The Renegades (TV series)

*The Renegades*
The Renegades
	Ad for the 1982 TV movie
Genre	Crime drama
Created by	Lawrence Gordon ; Rick Husky ;
Starring	Patrick Swayze ; Kurtwood Smith ; James Luisi ;
Composers	Barry DeVorzon; Joseph Conlan
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6 (+ pilot)
Production
Executive producers	Lawrence Gordon; Charles Gordon ;
Editor	John F. Link (pilot)
Running time	60 minutes
Production companies	Lawrence Gordon Productions; Paramount Television ;
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	March 4 –; April 8, 1983

Last updated August 30, 2025

The Renegades is an American action crime drama television series about a street gang that becomes a special police undercover unit in order to avoid jail time.^[1] The show starred Patrick Swayze as "Bandit", the leader of the gang.^[2]

Cast

Patrick Swayze as "Bandit"
Randy Brooks as "Eagle"
Paul Mones as J.T.
Tracy Scoggins as Tracy (TV movie pilot)
Robert Thaler as "Dancer"
Brian Tochi as "Dragon"
Angel Granados Jr. (2-hour pilot) and Fausto Bara (post-pilot) as Gaucho
James Luisi as Lieutenant Marciano
Kurtwood Smith as Captain Scanlon

Episodes

The two-hour television movie backdoor pilot for this series aired on August 11, 1982.

List of *The Renegades* episodes
No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
1	"Back to School"	Nicholas Corea	Bobby Zavatini	March 4, 1983 (1983-03-04)
College athletes are suspected of point-shaving.
2	"The Demon Dragsters"	Don Chaffey	Nancy Ann Miller	March 11, 1983 (1983-03-11)
Car strippers use souped-up cars to evade the police.
3	"The Big Time"	Barbara Peeters	Stephen McPherson	March 18, 1983 (1983-03-18)
Prisoners are being trained to crack sophisticated safes.
4	"On the Pad"	Bruce Bilson	Robert Earll	March 25, 1983 (1983-03-25)
The team goes undercover to find out why a cop lets two extortionists go.
5	"Film at Eleven"	Unknown	Gregory S. Dinallo	April 1, 1983 (1983-04-01)
An 11-year-old is a witness to a holdup-murder.
6	"Target: Marciano"	Barbara Peeters	Nicholas Corea	April 8, 1983 (1983-04-08)
An escaped drug pusher wants Marciano to surrender to him or else there will be a blood bath in the streets.

Broadcast history

After the success of the movie The Warriors , Hollywood looked to take the youth gang concept and market it to TV. In 1981, Patrick Swayze starred in a TV movie, Return of the Rebels , about an aging motorcycle gang who get together to help a friend who owns a popular campground that is being threatened by a band of arrogant groupies.

Brother team Lawrence and Charles Gordon tried to market Swayze's rebel look, combine the gang concept with a police angle, and came up with The Renegades. Roger Spottiswoode directed the TV movie pilot that premiered on August 11, 1982 and a six-episode series was broadcast in Spring 1983. It had weak ratings and ABC cancelled the show.

Ratings

Season	Episodes	Start Date	End Date	Nielsen Rank	Nielsen Rating	Tied With
1982–83	6	March 4, 1983	April 8, 1983	98^[3]	N/A	N/A

References

↑ "The Renegades". film.com. 2009. Retrieved May 23, 2009.
↑ Roger Barr (2009). "The Renegades". I-Mockery. Retrieved May 23, 2009.
↑ "The TV Ratings Guide: 1982-83 Ratings History -- Soap Bubbles Rise, Several Veterans Part and NBC Renews Poorly Rated Masterpieces" . Retrieved April 9, 2018.

External links

The Renegades at IMDb
The Renegades at TV Guide
The Renegades at epguides.com
Episode list
Episode six ("Target: Marciano") on YouTube

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[film.com-1] "The Renegades". film.com. 2009. Retrieved May 23, 2009.

[-RoG--2] Roger Barr (2009). "The Renegades". I-Mockery. Retrieved May 23, 2009.

[3] "The TV Ratings Guide: 1982-83 Ratings History -- Soap Bubbles Rise, Several Veterans Part and NBC Renews Poorly Rated Masterpieces" . Retrieved April 9, 2018.

[1]

[2]

[3]