Viper (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Viper is an action-adventure TV series about a special task force set up by the federal government to fight crime in the fictional city of Metro City, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 that is perpetually under siege from one crime wave after another. The weapon used by this task force is an assault vehicle that masquerades as a Dodge Viper
Dodge Viper
The first prototype was tested in January 1989. It debuted in 1991 with two pre-production models as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 when Dodge was forced to substitute it in place of the Japanese-built Stealth because of complaints from the United Auto Workers, and went on sale in January...

 RT/10 roadster and coupe (later, the ViperGTS replaced the RT/10). The series takes place in "the near future". The primary brand of vehicles driven in the show were Chrysler or subsidiary companies.

The Viper Defender "star car" was designed by Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....

 Corporation engineers (unlike most Hollywood Film/TV cars that are usually customized by film picture designers like George Barris
George Barris (auto customizer)
George Barris is a designer of custom cars.-Early history:George and his brother Sam were born in Chicago in the 1920s. After the deaths of their parents, they moved to Roseville, California as children to live with relatives. Both were good students, interested in drama, music, and design...

). The exterior design of the car was produced by Chrysler stylist Steve Ferrerio.

NBC run

The series originally aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 during the 1993-1994 season, debuting on January 2, 1994 with a two hour pilot movie. After falling ratings, the series was canceled in April 1994.

The music composed for the pilot and opening theme for Season 1 was composed by Eddie Jobson. Jay Ferguson took over the composing for the rest of the seasons as well as composing a remixed theme of the original Season 1 opening and composed the brand new Season 4 Opening Theme from it.

The Dodge Viper RT/10 Roadsters
Dodge Viper
The first prototype was tested in January 1989. It debuted in 1991 with two pre-production models as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 when Dodge was forced to substitute it in place of the Japanese-built Stealth because of complaints from the United Auto Workers, and went on sale in January...

 used in Seasons 1–3 were actually not production models. Instead, Chrysler supplied various left-over engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 mules and prototypes of the Viper (still visually the same). Many other cars in Season 1 were left-over prototypes as well. For example, in the pilot movie, the Eagle Premier
Eagle Premier
The Eagle Premier was a full-size automobile developed by the American Motors Corporation and Renault partnership, inherited by Chrysler Corporation when it acquired AMC in 1987, and marketed from 1987 through 1992...

 sedans with yellow vinyl stripes were drivetrain engineering mules for the LH cars (Dodge Intrepid/Chrysler Concorde).

The special effect "hex snake skin" transformation for the pilot and the first season were done by Metrolight Studios. Tim Claycomb & Tim Eilers took over the transformation sequence after the first season. Sources indicate that it cost $50,000 for each "hex snake skin" transformation scene in the NBC season. It is followed by Vera Viper.

First-run syndication version

After NBC canceled the series, it was revived by Paramount Domestic Television
Paramount Domestic Television
Paramount Domestic Television was the television distribution arm of American television production company Paramount Television, once the TV arm of Paramount Pictures...

 with a complete re-casting/re-tooling of the show for first-run syndication
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 from September 1996 to May 1999. The only actor to return after Season 1 was Joe Nipote in his role as Frankie "X" Waters, and he would remain until the end of the series. Actor James McCaffrey
James McCaffrey
James G. McCaffrey is an American actor.-Biography:McCaffrey was born in Northern Ireland and raised in New York. His first role was for sills models, as a mentally challenged teen, in Bill II: on His Own, the Bill Sackter story. He also played the lead in the first and last seasons of the series...

 would return as the Viper's original driver from Season 1, Joe Astor, during Season 4 in 1998-1999. Actress Heather Medway, who played Det. Cameron Westlake, was the only new cast member from the show's revival to stay on the entire three syndicated seasons (from 1996 to 1999).

Season 2 was filmed predominantly in Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada. The series was then moved for filming in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Canada during Seasons 3 and 4.

The Cobalt Blue Metallic color on the Viper GTS in Season 4 was not an optional color for the production Viper GTS, it was specifically for the show only.

Season 1 (1994)

Metro was under siege from the crime wave that was begun by "The Outfit", a crime group led in the pilot by a man known only as Mr. Townsend (played by William Russ
William Russ
William Russ is an American actor, best known for his role as Alan Matthews on Boy Meets World.-Early life:Russ was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is the son of a naval officer...

), and later led by Lane Cassidy (played by Richard Burgi
Richard Burgi
Richard William Burgi is an American film and television actor. He's best known for the roles of Det. Jim Ellinson on The Sentinel and as Karl Mayer on Desperate Housewives.-Personal life:...

). The Metro Police Department, or MetroPol, was unable to get a handle on the situation. This led to the creation of the Viper Project, a special top secret task force created by the federal government to fight the wave of violence sweeping Metro.

This task force used a modified 1994 Flame Red Dodge Viper
Dodge Viper
The first prototype was tested in January 1989. It debuted in 1991 with two pre-production models as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 when Dodge was forced to substitute it in place of the Japanese-built Stealth because of complaints from the United Auto Workers, and went on sale in January...

 RT/10 Roadster sports car that could, at the flip of a secret switch, transform from a muscle car into an armored machine known as "Defender". The "Defender" was an invention of technological specialist Julian Wilkes (played by Dorian Harewood
Dorian Harewood
W. Dorian Harewood is an American actor. He first garnered attention for his portrayal of Simon Haley in the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations.-Career:...

), who was paralyzed during a shootout between police and criminals. The project was delayed by numerous setbacks, mainly because regular drivers were unable to handle this deadly machine. A precision driver was needed for this car.

Michael Payton (played by James McCaffrey
James McCaffrey
James G. McCaffrey is an American actor.-Biography:McCaffrey was born in Northern Ireland and raised in New York. His first role was for sills models, as a mentally challenged teen, in Bill II: on His Own, the Bill Sackter story. He also played the lead in the first and last seasons of the series...

), a top driver for "The Outfit", was leading his team from their latest heist when he got caught in an accident and was injured. Captured, Payton's memory was erased and he was reborn as Joe Astor, an officer for Metropol. With a bribe to Councilman Strand (played by Jon Polito
Jon Polito
Jon Polito is an American actor and voice artist, who is known for working with the Coen Brothers, most notably in the major supporting role of Italian gangster Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing. He also appeared in the first two seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street and on the first season of...

), the man who approved the Viper Project and orchestrated the erasure of Payton's memory, "The Outfit" discredits the Viper Project, leading to its cancellation. However, Astor and Wilkes, with the help of mechanic Franklin Waters (played by Joe Nipote), steal the Viper and gain access to Payton's bank account, using both in a private war against crime. Astor runs the operation for several months before he is sent to Europe to handle deep cover operations for the U.S. Government, leading to the end of the Viper Team's war on crime.

Season 2 (1996–1997)

Shortly after Astor's departure, Metro was hit by a second crime wave, this time in the form of a team of renegade ex-commandos led by Col. Hanson Dekker (played by Tim Thomerson
Tim Thomerson
Joseph Timothy “Tim” Thomerson is an American actor and comedian.Thomerson is most famous for his role as Jack Deth in the Trancers film series and is renowned for his work in numerous low-budget movies and his comedic television roles.-Early life:Tim Thomerson was born in Coronado, California. He...

), a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer who served combat tours in Iraq, Bosnia and Cuba. It was against this backdrop that Thomas Cole (played by Jeff Kaake), a CIA agent with evasive driving experience, was selected to head a new Viper Team. He was delivering the new Viper to Metro when he was pulled over for speeding by two MetroPol officers, Randy Carpenter (played by Roger R. Cross) and Cameron Westlake (played by Heather Medway). It was during this traffic stop that Dekker and his commandos hit the Metro Bank.

Upon hearing of the bank heist on their radio, Carpenter and Westlake left Cole behind to join their fellow officers at the bank to confront Dekker and company. However, their efforts were unsuccessful. Westlake's partner, Carpenter, died saving her life. Because of the bank heist, the Viper Project was reborn, with a Metropol liaison to ride shotgun. For this assignment, Westlake's superior, Capt. Harold Benning (played by Mike Genovese), promoted her to Detective and sent her to the meeting place, where she found herself meeting Thomas Cole, the very man she and Carpenter pulled over. She also met Waters, the original mechanic from the first Viper Project, and Allie Farrow (played by Dawn Stern
Dawn Stern
Dawn Stern is an American film and television actress; she is also a model.-Early life and education:She was born on a military base near Tokyo, but was raised in O'Fallon, Illinois, where she attended EK and O'Fallon Township High School....

), Viper's systems specialist.

Despite a systems glitch and the kidnapping of Waters by Dekker and his men, the Viper Team defeated them and rescued Waters. Dekker was killed when the International Transtar 4300 big rig he was driving was blown up by the team to keep it from crashing into Metro Hospital. After this victory, the Viper Team carried on its crusade against evil, overcoming such obstacles ranging from interference by Special Agent Sherman Catlett (played by J. Downing
J. Downing
J. Downing is an American actor. He has been married to actress Christina Carlisi since 1990. They have one child together.- Filmography :* The Inside** episode Aidan ... as Lawrence Osterland* Cold Case...

), a by the book bureaucrat from the FBI, to the team being discredited again, this time by Lee Cyrus (played by Dean Wray), Dekker's right hand man ... and the murderer of Westlake's partner, Randy Carpenter.

Cyrus' scheme to discredit the team involved a replica of the Viper in the 'Defender' configuration, which he and his men used to commit vicious crimes, including a murder. This would lead Cole's superior, the Administrator (played by Bruce A. Young
Bruce A. Young
Bruce A. Young is an American television, film, and stage actor who is perhaps best known for his role as Capt. Simon Banks in the UPN science fiction police drama The Sentinel. Young had roles in the films Risky Business, Jurassic Park III, The Color of Money, Basic Instinct, Into Temptation,...

), to shut down the team. In defiance of orders to stand down, the team cleared their name and Westlake avenged Carpenter's death.

Season 3 (1997–1998)

After serving as the team's systems specialist for several months, Allie Farrow was reassigned to another post, which left Waters to take care of the Defender's systems and mechanical needs by himself. During this period, the team had to contend with new enemies, including Lena Weisinger (played by Stephanie Niznik
Stephanie Niznik
Stephanie Lynne Niznik is an American film, television, and theatre actress most famous for her role as Nina Feeney on Everwood.Besides Everwood, Niznik's television roles include guest roles on Dr...

), a former Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...

 agent turned freelance mercenary, who had a personal vendetta against Westlake for killing her lover, Emil Rurik (played by Mike Dopud
Mike Dopud
Mike Dopud is a Canadian-born film actor, television actor, voice actor, stuntman, stage actor and athlete. He is best known for playing Detective Smits in White Noise the 2005 action-horror film, Agent Turner in Alone In The Dark a 2005 action-horror film, playing Vic Hadfield in the Canadian...

), during a shootout.

However, after years of successful operation, the team suffered a tragic loss ... not of one of their people, but the car. A notorious criminal named Giles Seaton (played by Peter Wingfield
Peter Wingfield
Peter Wingfield is a Welsh born television actor, well known for his television roles as Dan Clifford in Holby City, Dr. Robert Helm in Queen of Swords and Inspector Simon Ross in Cold Squad...

) concocted a plot to steal the Defender by using a criminal named Terry Hawkes (Jeff Kaake in a dual role), who was turned into a Thomas Cole look-alike with plastic surgery. As Cole, Hawkes successfully penetrated the team's headquarters and, despite being exposed by the real Cole, made off with the Viper. To prevent Hawkes from escaping, the team blew up the Viper, keeping its secrets from falling into enemy hands.

Season 4 (1998–1999)

In the aftermath of the Viper's destruction, Cole was permanently reassigned to undercover work on other fronts. With the team gone, Metro was again gripped by an enormous crime wave, forcing the feds to restart the Viper Team a third time. This time, the car they used was a 1996 Cobalt Blue Metallic Dodge Viper GTS Coupe, which, thanks to Wilkes, had the equipment of the original Defender, along with some new equipment, most notably the hovercraft mode. Since Cole had been reassigned, Joe Astor, the original driver, was called back to service. However, Astor would be haunted by his old Payton identity once more.

Cast and characters

  • James McCaffrey
    James McCaffrey
    James G. McCaffrey is an American actor.-Biography:McCaffrey was born in Northern Ireland and raised in New York. His first role was for sills models, as a mentally challenged teen, in Bill II: on His Own, the Bill Sackter story. He also played the lead in the first and last seasons of the series...

     as Joseph "Joe" Payne Astor
  • Joe Nipote as Frankie Xavier Waters
  • Dorian Harewood
    Dorian Harewood
    W. Dorian Harewood is an American actor. He first garnered attention for his portrayal of Simon Haley in the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations.-Career:...

     as Julian Wilkes
  • Jeff Kaake as Thomas Cole
  • Heather Medway as Cameron Westlake
  • J. Downing
    J. Downing
    J. Downing is an American actor. He has been married to actress Christina Carlisi since 1990. They have one child together.- Filmography :* The Inside** episode Aidan ... as Lawrence Osterland* Cold Case...

     as Agent Sherman Catlett
  • Dawn Stern
    Dawn Stern
    Dawn Stern is an American film and television actress; she is also a model.-Early life and education:She was born on a military base near Tokyo, but was raised in O'Fallon, Illinois, where she attended EK and O'Fallon Township High School....

     as Allie Farrow

Vehicle Features

Introduced in Season 1
  1. 4WD Mode
  2. Hologram Projector (deployed from roof)
  3. Probe (deployed from rear hatch)
  4. Retractable battering rams
  5. Retractable twin weapons pods (deployed from just below each car door) each with a "Static Pulse" (EMP) emitter, missiles / rockets, and a harpoon / tow cable / grapple hook launcher
  6. Armor plating
  7. Steering wheel controls
  8. Rear grapple hook launcher


Introduced in Season 2
  1. Turbine Booster
  2. Voice amplifier
  3. Rear mounted .50 caliber machine gun (replaces rear grapple hook from Season 1)

(Added to the weapons pods)
  1. Twin 7.62 mm machine guns
  2. Twin Stinger missile launchers
  3. Twin high-powered lasers


Introduced in Season 3
  1. Bolo / net launcher
  2. Flamethrower


Introduced in Season 4:
  1. Hovercraft mode
  2. Torpedo launchers (deployed from front fenders in Hovercraft Mode only)
  3. Manual overdrive (never used)
  4. Traction control (never used)
  5. Rear mounted bomb launcher (only seen in one episode)
  6. Cloaking device (only used in two episodes)

DVD releases

The first season of Viper was released on German-language DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in Europe in early 2011. The pilot movie and all 12 episode
Episode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...

s are included in the Region 2 PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

 Release.

No plans have been announced for distribution
Film distributor
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...

 in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. However, there is a large cult following of the series on the Internet, and a campaign was launched in 2008 to bring Viper to DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in the USA, by registering and voting at TVShowsOnDVD. The website now lists the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 season at the 49th mark and the syndicated seasons at the 58th mark of "Most Requested Unreleased Shows."

External links

  • http://www.projectviper.com/home.php - The Fan Website
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK