HOUSTON VICE

“Cagney and Lacey love each other. Simon and Simon love each other. But our guys are going to be like oil and water. They’re never going to get along.”

That’s how Jay Bernstein described “Houston Knights,” a two-hour cop series pilot in development for CBS from Bernstein and Columbia TV. Michael Pare will star as a tough Chicago cop suddenly transferred to Houston. Still to be cast is Pare’s sparring partner--”one of those Texans who needs country-Western music in order to think.”

The pilot will feature a fight sequence inspired by the classic knockdown (across practically the entire village) between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in “The Quiet Man.” Boasted Bernstein: “Ours will start at one end of Gilley’s (the legendary Houston hangout), and come out the other. And it will keep going. . . .”