List of Spenser: For Hire episodes

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Spenser: For Hire ran for three seasons, from 1985 to 1988. After that, four made-for-TV movies followed (1993–1995), all starring Robert Urich and Avery Brooks. The two-hour pilot movie adapted Promised Land, the fourth Spenser novel.

In the early 1990s, Urich and Brooks reunited for four TV movies produced for Lifetime. The films were based on four of Parker’s novels. Parker and his wife Joan co-wrote the first two screenplays, and the movies kept to the spirit of the series.

To cut production costs, Susan Silverman was recast: Barbara Stock was replaced in the first two movies by Barbara Williams, and in the remaining two by Wendy Crewson. Frank Belson was played by J. Winston Carroll. Parker’s son Daniel appears in all four films as a waiter in Spenser’s favorite restaurant.

The series was filmed in Boston, but the TV movies were shot in Toronto to save money. The first two movies were still set in Boston, while the last two were rewritten to be set in Toronto (the novel A Savage Place was originally set in Los Angeles).