In 1986, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for directing the final episode ("Parting Shots") in season 5 of "Cagney & Lacey". His directing career continued with the television film "Alone in the Neon Jungle" (also known by its earlier name "Command in Hell"), which was network premiered by CBS on Sunday January 17, 1988. It was characterised in "The Washington Post" by Tom Shales as 'a stupefyingly preposterous bungle, but only in its better moments', while a marginally more favourable assessment praised 'cop characters that are humanized with humor and the realistically gritty feel that comes with filming on location in Pittsburgh instead of Hollywood'.