They may be jailbirds, but they’re still “Players.”
Three convicts put their special skills to use for the FBI in the new adventure series premiering at 7 p.m. Friday on NBC-Ch. 5. Rap music’s Ice-T, Costas Mandylor (“Picket Fences”) and Frank John Hughes portray felons paroled to gather evidence and set up “stings” against criminals who have evaded federal agents.
While they have wide access to information through their talents and connections, the “players” know they can’t be caught breaking the law again, or they’ll have to finish their original sentences. Mia Korf co-stars as the FBI operative they report to, after the murder of their original boss in the pilot episode; Dick Wolf, the mentor of the Emmy-winning “Law & Order,” is executive producer.
Ice-T has given “Players” a light touch as one of its creators, along with Wolf and actor-turned-producer Shaun Cassidy (“Roar”), and he explains that he worked on the initial draft of the first story. “One day,” he recalls, “I got a phone call: `We have a new script-writer, and he’s going to come by your house. His name is Shaun Cassidy.’ I didn’t expect THE Shaun Cassidy, so I open the door, and I’m like, `Oh, man!’
“I’m buggin,’ so he comes and sits down in my house. Meanwhile, I told my girlfriend, and she called her sister. He sat back and told me he wrote `American Gothic,’ and he started reading my script and changing things, then he left. He helped put this together.”
Though Ice-T isn’t writing any of the final “Players” scripts, he says, “I have input. I’m able to suggest some of the scams and some of the dialogue here and there. Any time something comes to mind that I think would work in the show, I can go to the writers with it and they figure out ways to put it in.”
The “Players” debut was filmed on location in New York City, but the setting will shift to Los Angeles the second week. Wolf defends the move by comparing the series to his other current shows: “It is not `Law & Order,’ and it is not `New York Undercover’ (which is expected to return to Fox at mid-season). It is not gritty, and it is meant to be a very inviting place to visit every Friday night. It just lends itself to a brighter, more entertaining look (than that of) the streets of New York in the winter.”
