I rarely watched this series as a kid because to me the name "Wojeck" had a particularly sinister ring to it. Also, Steve Wojeck's pockmarked face and anti-heroic ways trashed all my preconceptions of a good guy. Of course, I should have realized by the show's occasional set of bare breasts that Wojeck was not a program created for kids, but for adults.
When "Showcase" (a Canadian cable network) repeated the series in black and white in 2002, it finally caught my attention. This series ran with any scenes exhibiting bare breasts cropped out, presumably so it could be syndicated for mass consumption in the United States. John Vernon fit the role perfectly and it launched him to a prolific and versatile career as a character actor in Hollywood. Perhaps a bit trite to say, but I truly think this was the most important Canadian-made television series and without a doubt, their best.
The later American series Quincy seemed to be a complete ripoff of Wojeck, but didn't come close to approaching it as a work of cinematic art. As a kid, I always thought Americans must have tried to bank on the greatness of this Canadian series with drama series by the names "Banacek", "Kolchak" and "Kojak". Suddenly, TV heroes had sinister-sounding names and weren't following the traditional path of a good guy. It occurs to me these many years later the similarities were coincidental, but what the heck - fun to ponder.
Okay, so I was a bit wacko as a kid, but my family let me grow up anyway.
