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It's almost a cliche to say that something was "ahead of its time", but I think it's actually true of UNSUB, an NBC crime drama that aired only eight times before its quick cancellation in the spring of 1989. The best way to describe UNSUB quickly is that it was C.S.I. meets MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE with more humor. If this show had debuted a couple of seasons ago, it would fit it nicely with the networks' steady stream of plot-oriented cop shows that focus on bloody crime scenes and up-to-date technology over characterization.

Stephen J. Cannell was the executive producer of UNSUB, which is a bit of a surprise, considering it's not very much like a typical Cannell series. His biggest hits, like THE A-TEAM, THE ROCKFORD FILES and THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, were nearly as much comedy as drama and relied on a talented light cast to yuk its way through fluffy plots. UNSUB was quite different, a dark police procedural about a special branch of the Justice Department that jetted all over the United States investigating serial killings. Michael Mann's film MANHUNTER was clearly a major inspiration for the series. I think MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE may have been too, since a typical episode opens with the characters, each of whom a specialist in some arcane crime-fighting procedure, sitting around the table being briefed by their boss before traveling cross-country to start the case.

David Soul, who spent much of the 1980's on NBC starring in CASABLANCA, THE YELLOW ROSE and IN THE LINE OF DUTY: THE F.B.I. MURDERS, starred as John Westley Grayson, "Westy" to his friends. Like C.S.I.'s William Petersen, Soul was an experienced actor (best known as one-half of STARSKY & HUTCH) with enough gravitas to believably head up an elite crimefighting unit. Other cast members included Kent McCord, another longtime TV star from ADAM-12, as a forensics expert who was a whiz with a microscope; the great character actor M. Emmet Walsh as the crusty, old-school ex-cop; Joe Maruzzo as the profiler; Jennifer Hetrick as the psychologist; and Richard Kind, later a familiar face from SPIN CITY.

Like C.S.I., which premiered over a decade later, UNSUB focused on bizarre killers with deep psychological problems. But unlike the more recent program, UNSUB stuck to just one case per episode and did a better job of letting its actors breathe, finding a scene or two occasionally to allow them to develop their characters, unlike the all-work caricatures in Petersen's troop.

Their best episode was a two-parter titled "And the Dead Shall Rise to Condemn Thee", which found the UNSUB cast investigating the disappearance of two young black women who were last seen in the company of a charismatic black preacher, played by the late Jason Bernard, one of those actors you immediately recognize from dozens of films and TV shows. Soul's Westy, the son of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, had to confront his own rough childhood and religious guilt in his quest to prove Bernard's guilt in two murders.

An earlier episode, "Clean Slate", guest-starred a young Kevin Spacey in a dual role: an obsessive-complusive bomber and his twin brother, dying of cancer. An accidental bonus for C.S.I. fans is a guest shot in the first episode by Paul Guilfoyle, who plays Captain Brass on the CBS series, as a mother-dominated killer.

Since only eight episodes appear to have been filmed, UNSUB was never syndicated and is unlikely to be released on DVD. I believe Cannell owns the rights to UNSUB, so the ball is in his court. I suppose if there's an audience for DVD box sets of THE COMMISH and SILK STALKINGS, there might be one for UNSUB, the original Crime Scene Investigators.