Madigan Men

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Meet the Wolfes (a.k.a. Neighbors)

Episode Number: 9 Season Num: 1 First Aired: Friday December 15, 2000 Prod Code: 01010

Jesus the doorman lets Ben in on a little secret: a couple who live in the building's penthouse, Troy and Alice Wolfe, are moving out, and Ben can have it cheap if he befriends the Wolfes before they put it on the market. And if Ben can have the penthouse, then Seamus can have his own wing. And then Alex can have Ben's apartment. And then Carl can have Alex's apartment. Ben decides to invite the Wolfes to dinner to try to butter them up, but he has to find a place to hide Bailey -- who bit the Wolfes' dog, and who Seamus said they had put to sleep. So Ben dumps Bailey off at Alex's, even though Ben won't invite Alex to the party. Bailey eats half of one of Alex's valuable baseball cards, so Alex drops by the dinner anyway to voice his displeasure. Then Carl just shows up, even though he wasn't invited either. Next, Jane and her boss, who are catering for the dinner, get into a brawl when their van gets towed -- with the food still in it. Troy and Alice arrive last, and quickly provoke Ben, Seamus and Luke into arguing why they really want their place. The Wolfes can't stand the Madigans (or each other), and storm out of the failed dinner party -- right before telling them if they want the penthouse, they can bid on it after it's put on the market.

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Cast and Crew

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Writer:	Tom Leopold, Richard Dresser

Director:	James Widdoes

Star:	Gabriel Byrne (Ben Madigan), Sabrina Lloyd (Wendy Lipton (episodes 2-6)), Grant Shaud (Alex Rosetti), John Hensley (Luke Madigan), Roy Dotrice (Seamus Madigan)

Guest Star:	Melissa Lee (Melissa), Alexandra Neil (Catherine), Rick D. Wasserman (Jesus), Jaclyn DeSantis (Jane), Deborah Rush (Alice Wolfe), Chip Zien (Troy Wolfe), George Wendt (Carl [Gradowski])

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Notes

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A week earlier, ABC announced the series would go on hiatus at the end of the month. On January 5, 2001, it would be making way for a Friday Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which in turn would be moving from Tuesday to make way for the new reality series, The Mole. The network claimed to be waiting to see how the new episodes with George Wendt turned out before deciding whether to order additional episodes, and possibly giving it a relaunch at midseason. Not very good apparently! The same day this episode aired, ABC said they were upgrading the indefinite hiatus to an official cancellation due to budget problems, Gabriel Byrne's apathy, it was only time-slot filler to give The Mole and My Wife and Kids more nurturing midseason launches, yada yada yada. The 13th and final episode was to be filmed the week before Christmas (pushed back from December 8 after two showdates were cancelled for "tweaking"), but ATG pulled the plug on it. Shortly before the cancellation, it was reported that, in yet another retool, Madigan Men would stop filming in front of a live studio audience, maybe to appease Byrne who didn't appear very comfortable with the four-camera, audience reaction format. The audience was kicked out starting with this episode. The editor presumes that Stu Bloomberg and Lloyd Braun must have really hated the three unaired episodes, because they reran the pilot instead of one of them on December 22. Cheap, cheap, cheap... (edit)