EYES “Pilot.” ABC / Warner Brothers. 30 March 2005 (Season 1, Episode 1.) Tim Daly (Harlan Judd), Garcelle Beauvais, A. J. Langer, Laura Leighton, Eric Mabius, Rick Worthy, Natalie Zea. Creator: John McNamara. Director: Jon Amiel.

   Harlan Judd (Tim Daly) is the head of a huge private detective agency, Judd Risk Management, with many operatives and many cases going on at one time. Their offices are in a large multi-story building, mostly open to the roof, with people at their desks or walking around doing busy things at any one time. There is one big problem. They’re barely breaking even, and rumors have it that someone is trying to do a leveraged buyout.

   There is also one big solution. Daly is hired by one businessman to get the money back, amount in the millions, embezzled by another, a former associate. The problem is, the embezzler admits he has the money, but that he also has the goods on the man he embezzled it from.

   There are several other smaller cases worked on in this first episode, which I won’t go into, but I will mention that there are also several non-work related relationships between some of the employees that are stating to interfere with their work. And I haven’t yet told you that there is a mole in the firm, someone telling tales out of hand to whoever it is that may or may not be trying to buy them out.

   This is the high glitzy end of the PI business, and I’m not sure if there is anything like it in book form. Tim Daly is perfect in the role of the brash, perhaps way too brash, head of the firm, but he has good people working for him. Some, however, as mentioned above, not so good.

   This was the first of what was intended to be twelve episodes, but only five were aired before ABC pulled the plug. Based on only the first episode, I’m not in a position to tell you what went wrong. Was glitzy not in style in 2005, or did viewers not particularly care for glitz and internal intrigue in the PI business? In any case, all twelve episodes were filmed and the entire series has been telecast in various parts of the world. Just not in the US.

THE JORDAN CHANCE. NBC, 2 hours. 12 December 1978. Raymond Burr (Frank Jordan), Ted Shackelford, James Canning, Jeannie Fitzsimmons. Guest Cast: John McIntire, Peter Haskell, Maria-Elena Cordero, Stella Stevens, George DiCenzo, Gerald McRaney. Teleplay by Stephen J. Cannell, based on a story by Roy Huggins (as John Thomas James) & Stephen J. Cannell. Directed by Jules Irving.

   Chronologically, as far as Raymond Burr’s career is concerned, this failed pilot for another TV series for him came after Perry Mason, after Ironside, after the short summer season of Kingston: Confidential, but before the long run of Perry Mason movies. I called this particular endeavor a “failed pilot,” and I’m sure that the people involved were ready to go with it as another series, but there was a big, big reason why they didn’t. I don’t know what the ratings were for it, but the fact is is that it’s not very good.

   I hesitate saying that it’s bad, but it’s an awfully close call.

   Here’s the premise. After serving time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, lawyer Frank Jordan sets up a foundation, with himself as the head, whose directive is to come to the assistance of others who are have found themselves in jail while innocent but have used up all of their other options.

   Such is the case of a Mexican-American maid who has been convicted of murder for only two reasons: one, that she’s Mexican-American, and two, because she was there on the scene, working in the dead man’s house and being the one who found the body. Once he’s convinced that she’s innocent, Jordan gathers up his crew of three assistants and heads for the small California town where the murder occurred.

   And where he finds – no surprise here – that not only does the local sheriff not want him coming in and stirring things up again, but none of the local townspeople do either. I think we have all seen this before. Not personally, mind you, but in watching several dozen TV shows with much the same story line.

   One problem here is that Jordan (Raymond Burr) is the whole show. His assistants are bland beyond belief, and then some. And the story’s so slight that at least twenty minutes is spent on watching cars squealing tires turning corners in city streets or chasing each other up and down rural roads, with the more than occasional sheriff’s helicopter hovering around overhead. Jordan does get roughed up a little, but once he convinces the sheriff to switch sides (I didn’t catch how this happened), the show’s over.

   And so was any chance for a series. Not even a Jordan Chance.

DEATH IN PARADISE “Beyond the Shining Sea: Parts One and Two.” BBC, UK. 07 & 14 February 2019. (Season 8, Episodes 5 & 6). Ardal O’Hanlon, Joséphine Jobert, Tobi Bakare, Shyko Amos, with Leemore Marrett Jr., Zackary Momoh, Nicôle Lecky, Indra Ové. Screenwriters: Sally Abbott (Part One), Roger Enstone (Part Two). Director: Jermain Julien.

   As you may recall, I unwittingly started watching this series with season eight, and I’ve continued on with it. There are now but two more to so, and then I will go back and do things properly and start way back at the beginning, with season one.

   I have, however, enjoyed all of them I have seen, and ranking them, after the first one of the season, these two come in a close second and third. It certainly helped that both episodes are based on the solution of “impossible crimes,” if not the small subset of that particular genre called “locked room mysteries.” In the first episode a young woman, a festival queen, is found stabbed to death after setting off in a small boat and around a headland then coming to shore where the villagers are eagerly waiting for her. Somewhere in that three minutes of time, while she was out of sight, she was murdered.

   There were no other boats in the area, and any swimmers or divers would have left wet footprints in the boat, and there are none. The solution is quite clever and is worked out perfectly, but after the killer is caught and confesses, there is more to the story. One prominent player is murdered and another seriously injured.

   The assailant can only be one of three people living on a rich man’s getaway island, but there is no boat on the island and there was no time for any of them to swim to shore, where the shootings took place, and return. The solution is a bit more contrived this time around, but it’s still quite adequately accomplished.

   It is only at the end of story that the viewer (me) realizes that what these two episodes were really designed to do was to pave the way for one of the players to make a dramatic exit from the series. This caught me by surprise. Personnel changes in a series as dramatic as this one don’t usually happen with two more episodes to go.

BLACK TIE AFFAIR. 29 May 1993. NBC, 30m. Bradley Whitford (PI Dave Brodsky), Kate Capshaw, John Calvin, Bruce McGill, Alison Elliott. Written & directed by Jay Tarses.

   Somebody thought the idea behind this show was a good one, at least at the beginning. A comedy spoof of a PI show? They must have thought laughs galore. And so not only did it make it onto the air, but it lasted all of five episodes before they decided that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

   Thirteen were on the schedule, with the story to be played out over the run. I’ve just watched the first one on YouTube, and as long as it stays there, you can, too. In it PI Dave Brodsky is hired to follow a husband whom his wife – and his client – thinks he is having an affair with another woman, and she wants him followed. Disguised as a bellhop at a convention in which the husband is to be given a Man of the Year award, Brodsky finds a woman dead in the room in which the liaison is to take place – but the dead woman, surprisingly enough, apparently is not the woman he planned to liaison with.

   End of installment one. Besides the fact that it is barely in focus, you don’t need to watch the embedded video if you don’t want to. There are some amusing lines, but everything is so overplayed, it’s not funny. Not even a laugh track would have helped. What’s most surprising is that it lasted five weeks.

PostScript: Every reference to the show I’ve found online (not many) is eager to point out that the working title for the series while it was in production was Smoldering Lust. Ha! False advertising there.

REWRITE FOR MURDER. Lorimar Productions. CBS, 60m, 14 September 1991. Pam Dawber, George Clooney, Dennis Lipscomb, John Vernon. Ken Swofford. Screenplay: Michael Gleason. Director: Eric Laneuville.

   Without George Clooney’s starring role in this failed pilot, apparently shown once on CBS, it’s doubtful it would ever see the light of day again. It was picked up for Trio’s series of similar short-lived shows, “Brilliant But Cancelled,” in 2003, at which time someone recorded it and thus preserved it for YouTube posterity.

   Whether posterity will thank that someone is up for conjecture, but even though it’s “not very good,” I enjoyed it well enough to take the time to tell you about it here. I think it has to do with the meta aspect: George Clooney plays an ex-con who while in prison found an agent willing to help him get several hard-boiled PI mysteries published. Once out, the producer of a failing TV show called “Miss Markham Mysteries” thinks a change of direction might be a good idea. The series, though, written by Paw Dawber’s character is a stiff formal detective drama, one in which the characters are gathered together drinking tea and talking about footprints in the rose garden.

   Clooney’s ideas for the show are somewhat along the lines of, say, Stacey Keach’s “Mike Hammer” series. You might say that Pam Dawber’s character is not amused, but to say that she is appalled would be closer to the truth. After a period of non-adjustment, the two leads find that they have a real life murder to solve – that of Clooney’s publisher.

   There is some fooferaw about manuscripts and who wrote what, plus a slew of false suspects, after which the case is solved, and then on to next week’s case. Except in this case, there was none. The comedy is lame, and the case even lamer. I personally might have watched a followup series – sometimes I am easily amused – but I think the executive suits at CBS at the time were correct. An audience of five or six, including me, just wouldn’t cut it.

WESTINGHOUSE STUDIO ONE “The Case of Karen Smith.” CBS, 60m. 26 March 1951 (Season 3, Episode 31). Teleplay by Mona Kent, based on a story by Viola Brothers Shore. Felicia Montealegre, Leslie Nielsen, Annette Carell, Paul Potter, James Westerfield, Jean Casto, Director: Lela Swift. Available on DVD and Amazon Prime.

   Studio One began as a radio series but was converted into a television series very early on, beginning in 1948, where it continued on under slightly different titles through 1958, for a grant total of 467 episodes. As an anthology series, it featured all kinds of drama, including mysteries, and hundreds of well known actors and actresses, some very familiar, others making their debuts on the show.

   A good many of the episodes can be found here and there on the Internet. I discovered “The Case of Karen Smith” streaming on Amazon Video, for example. I can’t tell you want prompted me to watch this particular one. It certainly wasn’t the name factor, but when looking up the credits afterward, several of the players had a long list of appearances on early TV; others only one or two.

   The story is a strange one. A police detective (a very young Leslie Nielsen) encourages his girl friend, a night club pianist named Karen Smith (Felicia Montealegre), to go with a not-so-gentlemanly gentleman admirer to go with him to his apartment after a late night performance. Why? He won’t tell her, but to be on the lookout for another visitor. Not understanding, but agreeing, she is on hand to see her would-be date for the evening being shot and killed by a former jilted lover.

   The twist comes when Karen Smith leaves evidence to incriminate herself, and then sets out on a trail that’s easily followed to a deserted beach where she commits suicide. We the viewer don’t believe this for a minute, but just what it is that’s going on? The story twists itself into contorted knots trying to explain, including a twin sister, and just barely succeeds. Maybe.

   It’s still enjoyable enough to watch, but perhaps only to fans of early television to begin with. It certainly won’t convert anyone under the age of fifty to become one.

FRANKIE DRAKE MYSTERIES. “Mother of Pearl.” CBC, 06 November 2017 (Season 1, Episode 1.) Lauren Lee Smith as Frankie Drake, Toronto’s first female private detective (in the 1920s) and the owner of Drake Private Detectives, Chantel Riley as Trudy Clarke, Frankie’s partner; Rebecca Liddiard as Mary Shaw, a morality officer in Toronto’s police force who often helps Frankie; Sharron Matthews as Flo Chakowitz, a pathologist at the Toronto City Morgue. Recurring: Wendy Crewson as Nora Amory, Frankie’s mother and a con artist; Steve Lund as Ernest Hemingway, a reporter for the Toronto Star. Director: Ruba Nadda.

   You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, especially when there are as many players as this. Thanks go to Wikipedia for providing all the names above and who they are. This first episode shows exactly how a pilot should be done: introduce the characters while at the same time building  a story around them doing just that and managing to be entertaining on its own.

   In this case, the story begins with a valuable diamond necklace being stolen from the hotel room of a wealthy steel magnate visiting from Pittsburgh. Curiously the thief leaves in its place a single duck’s feather – or more specifically, a drake’s feather – somehow bringing suspicion directly to Frankie’s door.

   This may be more than I’d usually tell you in a review, but things do get complicated from this point on. It seems that the steel man’s wife is none other than Frankie’s mother, who abandoned her and her father when she was but a child. As the story progresses, Frankie Drake (a shortened version of Francis Drake) learns more about her father as well.

   The tone is definitely light-hearted. I don’t believe that “dark streets” is anything close to what the producers of the show have in mind. The reception to the series has been such (quite favorable) that it is scheduled to start its fourth season next year. The ambience is everything it should be, the acting, so far, is adequate. Frankie herself seems, unfortunately, rather plain and and ordinary, especially compared to her flamboyant mother and her young sassy assistant.

   I’d have to see another episode, one that involves a much more ordinary, less personal case, to be able to say more. Based on this, the first installment, I found it entertaining enough to say that I will.

McMILLAN & WIFE “Murder by the Barrel.” NBC, 29 September 1971 (Season 1, Episode 2). Rock Hudson (Police Commissioner Stewart McMillan), Susan Saint James (Sally McMillan), John Schuck (Sgt. Charles Enright), Nancy Walker (Mildred). Guest Cast: Kenneth Mars, David Huddleston, Vito Scotti. Director: John Astin.

   According to Wikipedia, this second episode of the series was preceded by the pilot “Once Upon a Dead Man” on 17 September 1971, while IMDb calls this the first episode. (The pilot they call episode 0.) The pilot was two hours long; the episodes of the series itself varied between 90 minutes or two hours long; this one runs 90 minutes, including commercials. I’m not sure how long it lasted as part of NBC’s Mystery Movie wheel series, but at least at the beginning, it ran in rotation with Columbo and McCloud.

   â€œMurder by the Barrel” begins with the McMillans moving into their new home, but with Mac having left for the office, Sally finds a body in one of the barrels, one that her grandmother’s best china is supposed to be in. Of course, when Mac and Sgt. Enright get there, the body is gone. What follows is a hearty mixture of laugh-out-loud comedy and detective work that’s at least adequate, split about fifty-fifty.

   There are a lot of suspects – everyone that the three leads comes across is somehow connected with the case, which of course begins with the moving company as the focus of all their attention. Even though Rock Hudson had the bigger name at the time, I think that the more than outgoing Susan Saint James is the real star of the show – a throwback to days of Nora Charles and Pam North and lots of other female halves of many many other detective duos, each in their own distinctive way, of course.

   Wordplay is a strong key to the comedy. A full minute is spent, for example, with the three of them in a police car riffing on the difference between shipping barrels and storage barrels: You can ship in a shipping barrel and store in a storage barrel, and you can store in a shipping barrel, but you can’t ship in a storage barrel.

   Well, I thought it was funny.

   It is no wonder that the series was on for six years. The last season was a dud, though. Because of a salary dispute with Susan Saint James, Sally McMillan was killed off, and the show tried to go on without her, emphasis on the word “tried.”

      —

   For as long as it stays up on YouTube, here’s a video of this particular episode:

THE CHICAGO CODE. “Pilot.” Fox. 07 February 2011. Jason Clarke (Jarek Wysocki), Jennifer Beals (Teresa Colvin), Matt Lauria, Delroy Lindo. Director: Charles McDougall.

   Another short-lived series on Fox, The Chicago Code lasted 13 episodes before not being renewed for a another season. On the basis of the first episode, I think it deserved better, but if no one is watching, what can even the network execs do?

   As who I consider the star of the series, though, Jennifer Beals plays the Chicago Police Department’s first female superintendent, a token placement in that position by City Alderman Ronin Gibbons (a perfectly cast Delroy Lindo), who think he has a puppet he can manipulate to his liking whenever he wants. Not so. In fact, quite the opposite. Knowing he is a crooked as a snake and twice as deadly, she recruits a pair of other cops as a secret squad to bring him down.

   Which is about as far as this first episode goes, but it does its job in defiling all of the characters and what the stakes are exceedingly well. So far there does not seem to be anything out of the ordinary that might convince you or anyone else anyone to stay with it, but I found all of the characters both well defined and well played.

   The series does not seem to have ever come out on DVD, and the only streaming option I’ve come across is at an asking price of $1.99 a clip. For 13 episodes, that seems rather pricey for a series that once watched is gone, so as they say, we shall have to see.

DELLAVENTURA “Above Reproach.” CBS. 23 September 1997 (Season One, Episode One). Danny Aiello (Anthony Dellaventura), Ricky Aiello, Byron Keith Minns, Anne Ramsay. Guest Cast: Meg Gibson, Anthony Franciosa. Cameo: Rudolph Guiliani. Created by Richard Di Lello, Julian Neil and Bernard L. Nussbaumer. Director: Peter Levin.

   Anthony Dellaventura is a Manhattan-based PI who once worked for the police department but quit when he became fed up with internal politics and crooks getting off too easily. One of the D.A. he approves of, though, is Sarah Macalusso (Meg Gibson), who is scheduled to soon be sworn in as a municipal judge. A small problem has arisen, however. She was kidnapped overnight, drugged, and videotaped in shall we shall we say compromising positions.

   Even though Dellventura talks quietly, he’s also the kind of street guy who also talks tough, or that’s the premise of the show. I think he’s also the kind of guy who doesn’t think before making promises too quickly. There’s also no sense of real danger or suspense when he charges in without a plan other than confrontation and hoping for the best. He’s all brave braggadocio, but little more than that, and without a small gang of loyal assistants, I don’t think he’d get very far in the real world.

   The show is still mildly enjoyable, in a homespun sort of way, but overall, viewers seem to have agreed with me. Thirteen episodes and that was it for this short-lived PI series, now probably forgotten by everyone other than those involved. Incidentally, and for the record, Episode Two is titled “Pilot,” This wasn’t it.