Tropical Heat

 I used to watch this in the 1990s. Well I say watch it, I would have it on in the background, while feverishly flicking through the channels, hoping to catch a glimpse of flesh, late at night

Its very 1990s I can even hear the elevator pitch, in my head

It's Magnum PI meets Moonlighting in the Tropics. 

It's Canadian and thus like Street legal, I assume that it was acquired by ITV in part of a Commonwealth exchange program. It was old when I saw it, the first series dates from 1991 Which makes it younger than the X files.  So the Red-headed lead, may not have been based on Dana Scully. Which means I was mistaken 

 I was watching Tropical Heat, in the later 1990s. It was shown at weekends by LTW. It was alright, and more than a few of peers seem to have caught it as background viewing 

SO I re watched Tropical Heat , as I have been for the last few months, looking back at a lot of retro TV. Cheers which is great. Magnum P.I which is a legend and finally Tropical heat  which is not very good. The two leads have not gone on to much success, I watched it last night, and I cannot remember the name of the redhead, who is Nick's foil. Oh it's Sylvie Girad. 

Carolyn Dunn is a Newfie - She seems to have left the business 

Looking at her IMDB page Carolyn is a star of genre TV particularly as selected by the commissioning editors of late night TV in the 1990s. Her credits include, 

Highlander, Highlander the Raven, Earth Final conflict .Kung Fu the Legend continues, The Hitchhiker

Friday the 13th the Series, Alfred Hitchcock presents ,Night Heat, War of the Worlds

Oh and as I mentioned Street Legal. Looks like Carolyn did not leave Vancouver 

My guess is her Newfie/Irish good looks, gave her a lot of red headed roles 

https://web.archive.org/web/20080122104939/http://www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=99909&sc=152

I have since learned that Tropical heat  was filmed in three different locations. Mexico,  Israel, and South Africa. I remember being surprised that there were scenes of product placement with El Al in the credits and titles of the second series 

 I imagine the change of location, leaving the USA to film in South Africa etc. put Actors  off working on Tropical Heat. Much harder to sneak in a guest role in Voyager and a commercial for Budweiser, if you have to fly in from Tel Aviv  Though I think Tucker Smallwood, worked on the show for a while. 

The man who played Spider, Ian Tracey has a decent career- Carolyn Dunn seems to have worked quite a bit So perhaps I am being unfair.

So, the pilot. Well, the opening scene is a murder in a Seafood restaurant in what is supposed to be Philadelphia. This scene is not acted well, and the location is obviously a local tourist place in Mexico. In fact it reminds me of a cebecheria in Peru. The special effects of the gunshots are not done well

The murder is  watched by a cute button of an 8 year old. Who seems to be forgotten later on. 

 We then have the credits. I note that one of the bathing beauties has a fake tattoo of tropical heat. Which is the Series title card. A tattoo would be edgy in the early 1990s 

After the teaser we are introduced to life in Key Mariah,  Which gives us the B story of the episode -  a subplot about the pre-Spider bar owner buying  beer from a new supplier- The supplier a bikini wearing brunette has used her wiles to get into Pre-Spider's, chequebook.  This however runs the risk of upsetting the local brewery which is run by a local gangster. We do not see this local gangster, which means we don't not get introduced to a recurring villain in the pilot. 

So going about his day to day business, which means never buttoning his shirt and drinking straight from bottles Nick, interrupts a stakeout, by a black Philly detective who is hundreds maybe thousands of miles away from his jurisdiction. The Detective is a black man like in Lethal weapon, Stakeout As I said this is made in the very early 90s. There is a few moments of tension when Nick, tries to understand why the Detective does not want any cops to help them. For a while, I wondered if the Detective would be a wolf in sheep's clothing 

Not so 

The plot was about an evil corporation buying art- or at least one of middle managers. Key West could have been a tax haven like a lot of the Caribbean is, which would have meant some interesting storylines. The series does not have the wit to do that. So the bad guys are buying fancy 1990s art and using it to smuggle drugs. It was actually quite an interesting idea. The nice lady artist that Nick Slaughter meets, makes modern art. She welds stuff- again this is edgy in the 1990s  ( Also the nice artist is happy to let the black detective point his gun at her for a while ) 

Nick does not understand art, and so the artist in Bermuda shorts explains it. 

Slyie does things with computers

Well, eventually the Philly detective, is talked into talking about what happens. The nice lady artist, and Nick set a trap for the bad guy. Nick gets a bit beat up. The Corporation tell the hitman who did the shooting in the fish shop that he crossed the line. ( Something actually did come up while I was watching this again, so I skimmed it. ) That said the material is not engrossing.

The B plot is resolved, by nick slaughter taking Pre Spiders beer, and the saleswoman home 

So my verdict on Tropical Heat. Well it's  not great. It was reasonably distracting, watched with the sound off, while hoping to catch an erotic journey to Minsk on channel 4. Its a pity because they had a nice setting, if they had simply not tried to do a cheap version of Magnum P.I or Moonlighting, they may have made a better show