By DON KAPLAN
Posted: 12:50 am
July 4, 2008
EX-"Sopranos" wiseguy Michael Imperioli is re turning to TV, as a cop.
Imperioli, who won an Emmy playing Tony Soprano's off-the-rails nephew, Christopher, has joined ABC's troubled time-traveling police show, "Life on Mars," as a rough, sexist detective from 1972, according to a casting announcement.
The show, based on the BBC version, follows the adventures of a 21st- century cop transported back to the early 1970s.
Imperioli is part of a revamping after the departure of David E. Kelley, who wrote the pilot for ABC. Just two months before the new season, "Mars" is being overhauled, with producers shifting the setting to New York and key roles being recast.
ABC brass feels viewers may accept the show better if it reminds them of such '70s big-screen crime classics as "Taxi Driver," "Mean Streets" and "The French Connection."
