Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I have never forgotten this show and its devastatingly real treatment of the lead character's gambling addiction that ruined his entire life. The pilot movie was good, John Sayles always is, but the show was honestly not only grimly funny but grim. I will never forget one especially tough episode in which Shannon scrapes enough money together to buy his teenage daughter an expensive bicycle, only to discover his gift can't compete with her new stepfather's gift of a new car; she refuses the bike. That was bad enough, but he rides the bike around for the rest of the show, and and at the end, exits a building... and finds the bike gone: it's been stolen. I can't forget Jamey Sheridan's demeanor of near-desperation and hopelessness, staring at a broken bike lock on a courthouse steps and regarding his equally broken life. This was a GREAT show, if often truly brutal; not really violent, but just brutal in it's depiction of someone laid completely low. The second season 'lightened it up' a bit and the show suffered for that; the first season was brilliant TV. Elizabeth Pena was so beautiful in this; the only time she's been more beautiful is in the equally forgotten JACOB'S LADDER. But Sheridan created a character any actor would murder to have inhabited; and it's been almost totally lost. Re-issue this. It's not a 'please' kind of thing: just re-issue it already.

Shannon's Deal was a well-written, well-acted show. Jamey Sheridan was a perfect fit to play Jack Shannon, an attorney who was starting over with his own law office. The show played out more like a detective show than a typical show about a lawyer. Shannon was usually hunting down leads in an overcoat and even had the small office with the loyal secretary. It was created by John Sayles who also appeared in an episode.With so many shows being released on DVD hopefully Shannon's Deal can find it's way there as well. Until then I suppose we can take comfort in that Who's The Boss? season one box. It was a high quality show at a low quality time. No wonder it didn't last.If anyone has any episodes out there let me know!

This short-lived series was an acting tour-de-force by the under-appreciated Jamey Sheridan. Here is an actor who captured every nuance of the complex sympathetic Shannon struggling, as much as anything, to re-polish a very tarnished humanity. A fine series, still missed by all too few of us.

It had a great story line. But did not air long. This series probably upsets lawyer: the hero worked to gain his son's esteem more than for money!Each week Shannon would face impossible odds, but being a good gambler would win by gambling or bluffing his way through.I liked the story and the character was sympathetic. But if I remember correctly, it did not have a good time slot...I guess there were too many lawyer stories, not like today! ;-)