The Pretender TV show premiered 20 years ago today. Starring Michael T. Weiss, as Jarod, the action-adventure drama, created by Steven Mitchell and Craig van Sickle, ran for four seasons before being cancelled in 2000, by NBC.
The series also starred: Andrea Parker, Patrick Bauchau, Jon Gries, Ryan Merriman, Richard Marcus, Alex Wexo, James Denton, Sam Ayers, Harve Presnell, Paul Dillon, Willie Gault, Dennis Cruzado, Pamela Gidley, Jason Brooks, and Ashley Peldon.
While very young, Jarod Russell was taken from his parents by a secret organization, and is raised by psychiatrist Dr. Sydney Green (Patrick Bauchau) at The Centre, where he is trained to be a “pretender” one who can seamlessly assume any profession or lifestyle.
Once training is complete, pretenders are sold to the highest bidder and are used for a number of nefarious purposes. As an adult, Jarod (Weiss) escapes the organization to search for his parents. His fellow pretenders — including assassin Miss Parker (Andrea Parker), as well as Brigitte (Pamela Gidley) and Bobby Lyle (James Denton) — try to track him down.
The Pretender ended on a cliffhanger in 2000. Due to fan protests, two follow-up TV movies aired on TNT in 2001, The Pretender: 2001 and The Pretender: Island of the Haunted. The creators have since published two novels, The Pretender: Rebirth, and The Pretender: Saving Luke.
Watch this fan-made trailer for the first season of The Pretender.
What do you think? Did you watch The Pretender TV series? Would you watch a reboot or a Pretender reunion movie or mini-series?
it on cozi tv middle night during the weekdays so good 1 years old when came just saw first time this year. Love spy crime shows hooked upon it.
The Pretender; A great series now gone.
I enjoyed The Pretender.
It took a couple of episodes to fully understand it, but I grew to really like the powerful characters and plot lines.
I would love to see a reboot of this series. It could be so cool in if done with modern tech and a more solid story line. I loved the old series, but you can tell they are kind of making it up week to week. If they rebooted, they could formulate a entire story before bringing it online. It could be so awesome.
I miss the show not having an ending it was one of my favorite shows day late and a dollar short to do it now
I loved this series as a kid, but was just able to watch the entire series. Sadly after the second movie, some answers that would satisfy my curiosity about each character, (namely Jarod) was left hanging. A follow up movie would have been nice.
Yes differently ….. this was and is my favorite tv series…. hated that it ended so fast and was left just hanging. You should do a reboot.
maybe, maybe not, I would watch a remake, but then nevertheless that all depends regardless of whether, or not I myself still have got the potential to possibly become, or be a real life pretender, & like the real life one that the original aired production broadcast was based upon, …
The Pretender still looks fresh, and not outdated like most of the TV series from the mid to late 1990. Re-watching the episodes is still fun. The cast was great and their chemistry worked. The promised 3rd movie that should have explained the secrets was unfortunately never made, due to many circumstances. But now 20 years later, the producing companies and networks could finally give us that movie, even if only to show us what has happened to the protagonists since then, for example: Jarod has taken over The Centre, and Miss Parker has a bunch of unruly children and… Read more »
I totally agree with you.
I hoped that if the writers were not able to get the financial backing to complete the show that they would make the story available on the internet for fans to read. Eighteen years is a long time to wait for an ending to the series.
I don’t think they’ll give give a conclusion to the story by bringing back the same cast. I’m just not sure why they aren’t having some sort of tv series since this has so much potential. They can set it in the future and there could be a new Centre somewhere else revolving around a different pretender, new characters and they can give breadcrumbs throughout to what happened to Jarod, how he died and have it somehow link to this new pretender. He wasn’t the only pretender and that wasn’t the only Centre although he was their main asset, but… Read more »
This was one of the Best Series ever on TV in the mid 90’s. I would love to see them make a third movie and mayby even a forth with the original remaining cast members.
The Pretender was a interesting series. Never understand why was cancelled. Back then, I never pay attention on tv that much. But now I feel they should bring back the series back because they left in a cliffhanger.
Would love to see at least a conclusion to the original series as long as they keep it as dignified and intelligent as the original and not trashy as current programming is now.
Would love to see a conclusion to the Pretender series as long as they keep it dignified as the original and not trashy as current programming on now.
How nice that they did something because the fan protest. The few shows I like I doubt they would do anything the fans wanted especially for certain female characters. TV and movies are dead to me
The show was better than plenty of the garbage network TV has put out there since its cancellation. I never knew why the cancelled it. pBuwB
I myself kind of wondered why they cancelled the t.v. show also, & especially since I myself had, & maybe still do have the potential to possibly become, or be a real life pretender, & like the one who was a real life human being that the series production was based upon, that’s where they got the idea to make that aired production broadcast, …