This 4-Season Military Series That Blends ‘Top Gun’ With ‘Mission: Impossible’ Is Ready for a Reboot

Airwolf debuted in 1984, one of two series to feature an advanced helicopter after the success of 1983 movie Blue Thunder. The TV spin-off of the film was the second, but was cancelled after only 11 episodes. Airwolf, however, lasted 4 seasons, a much sleeker, cooler looking copter (like Knight Rider‘s K.I.T.T. with rotor blades), than the one in Blue Thunder that looked like a flying Tesla truck. It made a star of hunky lead Jan-Michael Vincent, and marked Hollywood icon Ernest Borgnine‘s return to a regular TV series, with 1962’s McHale’s Navy his last successful run prior. It blended Top Gun with Mission: Impossible, and it deserves a reboot.

The Action Series ‘Airwolf’ Starts Strong

Airwolf debuted in a television landscape laden with action series with some kick-ass rides, including The A-Team‘s GMC Vandura, The Dukes of Hazzard‘s orange Dodge Charger and The Fall Guy‘s GMC Sierra, to name a few. The sleek supersonic helicopter, with a healthy arsenal and stealth technology to boot, fit right in. In a storyline that crosses the first two episodes of the series (later released together as Airwolf: The Movie), the prototype Airwolf copter is designed by a psychopathic genius by the name of Charles Henry Moffet (David Hemmings), and built by a division of the CIA called “the Firm.” (How many more Tom Cruise references can we fit in?) During a live-fire weapons test, Moffett steals the copter and opens fire on the Firm’s bunker, taking the life of a U.S. Senator and very nearly the deputy director of the Firm, Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III, aka Archangel (Alex Cord), and then commits further atrocities on behalf of Muammar Gaddafi, in exchange for sanctuary in Libya.

Archangel brings in Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent), a former test pilot who worked with Airwolf during development, in an effort to retrieve the supercopter. With the help of Archangel’s assistant Gabrielle Ademaur (Belinda Bauer) and fellow pilot – and father figure – Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine), Hawke locates Airwolf and reclaims it, but too late to save Ademaur, who was taken by Moffet, tortured, and killed. A vengeful Hawke obliterates Moffet with Airwolf‘s arsenal, and only then does he return the gunship to America… but not directly to the Firm. Instead, Hawke and Santini hide Airwolf in a remote location, refusing to return it until the Firm finds and recovers his brother, St. John (Christopher Connelly), missing in action during the Vietnam War. Archangel agrees, and in return for searching for Hawke’s brother and preventing other government agencies from recovering Airwolf, Hawke and Santini take on missions of national importance on behalf of the Firm.

Airwolf may have shared the gnarly vehicle aspect of its action peers, but that’s largely all it had in common. Airwolf was a darker series, with an emotional depth and maturity that its kin lacked. Storylines were interesting with that international espionage angle, and more intelligent. The Firm’s ambiguous nature — partner at one moment, adversary at the next — added an underlying tension to the proceedings. The dynamic between Vincent’s morose hero and Borgnine’s good-natured sidekick worked, and the series’ opening credits, with shots of Airwolf swooping in from the clouds among explosions galore to the tune of its electrifying theme, set the tone for each episode.

‘Airwolf’ Ended in Tragedy, but Now’s the Perfect Time for a Reboot

In an effort to improve ratings after that first season, the studio changed course, giving the series a lighter, more “friendly” vibe, bringing in a female character, Caitlin O’Shannessy (Jean Bruce Scott), and moved toward storylines that stayed stateside. The stunning aerial photography, so integral to its success, was cut back, with scenes from the first season reused. The series remained popular, but issues behind the scenes escalated when a helicopter crash during filming in 1985 took the life of 22-year-old stuntperson, Reid Rondell.

Then, Vincent’s off-screen struggles with alcohol and drugs, plus claims of spousal abuse, took their toll on the charismatic actor, and his acting in the series varied wildly as a result. The nail in the coffin came with shuffling the series to the USA Network for its fourth season, cutting production costs from $1.2 million per episode to a stunningly low $400,000, and moving the shooting to Canada. The helicopter scenes were now almost exclusively from past episodes, “the Firm” was now “the Company,” and a whole new cast was brought in. Airwolf was mercifully shuttered in 1987 as a cheap, weak shadow of its former self.

But now is the perfect time to take Airwolf out of the hangar and let it fly again. With advanced CGI, the flight scenes the series needs to be successful are far less expensive and dangerous. Viewers have become more discerning, and TV as a medium has grown with that, so an action show with real depth, as in its first season, would give Airwolf an advantage. While the original leaned on the Cold War for its storylines, the international stage today isn’t all that far removed from those days anymore, so expanding the Airwolf scope beyond America’s borders again would be warmly received. With the right people involved, an Airwolf reboot would be truly successful, and certainly not Risky Business (one more Cruise reference, under the wire).

Release Date

1984 – 1986-00-00

Directors

Ken Jubenvill, Virgil W. Vogel, Alan J. Levi, Sutton Roley, Harvey S. Laidman, Bernard L. Kowalski, Brad Turner, Patrick Corbett, Alan Simmonds, Bernard McEveety, Bruce Pittman, Daniel Haller, David Hemmings, Don Medford, Donald A. Baer, Georg Fenady, J. Barry Herron, Ray Austin, Tom Blank, Alan Cooke, Bruce Seth Green, Dennis Donnelly, Don Chaffey, Donald P. Bellisario

Writers

Burton Armus, Chester Krumholz, Michael Mercer, T.S. Cook, Alfonse Ruggiero, Rick Kelbaugh, B.W. Sandefur, Chris Haddock, Edward J. Lakso, Nicholas Corea, Rick Drew, Robert Specht, Calvin Clements Jr., Robert Janes, Lyal Brown, Michael Halperin, Jana Veverka, Christopher Crowe, Clyde Ware, David Westheimer, Deborah Pratt, Joseph Gunn, Katharyn Powers, Robert Blees

Cast

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  Jan-Michael Vincent

  Stringfellow Hawke

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  Ernest Borgnine

  Dominic Santini

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  Alex Cord

  Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III

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  Jean Bruce Scott

  Caitlin O’Shannessy