The Official KRESKY Homepage

PREMISE

Kresky chronicled the trials and tribulations of Nick Kresky (Terrence Michael Matterly), an unorthodox LAPD undercover detective who posed as a swingin' disco lothario in order to infiltrate the underworld community. Week in and week out, Kresky battled an endless parade of sinister crime lords, psychotic pimps and amoral drug dealers. And, through it all, the detective was the very essence of cool aplomb and sexual self-confidence. But, beneath his suave exterior, seethed the torments of a tragic past. Shortly before the detective had been due to retire from the force and move to Hawaii to marry his childhood sweetheart, his love was cruelly struck down by a drug smuggler's bullet. Kresky swore vengeance, embarking on a grim crusade to wipe the streets of Los Angeles clean of its criminal scum and find the man who stole his one true chance for happiness.

Kresky was forever having to defend his unconventional crime fighting methods to Internal Affairs and the department brass. Chief among Kresky's detractors was the hard-nosed, by-the-book Commissioner Douglas Pratt (Richard Ward), who was eternally threatening to boot the detective from the force. The only person standing between Kresky and an unceremonious dismissal was the detective's immediate superior, the gruff but understanding Captain Frank Marino (Hank Duran). Marino was always quick to remind the Commissioner that the force could hardly afford to lose a man with Kresky's skills and underworld connections.

In the program's 1978-9 season, Kresky gained a partner in the form of Wade Cantrell (Ronald Dean Whitney), a West Virginian detective who had come to Los Angeles to track down the gun runner who killed his sister. Commissioner Pratt teamed up the two cops to punish the lone wolf Kresky. Apart from their oaths of vengeance, the detectives couldn't have been more different. While Kresky was a cynical, streetwise swinger in touch with the city dwellers' darkest impulses, Cantrell was an easy-going populist with a homespun philosophy, cracker-barrel wit and seemingly inexhaustible supply of rambling anecdotes. His seemed a personality specially designed to grate on the nerves of our hero -- when Cantrell wasn't regaling Kresky with some rustic rumination, he was compulsively popping cherry-flavored Pez out of one his vast collection of Pez dispensers.

As it turned out, though, the Commissioner's plan for revenge couldn't have backfired more spectacularly. After some initial friction, the detectives discovered they were a perfect match. Kresky knew the streets and the rhythms of the city; Cantrell was an expert tracker and uncanny student of human nature. It wasn't long before Cantrell had requested a leave of absence from his Charleston, West Virginia HQ (ostensibly, to study big city crime fighting techniques; in actuality, to track down his sister's killer), and Kresky had gained a sidekick.