Donald P Bellisario is the cheese-meister's cheese-meister. One of the 'unholy trinity' consisting of Stephen J. Cannell and Aaron Spelling, However, Bellisario is also prone to moments of genre defining genius such as `Quantum Leap', `Magnum' and `Airwolf'. Alas `Crowfoot' was written on his day off, if it was 'written' at all, it looks like the Director shouted "Action" and they made it up as they went along.
Imagine pitching THIS story to a Studio Exec - `Muscle bound half German, half Navajo with latent shape-shifting and soothsaying powers, teams up with Kooky middle aged Japanese-American woman to find the murderer of a beach babe who appears to him in the form of a ghost and with whom he falls in love'
You can imagine, if your name was not Donald P. Bellisario then the Exec would be frantically stabbing the panic button under his desk and screaming for `SECURITY !'.
Oh, the shape-shifting powers are only talked about and never seen, the future and past visions play no part in the main story. Why do all Native Americans (couldn't they find a genuine Native American actor to play the lead ?) have to have mystical powers ?? Why do Japanese have to be eccentric and also obsessed with `ancestors' ? In fact the only people with ethnic authenticity are the Hawaiian Islander's, and they are reduced to the roles of musical performers for the obese American tourists. Shame on you Hollywood.
There is good cheese, and there is bad cheese. On his day Mr B can produce a fine Televisual Stilton, but on this day he created the kind of cheese that you find between your toes after a 5km run.
