adventure flight, TV series i 've watched at the time., i could not wait for the continuing episode, sitting on the edge of the seat waiting for wats going to happen next., looking back i am still loving it ! jean Bruce (Jessica Blake Fallon) was hot and dominic was kinda funnt at times too . . . . i dont think they are making anything like those anymore, more of the Sci Fic type these days ., the copter was a neat piece of high-tech machine, with heavy weapons load out. Great Show! :)
Canceled ahead of it's time hide show
A show about a Helicopter. But not just any Helicopter, this was a advanced, war machine helicopter. To be honest it was canceled ahead of it's time. There should be a good reason for that, though! Airwolf came to my town when I was younger. A bit over rated but I'll remember it for the rest of my life. There was other story lines and decent actors but I watched it for the action and maneuvers of AIRWOLF. Good theme song as well. I have to rate it as great because back then when I was a kid everything is great.
Great stuff, but uneven. hide show
I really liked this right from the first season (didn't see the movie/pilot until a few months in), and Jan Michael-Vincent's personal problems weren't evident in the episodes as aired. Even that fourth season from Canada grew on me--at least they got The Lady back into international intelligence work. Also, the fact that if the left hand of US intelligence had been willing to let the right know what it was doing, they could have gotten her back from the beginning--St. John was working for the CIA all the time! By the way, there was a scene near the end of the first cable episode that explained why Jason didn't take Airwolf away from the lair, even if it was a somewhat lame excuse. I'm not sure the claim about problems between Vincent and his wife during the Hollywood filming is accurate, as I know for a fact he got married between the last CBS episode and the first USA Network one--note the previously unseen band on the appropriate finger of his left hand there as corroborative evidence (I like to think that String had married Caitlin in the interim and she was up at the cabin during these events, she being the only one of the CBS regular characters not dealt with at all in this transitional segment).
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