Scott Speedman stars as the titular R.J. Decker, a disgraced former photojournalist who becomes a private investigator after a stint in prison. The show, which airs on ABC and is streaming on Hulu, takes place in Fort Lauderdale.
Dana Hawley
Courtesy of Disney
When Carl Hiaasen wrote “Double Whammy,” his 1987 satirical crime novel about bass fishing competitions, corrupt televangelists and murder, he figured his book was too wacky — perhaps too Florida — to get published.
Decades later, Hiaasen was hit with another pleasant surprise when an ABC executive told him she wanted to turn that book into a prime-time TV show.
The result was “R.J. Decker,” a crime drama set in Hiaasen’s hometown of Fort Lauderdale, which premiered March 3. The premiere drew 3.69 million live and same-day viewers, making it ABC’s most-watched 10 p.m. drama debut in over five years, Deadline reported.
Actor Scott Speedman stars as the titular R.J. Decker, a disgraced former photojournalist who goes to prison after beating up a guy who tried stealing his camera equipment. Two years later, Decker is a private investigator living in a Fort Lauderdale trailer park, solving weird mysteries and walking down Las Olas in a Hawaiian print shirt.
Unlike other recent Hollywood attempts at capturing South Florida (like Netflix’s “The Rip” which takes place in Hialeah but was filmed in New Jersey and Los Angeles) much of “R.J. Decker” was actually filmed on location with some scenes filmed in North Carolina. The first episode features a car chase scene filmed along Fort Lauderdale Beach and its signature white Wave Wall.
“I’m glad they did because there’s no place else that looks like that street,” Hiaasen said.
A scene from ABC show ‘R.J. Decker,’ based on a Carl Hiaasen book. John Merrick Disney
Hiaasen, a former Herald journalist and columnist who grew up in Broward, is known for his novels that embrace Florida’s iconic weirdness, like “Hoot,” the beloved children’s book about kids saving owls, or his recent “Fever Beach,” a political satire about a bumbling Proud Boy and a corrupt congressman.
Hollywood usually shines the spotlight on Miami-Dade, but “R.J. Decker” keeps the focus on Broward.
“Broward County has its own brand of weirdness,” Hiaasen said. “In Florida, there’s almost nowhere you could shoot a TV series where you wouldn’t have the material and the inspiration right there. […] I love that it’s in Lauderdale.”
Hiaasen still has boxes of scripts of would-be adaptations of his novels that never came to light. Sometimes he says no to pitches, other times he says yes but the project never takes off. When Brianna Bennett, the ABC executive, approached him with the idea to turn “Double Whammy” into a TV series, Hiaasen said he was struck by how much she loved the nearly 40-year-old book.
After speaking with Bennett and head writer Rob Doherty, Hiaasen said the material was in good hands. He’s credited as an executive producer, but really, he said, he’s more of a Florida consultant.
Author Carl Hiaasen’s book ‘Double Whammy’ was adapted for television in the new ABC show ‘R.J. Decker.” Hiaasen, a former Miami Herald writer and columnist, set the story in Fort Lauderdale. Elena Seibert
“I’m just watching from the sidelines. They’ll call about factual things or some plot things that they want to do. ‘Could this really happen?’” Hiaasen said. “And I always say, ‘It’s Florida! Anything can happen. There’s nothing that you can make up that won’t happen eventually in Florida.’”
While the general framing is true to the book, the TV version takes plenty of creative liberties, which Hiaasen is fine with. “You gotta let them do their thing,”he said. He noted that he’s well-aware that certain parts of “Double Whammy,” which he calls a “twisted little novel,” would never make it to mainstream TV.
For example, in the book, a bad guy tries to break into a mobile home and gets attacked by a pit bull, which he kills. But the dead dog never let go of his arm, so the bad guy is stuck with it for a while, even growing an emotional attachment to it, Hiaasen said.
The first episode of the TV show pays some homage to that weirdness. A bad guy does get attacked by a dog named Tom Petty while trying to break into a mobile home, but Tom Petty survives and lets the bad guy go.
The man behind R.J. Decker
Decker and the shenanigans he finds himself in were inspired by Hiaasen’s good friend and former Herald colleague Tim Chapman, a storied photographer who covered the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, Mariel boatlift, the drug wars in Colombia and Miami and plenty of other insane moments in history.
“Carl is the most observant person in the world. He is a real sleeper,” Chapman said while puffing a cigar at his home in the Keys. “He’ll see you do something or hear about something, and it’ll show up in a book.”
Hiaasen and Chapman went on “several hairy assignments” together, like the time they snuck into the Bahamas disguised as fishermen to investigate corruption and drug dealing. Chapman recalled how he dumped a bunch of sharp fishing hooks over his camera bag to keep the Customs agents out. It worked.
Sometimes Hiaasen got dragged into reporting adventures just because he happened to be in the car with Chapman, who would listen to the police scanner and drive white knuckled to the crime scene.
Photographer Tim Chapman welcomes guests to HistoryMiami Museum during the opening of NEWSMAN: the Photojournalism of Tim Chapman on April 15, 2016. Chapman was the inspiration behind the protagonist of Carl Hiaasen’s 1987 book ‘Double Whammy,’ which ABC adapted into a TV show that began airing in 2026. The show is also streaming on Hulu. Matias J. Ocner mocner@miamiherald.com
Some subtle details in the show are true to things Chapman has either experienced or seen, he said, like Decker’s connections in high and low places that help him solve mysteries. Even the first episode’s car sex scene was true to life. “One time, I noticed this car rocking back and forth, and it was all foggy. I knocked on the window, and all I did was give him a thumbs up,” he said, laughing.
One line in the show stuck out to Chapman — when Decker explains how he sees the world and its hardships through the lens of his camera.
Years ago, when Chapman was being interviewed by Rolling Stone about the shocking Jonestown Massacre photos, he was asked, “How do you put up with that?” Chapman responded, “I let my camera cover it. It’s a mission.”