Strange Luck

Great show, really loved it and miss it.

Needs a DVD release - long overdue

One of the few shows of the 90's I really loved.Quirky,eccentric and difficult to classify,"Strange luck" followed the adventures of freelance photographer Chance Harper,who is afflicted/blessed with,well,strange luck,which leads him into all sorts of odd and at times dangerous situations.A lot of the charm of the series was thanks to D.B.Sweeney,a low key and enormously likable actor,who breathes life into the slightly seedy,lovable Chance,denizen of one of TV's weirdest rundown apartments,and eternal wearer of an ancient overcoat.Angie is Chance's friend,a counter assistant at the second rate eatery where he hangs out.Probably too odd for popular success,Fox soon pulled the plug on Chance and his overcoat. Should become a cult show.

This show was one of the many casualties Fox incurred when they shifted X-FILES to Sundays and tried to fill it's old Friday slot with more quirky shows. This show was great but Fox forgot that X-Files took time to build an audience; they canceled it after less than 10 airings, I believe. DB Sweeney and Francis Fisher were very appealing, but the real star was THE WRITING! Clever plots, centering on luck and coincidence, and good dialog.

I guess Fox didn't think it was a REAL network until they started killing potential late-breakout hits with early cancellation decisions... the one moronic TRUE indicator of a network exec at work!

I miss the series. It was full of incredible coincidences which were continually interesting. The strangeness was the main attraction, other than the appealing cast of characters. I was always impressed by the inventiveness of the writers in weaving tales of intrigue. Something new and fresh which was unapologetic about coincidence. Always entertaining.

A favorite episode contained the opening scene of Harper fishing from a boat when he begins to hear something far off, before we do. Finally a body falls from the sky into the lake and the story begins. This image immediately borough to mind the adventure of DB Cooper, and here is DB Sweeney playing the protagonist who unravels the mystery.

I really enjoyed this show, too, although fans of today's TV attempts at realism in police and medical dramas might find it "unrealistic." Mainly, it was just a very nice, neighborly world with its own intrusions of intrigue, and the way the random "chance" happenings played into the plot were usually pretty inventive. There were simple romances, but no "who's bedding whom, who's breaking up?" devices to "spice up" the plot. The third episode, "Last Chance," remains one of my favorites because of the character of the guy on death row and the other guy who struggled to take responsibility for his own crime after years of keeping his secret. The song that covered the climax and the way the climax was resolved were, in my mind, unusual for TV drama-light because it used a heavy dose of irony and left you trying to decide if it was a happy ending or not. "Healing Hands" was another personal favorite, even with the odd "faith healer for the guy who looks like Stephen Hawkins" crime plot, because Chance's parents got an expanded role, James Cromwell and the other guest actors played nice characters, Mary Black's "The Holy Ground" was used as the soundtrack for the sentimental wrapup, and I liked the way things were resolved for the characters. I wish the series would have run longer if for no other reason than to see "Healing Hands" revisited with a followup episode. At the least, it would be nice to see Fox pick this up for official DVD release while it's trotting out so many other series.