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Midnight Caller
1988 - 1991 7.5 (21 votes) 3 Seasons
Genres
Drama
Networks
NBC
Created By
Richard Di Lello

Midnight Caller

Good night America, wherever you are.

Overview

An ex-cop hosts a late-night talk radio program while getting involved with his listeners' problems in his off-time.

Top Cast

Gary Cole
Gary Cole

Jack 'Nighthawk' Killian

Wendy Kilbourne
Wendy Kilbourne

Devon King

Lisa Eilbacher
Lisa Eilbacher

Nicky Molloy

Dennis Dun
Dennis Dun

Billy Po

Mykelti Williamson
Mykelti Williamson

Deacon Bridges

Arthur Taxier
Arthur Taxier

Lt. Carl Zymak

Seasons

Season 1 poster
Season 1 (1988)

No overview available.

17 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Conversations with an Assassin
1988-10-25

Jack Killian retires from the San Francisco Police Department after accidentally shooting his partner, Rusty, in a crossfire situation. He's drawn back to the world of the living by an offer to be a late night talk radio host. A serial killer begins calling Jack, explaining the assassinations and Jack's inadvertently pulled back into the crime fighting world.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 2: Twelve Gauge
1988-12-06

Jack receives a phone call from a kidnapper who informs Jack that he has taken a suspected murderer into his personal custody so he won't hurt any more women. He continues to use Jack's show as a forum for his demands. A supposed suicide is revealed to be an elaborate murder cover up.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 3: After It Happened
1988-12-13

"After It Happened" is a 1988 episode of the NBC television series Midnight Caller. The controversial episode tells the story of a bisexual man who is deliberately infecting people, including series lead character Jack Killian's ex-girlfriend, with HIV. AIDS and LGBT rights activists disrupted filming, citing concerns over the negative portrayal of bisexual and HIV-positive people and fears that the show would make people with AIDS the targets of violence. Series executives made some changes to the script in response to these concerns, but activists were still displeased. "After It Happened" performed well in the ratings but received a mixed critical response. Actress Kay Lenz received an Emmy Award for her guest-starring role as Killian's ex-girlfriend Tina. NBC aired a follow-up episode in 1989 in which Tina is near death. This second script, "Someone to Love", was written in consultation with some of the groups that protested "After It Happened" and was much more favorably received.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 4: Payback
1988-12-20

A female friend of Jack's from the police force is wounded in the line of duty and her partner killed. They seek comfort in each other's arms to grieve the deaths of their partners. Jack finds himself in the crossfire of the mob hit man trying to silence the only witness to the crime.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 5: Bank Job
1989-01-03

As Jack's luck would have it, he goes into a bank to cash a cheque and finds himself a hostage in a bank robbery. The media and the police wait out the negotiations, all with a personal interest in Jack's well-being.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 6: The Execution of John Saringo
1989-01-10

Jack, Devon and Billy are forced to examine their belief in capital punishment when they are invited to broadcast the final hours of a death row inmate's life.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 7: But Not for Me
1989-01-17

Jack receives a phone call from a kidnapper who informs Jack that he has taken a suspected murderer into his personal custody so he won't hurt any more women. He continues to use Jack's show as a forum for his demands. A supposed suicide is revealed to be an elaborate murder cover up.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 8: Trash Radio
1989-01-31

Jack finds himself being raked over the coals by a jealous competitor who has insider information on an Internal Affairs investigation, which found Jack not guilty of the charges.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 9: No Exit
1989-02-07

A young runaway, forced into prostitution, turns to Jack via his radio show for assistance in breaking away from her pimp who is involved in the white slavery market.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 10: Fathers and Sins
1989-02-14

A man claiming to be Jack's father shows up and Jack is not exactly warming up to him. And Devon finally has it out with her father which doesn't end well.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 11: Blame It on Midnight
1989-02-21

Jack meets a night club singer, dates her and falls hard for her. She warns him of her ex-husband who's not willing to let her go. The man even attacks Jack with a knife in a bar. Later the man is killed and Jack is the prime suspect.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 12: Promise to a Dead Man
1989-03-07

Jack gets involved with a retired cop's search for the man who killed his partner years ago. And it seems that Devon's father was a person of interest.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 13: The Fall
1989-03-28

Jack is drawn back to the neighborhood he worked in as a patrolman in response to a mother's plea to help her drug-addicted son.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 14: Ethan's Call
1989-04-04

Jack continues to be haunted by the night of Rusty's death. This time he has to help out Rusty's son, Ethan, who has run away from home and calls Jack to tell him so.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 15: Baby Chase
1989-04-11

Assisting an ill man on the street, a young doctor is faced with every mother's nightmare when her infant daughter is abducted by a young woman whose grasp on reality is failing. Jack uses the show as a forum to track down the kidnapped child, who, on top of everything, is desperately ill and will die without her medication.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 16: Wait Until Midnight
1989-05-02

One of Jack's regular callers ""witnesses"" a murder in her apartment building while talking to Jack on the phone. She isn't believed by the authorities because she is blind and there is no evidence that a crime has been committed.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 17: Blues for Mr. Charlie
1989-05-09

The season finale deals with the issue of gun control, and a citizen's right to bear arms. A neighborhood convenience store owner misinterprets Jack's caution to protect himself, ends up killing a man and places partial blame on Jack for the idea.

Runtime: 60 min
Season 2 poster
Season 2 (1989)

No overview available.

22 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Tarnished Shield
1989-09-19

Jack's mentor on the police force is reunited with him under horrific circumstances. His policeman son-in-law commits suicide after calling Jack's show. Jack finds himself involved in a convoluted plot of understanding why, which has him questioning the ethics of some fellow officers.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 2: Evil is Live Spelled Backward (1)
1989-09-26

Jack's show is plagued by a series of on-air murders and locations of dead bodies. Jack's intuition tells him it's a serial killer but he has a hard time convincing Lieutenant Zymak.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 3: Evil is Live Spelled Backward (2)
1989-10-03

When Devon becomes a kidnap victim of the call-in killer, Zymak and Jack work together to discover that the crimes are a twisted vendetta against Jack and KJCM.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 4: Mercy Me
1989-10-24

In an effort to help his friend whose son is being kept alive by life support, Jack showcases the issue of euthanasia on his show.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 5: Watching Me, Watching You
1989-10-31

Devon is stalked by a man who targets her during a traffic jam. She and Jack are forced into a situation that causes them to contemplate moving their relationship from platonic to something more.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 6: Take Back the Streets
1989-11-07

The drug trade hits too close to home for a San Francisco neighborhood. Their personal war on crime becomes the focus of Jack's show.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 7: Someone to Love
1989-11-14

Jack receives a call from a hospice. Tina Cassidy's battle with AIDS is near the end. As Jack goes to her, he reflects on their time together.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 8: End of Innocence
1989-11-28

A woman chooses imprisonment versus revealing the location of her daughter to her ex-husband. The young child is supposedly a victim of sexual abuse while her legal eagle parents sort through their own personality flaws. Jack becomes a link in the chain of lies and law-bending for the sake of the child.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 9: Blood Red
1989-12-05

Deacon's girlfriend, Susan, seeks Jack's assistance in dealing with her gambling debts. As Jack investigates outside of the official channels, he uncovers an art forgery ring that has Susan in the middle of it.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 22: Blame It on Midnight

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 10: Do You Believe in Miracles?
1989-12-19

A blessed statue of the baby Jesus is stolen from St. Michael's Cathedral. Jack uses his show to find out clues to its whereabouts and to prevent the mob family who donated the statue from exacting their own form of penance on the perpetrator.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 11: Based on a True Story
1990-01-16

The devastating San Francisco earthquake is re-enacted as Jack and Billy help citizens connect with loved ones via the radio waves, Devon has a close encounter, and Zymak and his family re-unite under tense circumstances.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 12: Planes
1990-01-23

An abandoned young boy seeks refuge within a modern day band of street thieves with similarities to the Charles Dickens classic, Oliver Twist.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 13: Kid Salinas
1990-02-06

The exploitation of illegal immigrants in the work force and the sporting world is the premise for this episode. Jack introduces Devon to the world of boxing. Unfortunately, this leads to the more unpleasant side of things...

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 14: A Snitch in Time (1)
1990-02-20

Jack borrows Devon's car, unfortunately a young woman is killed by a hit and run driver matching Devon's car and Jack's description. The victim turns out to be the daughter of an influential retired lawyer, who wants retribution. Jack is hauled in for questioning, and becomes the pawn in a jewelry thief's deal for release.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 15: A Snitch in Time (2)
1990-02-27

Things are looking tense for Jack, when he and Deacon sit down to figure out the tangled web of lies and deceit to which he has fallen victim.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 16: The Reverend Soundbite
1990-03-06

Gang violence and police retaliation are the focal point for this episode. Zymak, accused of police brutality, is unable to come clean with his whereabouts as his marriage is disintegrating.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 17: Wrong Side of the Wall
1990-03-27

A long time prisoner of the correctional system is paroled, and he finds the real world too difficult to manage. Jack tries to dissuade him from breaking his parole just to get back into the system he knows so well.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 18: Three for the Money
1990-04-03

We don't see much of Jack in the episode, as his brother and his father hook up for the first time in years to help a damsel in distress retrieve a valuable artifact. (This was the premise for a spinoff show that didn't make it off the ground.)

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 19: Protection
1990-04-17

One of Jack's informants from his police force days seeks his assistance when his witness protection status is jeopardized. Jack is drawn into a government conspiracy that reaches to high office and global proportion.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 20: The Hostage Game
1990-05-01

Jack's friend from childhood is too close to the hostage situations around the world; his brother is one of many on a hijacked plane. In retaliation, he kidnaps an official from the country claiming responsibility. He keeps regular contact with Jack via the radio show, alluding to his location.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 21: Nighthawk's Got the Blues
1990-05-15

As the second season ends, Killian's behavior is definitely out of the ordinary... he can't seem to care about anything. A heart-to-heart intervention with Deacon and Zymak reveals that Jack is mourning Tina as her birthday approaches, but Devon needs him back to normal, for other reasons.

Runtime: 60 min
Season 3 poster
Season 3 (1990)

No overview available.

23 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: The Class of 1980
1990-09-28

A very pregnant Devon hosts a fundraiser with Jack as the object of the bachelor auction. Her college classmates attend; however, one by one, they fall victim to a murderer. Jack, Zymak and Deacon all work the angles of this case, with the evidence pointing firmly at Jack's new girlfriend.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 2: The Language Barrier
1990-10-05

Our man Billy Po is featured in this episode of racial tensions that are spawned in Little Italy. Billy is attacked after a date with his girlfriend, which leads Jack into an investigation of the death of a young Chinese immigrant.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 3: Old Friends
1990-10-12

The sudden death of Jack's surrogate father leads Jack and Deacon to investigate the policies of the nursing home in which he was residing. It turns out that once people move in, their stay is usually quite short.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 4: Ain't Too Proud to Beg (1)
1990-10-19

Jack is offered a new job, which he considers as Devon prepares to sell KJCM and move to Tahiti with the father of her child. We are introduced to Nikki Malloy in this episode and the prospective new owners of KJCM. Jack and Devon deal with their imminent separation by arguing with each other every chance they can get.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 5: Sale Away (2)
1990-10-26

Devon struggles with the sale of KJCM, wanting to ensure that her employees are well taken care of. She and Jack continue to lock horns, until push comes to shove in the delivery room! Jack has to decide whether to stay on at KJCM or move on to greener pastures.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 6: Life Without Possibility (1)
1990-11-02

Nikki shows who's the new boss by insisting Jack cover a prison riot near San Francisco. Jack arrives at the prison and becomes part of a chosen delegation to go inside and witness the atrocities the convicts are rebelling against. Unknowingly, Jack becomes the target of one of the inmates, who has a personal score to settle.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 7: Life Without Possibility (2)
1990-11-09

The convicts demand Jack broadcast their side of the story via KJCM, Deacon gets an interview with the prisoner on the outside, and Jack meets up with the prisoner with a bone to pick.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 8: Ryder on the Storm
1990-11-16

Jack tries to help out his radio hero from his youth by trying to convince Nikki to give him a job. Jack seems blind to the man's obvious faults and self-destructive actions.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 9: Home to Roost
1990-12-07

A child of the Vietnam war, whose father was a U.S. serviceman, instigates a hostage situation into which Jack is drawn.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 10: With Malice Towards One
1990-12-14

Jack tells Nikki about a situation he and Devon were trapped in a year ago, in which a vengeful ex-con and his gang kidnapped Devon in order to lure Jack to a payback situation.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 11: That's Amoré
1991-01-04

Jack's associate in the underworld seeks his assistance in locating his restaurant's kidnapped chef. The story turns out to be of a personal nature between the kidnapper and his hostage.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 12: Her Dirty Little Secret
1991-01-25

Jack recognizes a woman who has been missing for years and in his pursuit of her he uncovers that she intentionally disappeared to avoid beatings from cop husband.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 13: Uninvited Guests
1991-02-01

When Zymak's relationship with an immigration officer seems to be clouding his judgment in a murder investigation, Jack becomes involved at the request of one of the deceased person's relatives.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 14: Play Blotto... and Die
1991-02-08

A former snitch seeks Jack's help in collecting his lotto winnings. He's in the witness protection program, and he's not a very popular citizen in San Francisco! When Jack isn't successful, the would-be millionaire approaches various familiar faces to attempt to retrieve the prize.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 15: Can't Say N-N-No
1991-02-15

Jack and Nikki's tenuous friendship is tested when he questions her involvement with an ex-boyfriend, who has a substance abuse problem.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 16: Blood Ties
1991-03-01

Jack struggles with his opinion of deadbeat dads and with giving his ""Little Brother"" a positive start with his father who is making an effort to reform himself.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 17: The Added Starter
1991-04-05

A frequent caller to the show witnesses a murder; however no one believes her because the crime scene is cleaned up before the cops get there. She turns to Jack for help, protection, and comfort.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 18: The Loneliest Number
1991-04-12

Jack's troubled young sister shows up on his doorstep. She and Deacon become emotionally involved and Jack struggles with the relationship.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 19: A Cry in the Night
1991-04-19

KJCM's security guard is charged with murdering his son. Jack gets involved because the guard is suing KJCM for the advice he claims he received from Jack in how to deal with the drug problem in his family.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 20: The Leopard
1991-04-26

Jack and Nikki find themselves as proxies in a poker game; Jack's father's life is at stake.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 21: City of Lost Souls (1)
1991-05-03

The Castlemans are pressuring KJCM to take a stand in the upcoming election, Jack is greeted by his supposed daughter, and his high school friend is murdered.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 22: City of Lost Souls (2)
1991-05-10

Jack pursues the death of his friend, who had been homeless for many years. In his search for answers to Sonny's death he goes undercover on the streets and meets up with the hierarchy of the street dwellers. Jack's pursuits may cost him his job, as a young upstart in the Castleman dynasty covers his show without a problem.

Runtime: 60 min
Episode 23: City of Lost Souls (3)
1991-05-10

Closing in on the answers to Sonny's death leads to connections to the candidates and the issue of the homeless, which in turn causes Jack to become the target of an assassin.

Runtime: 60 min

Videos

"Midnight Caller" TV Intro

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