Gary Sinise Played A Serial Killer On An '80s Hit Cop Show We Don't Talk About Enough

Four years before Gary Sinise played a hero in the hit Stephen King miniseries "The Strand," he guest-starred as a serial killer suspect in the Los Angeles-set NBC cop series "Hunter," which aired over 150 episodes across seven seasons between 1984 and 1991. Sinise appeared in the Season 6 episode "Lullaby" as Lord Tony Rutherford, a British politician and keen photographer suspected of killing multiple sex workers from his home country. It was one of his first notable roles, yet nobody really talks about it these days, and that's a little surprising, because "Hunter" was a pretty big deal at the time.

After getting off to a slow start, "Hunter" picked up in the ratings and was still posting solid numbers come the 1989-1990 TV season. By the time of Sinise's guest appearance, the series was dominating its competitors. "Original episodes of 'Hunter' continue to crush the other two networks in the show's sixth season on NBC," the Los Angeles Times reported on March 15, 1990, just a few weeks after "Lullaby" aired. The show had also become a syndication hit by this point. "In the recently concluded February ratings sweeps, reruns of 'Hunter' won the highly competitive 6-7 p.m. time period for KTLA Channel 5, beating local news, national news and high-priced syndicated sitcoms," the report stated.

"Hunter" initially retained enough popularity to earn itself a TV movie in 1995, and another in 2002. There was also an attempt at a revival season on NBC in 2003, but it got low ratings and was quickly canned. Since then, "Hunter" has pretty much fallen out of the pop culture conversation. Part of that could be down to it being pretty dated – the cop drama genre has been redefined multiple times since "Hunter" ended, after all.

It's very much of its time, but if you're a fan of retro procedurals or you simply want to check out Gary Sinise's episode from Season 6, you can watch "Hunter" for free with ads on Tubi, Plex, and The Roku Channel. It's also currently available on Prime Video and NBC's streaming service Peacock. It may not be among the best crime drama TV shows of all time, but it's criminal that so few people talk about "Hunter" these days.