Viewers Voice, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.  Contributions received from individuals, foundations and corporations are tax-deductible.  If you wish to support the work of Viewers Voice send donations to:

Viewers Voice, Inc.,

P.O. Box 27758

West Allis, WI  53227-0758

Please make checks payable to Viewers Voice, Inc.

Or

You can use PayPal, just click on the logo below.

Coming Soon !!!!

Watch for Viewers Voice ebay items

If you have cable, and there’s not many viewers this day and age that don’t, you may have watched a show called “WANTED” on TNT on Monday nights. It’s a cop series that is very gritty, yet funny and sometimes a little weird and excellent television entertainment. I’m usually not a big fan of cop shows but this one really held my interest and was fun to watch. The language is a little rough and is definitely not a show for kids, but is great adult viewing. If you were a Miami Vice fan “WANTED” may just be what you’re looking for. Unfortunately the show is waiting to hear if it will be picked up for future episodes. In my mind there shouldn’t be any doubt, the ratings were picking up as people started to become aware it was on the air. Right now it’s a waiting game to see if TNT is smart enough to pick it up.

Jorge Zamacona (Oz and Homicide: Life on the Streets), a Wisconsin boy, is the creator and executive producer along with Aaron Spelling. Gary Cole (West Wing, Office Space) plays Lt. Conrad Rose, who leads a team of specialists and Lee Tergesen (Wayne’s World, Oz) as Eddie Drake, Rose’s foul-tempered sidekick.

Recently on my Viewers Voice TV Show I interviewed on the phone from L.A., Lee Tergesen. Lee was born in Ivoryton, Connecticut on July 8, 1965. Lee has appeared in many films and has done twenty seven notable television guest appearances. He is best known for his role as Tobias Beecher on the HBO series OZ. I found him to be a fun and interesting person to interview.

Sharon: This show WANTED I am just so impressed with because it gives such an accurate look at what police work really is all about without sugar coating it. Could you give us a little background on the character you portray, Eddie Drake?

Tergesen: Yea, well my character Eddie Drake is a US Marshall, and he was sort of under suspension because of a shooting he was involved in where he was hunting someone down and the warning shot hit the guy in the face. So Gary Cole’s character comes to him to join this future task force that he’s a head of after one of the guys on the team dies. It’s a team made up of different branches someone from ATF, someone from the FBI, someone from SWAT, someone from Naval Intelligence and someone form L. A. P. D... he was my training officer at the police academy and he and I have a little bit of tension between us because of you know things that went on ten, fifteen years ago.

Sharon: You know what I like about the show too is it has this touch of humor to it that really makes it fun to watch, especially your character or am I just reading something into Eddie Drake that shouldn’t be there.

Tergesen: No. When I came on to the show I saw the pilot cause when they made the pilot I wasn’t available for the show. A guy dies in the pilot and I come in the second episode and when I saw the pilot I saw that the show needed to have some humor, you know. No matter what anybody does for a living, no matter how serious it is, the funeral director is at times cracking jokes. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing you’re still finding time for humor or whatever emotions that is normal for everybody so for it to be so hard edged and always dark and brooding, I just thought that it would be nice and I think Jorge (Zamacona) felt the same way he started to write it more like that way too.

Sharon: Right, it adds an interesting touch to the story line, I like it. Did you have to do a lot of research and training for this particular part?

Tergesen: I did a good amount of research and stuff, I did some drive a rounds with some of our tech advisiors and I did a lot of shooting of guns and stuff like that which I’ve never done before. That was the first time I ever picked up a real gun and now I’ve shot everything. I’ve shot a bunch of different kind of hand guns and machine guns and shot guns…it’s pretty intense.

Sharon: Give your opinion on how WANTED differs from other cop shows?

Tergesen: What I like about it is definitely the humor; I think it is something that is different. In a way I think it’s sort of a throw back. There’s so much procedural kind of, you know, like DNA all those C.S.I. and all those other shows, which are good shows but there’s so much of that. WANTED is an old style type of show, we’re going to hunt the bad guy down, we’re going to beat them up and then you know go get a beer.

Sharon: You have an advantage being on TNT because a lot of the broadcast networks don’t give shows much of a chance to develop.

Tergesen: Right, I agree and I think also we have really been developing our audience as time has gone on and when you look at what has happened with the ratings it seems to be spreading word of mouth. I was back in New York and I ran into a guy who was a retired police officer and said Oh My God I love that show, when my wife and I aren’t home we tape it.

Sharon: Tell us a little bit about yourself? We’ve been looking over your bio and there are pages of things you have done in films and on TV. Is this something you always wanted to do, be an actor?

Tergesen: It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. About five or six years ago I had my fifteen year high school reunion and one of the guys who I sat next to in second grade, right, said he had seen this movie Wayne’s World that I was in back in the early 90’s, it was one of the first things I did. “He said he went to the movies not knowing I was in it and all of a sudden when he saw me he remembers that when we were in second grade the teacher had everybody say what you want to be when you grow up and every body else was saying like fire chief and cowboy and I was sitting next to you and I turned to you and you said I want to be an actor. Like twenty years later I’m looking up at you on this screen.” It’s weird. It’s always been my dream, I don’t know what else I would do and I’m really fortunate that I get to do it.

It may be weird but we as viewers are fortunate to be able to enjoy his talent. Lee Tergesen is great in WANTED and if you haven’t seen the show watch for it on TNT because they would have to be crazy not to pick this quality series up.

Watch for my next few columns from our conference out in Los Angeles; our trips to the sets of 7^th Heaven, Medium and Arrested development. Also I did an exclusive interview with Sharon Gless (Cagney and Lacey) and she discusses her new series on NBC’s, Thick and Thin which will air in March. Until then let your voice be heard.