The pilot movie for the show is an adaptation of the novel "Promised Land", fourth in the series, which featured the first appearance of Hawk.
During season one, Spenser lived in an abandoned firehouse just off of Charles Street. Filming was hard, and the Boston Fire Department reclaimed the site at the end of the season. For seasons two and three, Spenser lived on the top floor of an old Charlestown apartment, at the base of Bunker Hill. The interiors were shot at FilmWorks Studios in Brighton, Massachusetts.
In season two, Juanita Bartlett, famous for her work on The Rockford Files (1974), joined the show and immediately took the Susan Silverman character out of the show and replaced her with Carolyn McCormick as A.D.A. Rita Fiore, to the shock of "Spenser" fans. The outcry caused the producers to rethink their casting change, and Barbara Stock was back as Susan Silverman for the third and final season.
Several of the first episodes of the first season mirror other familiar works. Season one, episode two, "No Room at the Inn" is very similar in plot to the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt (1968). This, along with the Green 1965 Mustang Spenser drives may well be an homage to Bullitt's slightly newer Mustang of the same color. Season one, episode three "The Choice", was redone similarly twenty years later when Tom Selleck reprised a similar hero of Robert Parker's, in Jesse Stone: Stone Cold (2005).
The dark country and western bar was the main bar area of The Channel, the largest nightclub in Boston at the time. The lights were kept dim to help hide the club's stage and massive P.A. system.