She is the commanding officer of the detective squad at the NYPD's Fourth Precinct. She is married and has four children, one of whom died at the age of eight. Virginia Cooper (seasons 1–3): Virginia is the show's “tough but fair” commanding officer during the first three seasons. At the end of the third season, Eddie is killed in the line of duty after his car is bombed in a revenge attack by bank robber Nadine Jordan. After years of estrangement from much of his immediate family, he formed close relationships with his brother Jimmy, a priest his sister Carmen, a journalist and his father Mike, a musician and recovering heroin addict. Eduardo "Eddie" Torres (seasons 1–3): Born in the Bronx, Eddie is a Puerto Rican–American detective. is the only character to appear in all 89 episodes. His partner Eddie Torres is his closest friend. He has a son, Gregory, whom he fathered as a teenager with then-girlfriend Chantal Tierney. is an African-American detective at the Fourth Precinct.
The principal cast members from season 2 of New York Undercover (clockwise, from top left): Patti D'Arbanville-Quinn as Virginia Cooper, Lauren Vélez as Nina Moreno, Michael DeLorenzo as Eddie Torres, and Malik Yoba as J.C. Michael DeLorenzo stated that the duo were making $40,000 per episode and wanted their pay increased to $100,000.Īfter hearing their demands Dick Wolf declined, and said that New York Undercover was not Friends (during this time the stars of Friends wanted their salary to be increased to $1M per episode.) Wolf was irate, calling the demands “a virus” to the entertainment industry and also threatened to write both Yoba and DeLorenzo out of the show.Ī day after the holdout, Universal Television, which was the production company of the show, filed a $1.2M lawsuit against Yoba and DeLorenzo, claiming that the two had breached their contract and claimed that they were costing the show $60,000 each day they didn’t show up to set.Īfter three days the holdout ended and the two actors returned back to set under the terms of their original contract agreements. They also wanted a gym, trailers for the stars and better food to be provided on set. Both actors wanted more creative input with DeLorenzo in particular wanting to direct a few episodes. On July 23, 1996, the day shooting was supposed to begin on the third season, lead actors Malik Yoba and Michael DeLorenzo didn’t show up, presenting a list of demands to Dick Wolf. The new unit eventually captured the last bank robber responsible for the deaths of Torres and McNamara. Malcolm Barker (played by Tommy Ford), Det. Williams and Moreno were assigned to a new unit, resulting in Cooper being dropped from the cast.
The series returned with a new cast for its fourth and final season in January 1998. However, in that same episode, Torres and McNamara are both killed by a gang of bank robbers. In the third-season finale in May 1997, Torres and Moreno are married. Gore II), while Torres was shown to be fighting family and other related problems, including having to cope with his father (Mike Torres, played by Jose Perez), whose drug addiction and HIV-positive status causes recurring issues, and a childhood-friend turned organized-crime boss.Īt the beginning of the third season, a new detective, Tommy McNamara ( Jonathan LaPaglia), was introduced as a principal character. Williams struggled to raise his young son, Gregory ( George O. In addition to the main storylines in each episode, subplots explored the private lives of the show's characters. In contrast to the popularity of NBC's " Must See TV" on Thursday nights in the 1990s, many African-American viewers flocked to Fox's Thursday-night line-up of Martin, Living Single, and New York Undercover. New York Undercover (whose working title during development was Uptown Undercover, named after the record label, Uptown Records, whose founder and CEO, Andre Harrell, was also the executive producer of the series) is notable for being the first police drama on American television to feature two people of color in the starring roles. New York Undercover was co-created and produced by Dick Wolf, and its storyline takes place in the same fictional universe as Wolf's NBC series Law & Order, its spin-offs, the Chicago and FBI series, and Homicide: Life on the Street. Virginia Cooper, and Lauren Vélez, who joined the cast in the second season as Nina Moreno, fellow detective and love interest to Torres.
The cast also included Patti D'Arbanville-Quinn as their superior, Lt. Williams and Michael DeLorenzo as Detective Eddie Torres, two undercover detectives in New York City's Fourth Precinct who were assigned to investigate various crimes and gang-related cases. The series starred Malik Yoba as Detective J.C. New York Undercover is an American police drama that aired on the Fox television network from September 8, 1994, to February 11, 1999.