Tag Archives: Chiefs (1983)

I’d never heard of Chiefs, a three part 1983 US television series, until recently.

But a recommendation from Overland Magazine deputy editor Jacinda Woodhead got me interested. Her pitch, which wasn’t too far off the mark, was that it has definite similarities to the recent hit series, True Detective.

Chiefs is about three generations of police chiefs in a small southern US town called Delano, each of who tries to solve a number of murders of young white men stretching from the early twenties to the early sixties.

Will Henry Lee (Wayne Rogers, better known as Captain John McIntyre from the hit show, MASH), is the town’s founding chief. A former farmer who can no longer make a living off the land, he is a decent, progressive small ‘L’ liberal and acts in his new job accordingly. Not long after his he takes the job, the body of a young white boy is found near train tracks on the outskirts of Delano. The boy was raped and there are signs he’d been beaten with a truncheon similar to that used by police. Soon, rumours surface about the disappearances of other young white men in the town’s vicinity.

The second chief is Sonny Butts (Brad Davis from the 1978 film, Midnight Express).… Read more