WISEGUY: Season Four. The Steven Bauer Miami arc starring Maximilian Schell

By Peter Lance. October 9th, 2023. In 1990 I became The Showrunner on the 4th Season of the acclaimed CBS series WISEGUY, created by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo. In taking over The Writer’s Room, my creative challenge was to develop an exciting role for Steven Bauer who would be succeeding departing star Ken Wahl (Vinny Terranova) who (per the new storyline) had been murdered by a Salvadoran Death Squad.

Since Steven (born Esteban Echeverría) had Cuban roots and I’d recently worked on the 4th Season of MIAMI VICE we created an initial Six Episode Arc, in which, as a disgraced former U.S. Attorney (Michael Santana) Steven agreed to work undercover with Frank McPike, Vinny’s former FBI handler played by the remarkable Jonathan Banks.

Amazingly, Oscar winning actor Maximilian Schell found our scripts compelling enough to play the role of Amado Guzman, a billionaire Cuban-American banker who is running a money laundering operation for a Colombian cartel known as “La Mina.”

The Second arc, Set in Detroit, starred the legendary Bill Dee Williams as the principal of a distressed inner-city school. This 11 minute HIGHLIGHT REEL contains highlights of a series that had the look and production value of a feature film.