Stingray

Stingray was created and produced by Stephen J. Cannell and aired on NBC for 23 episodes plus a pilot, from July 14, 1985, to May 8, 1987.

The first season (eight episodes) was filmed in Southern California in 1986, but for the second season Cannell decided to shoot in Toronto on the advice of lead actor Nick Mancuso, taking advantage of a favorable US/Canadian dollar exchange rate.

So many other productions were already shooting in Toronto that no film crews were available, forcing Cannell to shoot the first seven episodes of season two in Calgary and the remaining eight in Vancouver.

The score was composed by veteran TV composers Mike Post, Pete Carpenter, and Walter Murphy, longtime collaborators of Cannell, and the show featured music-video style interludes with original script-specific pop songs written by Stephen Geyer and Post.

These original songs were performed by notable vocalists including José Feliciano, Richie Havens, Taj Mahal, Timothy B. Schmit, and Jennifer Warnes, such as David Pack singing 'Signs of Human Error' in the episode 'Playback'.

In the episode 'Sometimes You Gotta' Sing The Blues', a song of the same title was performed by Lois Blaisch but was never released publicly.

Uniquely, the end credits of each episode featured still photos of the production crew who worked on that episode.

The series won the Primetime Emmy Award in 1986 for Outstanding Graphic and Title Design (credited to Betty Green) and was nominated in 1987 for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series for the episode 'Gemini'.

The 1998 TV series Vengeance Unlimited, starring Michael Madsen as a mysterious helper who is paid in favors rather than money, was influenced by the concept used in Stingray.