MR. & MRS. SMITH. CBS. September 20, 1996 through November 8, 1996. Cast: Mr. Smith: Scott Bakula, Mrs. Smith: Maria Bello, Mr. Big: Roy Dotrice, Rox: Aida Turturro (two episodes). Created by Kerry Lenhart and John J. Sakmar.

   Mr. & Mrs. Smith was a better than average mindless TV romantic comedy mystery.

   Mr. and Mrs. Smith worked for The Factory, a worldwide private intelligence firm with the latest gadgets and unlimited resources. The company was run by a man known as Mr. Big. The Factory had a rule that no agent could know anything about another agent’s past. So, while off saving the world and solving crimes, the Smiths spent their free time trying to uncover the other’s secret past. Why they don’t even know the other’s name!

   If this secret past bit sounds like Remington Steele doubled, it was not by accident. Creators Lenhart and Sakmar were on the writing staff of Remington Steele during the third and fourth seasons. Michael Gleason, co-creator and showrunner of Remington Steele, wrote the final episode of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

   The series had an interesting twist to the overdone “will they or won’t they” cliche. At times, she was willing to hop into bed with him, and he was tempted, but there was something in his past stopping him.

   Mr. and Mrs. Smith were complete opposites, and on TV that makes them the perfect team. She was talkative and impulsive while he was quiet and deliberate. If one did not know something, the other was an expert on the subject.

   The sexual attraction each had for the other was understandable. However, the two leads’ chemistry did not heat up the screen. Scott Bakula gave his usual performance, ranging from wooden to over the top. Maria Bello was a wonderful surprise, with an emotionally expressive face able to reveal Mrs. Smith’s damaged past without a word.

   The writing was typical television, ranging from great fun to embarrassingly bad. The mysteries relied more on twists, but did feature an occasional obvious clue. The stories’ pace were fast enough, so if you turned off your brain, you did not care about the, at times, unbelievably stupid behavior of the characters.

   The best clues were not for the mystery of the week, but for the arc story of the mystery of Mr. and Mrs. Smiths’ pasts. The characters and their relationship evolved each week as they learned more about each other.

   Sadly, CBS aired only nine of the thirteen episodes, and at least two were noticeably out of order. In “The Grape Escape”, Mr. Smith goes through Mrs. Smith’s hidden trunk of past mementos. But it is a trunk the viewer and Mr. Smith did not know existed until “The Publishing Episode” that aired the week after.

   Without the last four episodes, the viewers missed out on the satisfying ending to the central mystery of the characters’ pasts.

   The final four episodes were aired sometime overseas. All thirteen episodes are available at You Tube. No DVD is currently legally available.

      EPISODE INDEX

Pilot (9/20/96)   Written: Kerry Lenhart and John J. Sakmar. Directed: David S. Jackson.   Mr. Smith meets the future Mrs. Smith while each, on opposite sides, attempt to find a missing scientist who had invented a new energy source.

The Suburban Episode (9/27/96)   Written: Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green. Directed: Oz Scott.   The Smiths move to the suburbs of St. Louis and pose as new neighbors to a man suspected of selling top-secret government codes.

The Second Episode (10/4/96)   Written: Kerry Lenhart and John J. Sakmar. Directed: Ralph Hemecker.   Mr. and Mrs. Smith help a bumbling assistant stop his boss from selling arms to a terrorist.

The Poor Pitiful Put-Upon Singer Episode (10/11/96)   Written: Del Shores. Directed: Nick Marck.   The Smiths try to find out whom wants to kill the head of a small record label.

The Grape Escape (10/18/96)   Written: Susan Cridland Wick.   Directed: Daniel Attias. The Factory sends the Smiths on a mission to save the vineyards of Europe from a scientist’s bug bombs.

The Publishing Episode (10/25/96)   Written: Douglas Steinberg. Directed: James Quinn.   The Smiths have to stop the sale of a tell-all spy book written by a missing British spy named Steed. Each Smith wants to find the book first, so to read about the other’s past.

The Coma Episode (10/28/96)   Written: Douglas Steinberg. Directed: Michael Zinberg.   Mr. Smith plays doctor with Mrs. Smith taking the role as coma patient so they can get closed the a guarded coma victim that knows the plans of terrorists to attack a peace conference.

The Kidnapping Episode (11/1/96)   Written: Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green. Directed: Sharron Miller.   Before the Smiths can discover who is causing problems at a drug company, their client is kidnapped.

The Space Flight Episode (11/8/96)   Written: Michael Cassutt. Directed: Lou Antonio.   When an ex-astronaut hires The Factory to find a space prototype and his son, the trail leads the Smiths to Area 51.

The Big Easy Episode (never aired on CBS)   Written: Del Shores. Directed: James Whitmore Jr.   The Smiths visit New Orleans when The Factory is hired to clear a Senator’s mistress of a conviction for selling government secrets.

The Impossible Mission Episode (never aired on CBS)   Teleplay: Kerry Lenhart and John J. Sakmar.   Story: Douglas Steinberg. Directed: Artie Mandelberg.   The Smiths help fellow Factory agents, the Jones, trap some counterfeiters.

The Bob Episode (never aired on CBS)   Written: Sanford Golden. Directed: Jonathan Sanger.   Bob, a friend from Mr. Smith’s pre-spy days, gets caught in the middle between the Smiths and a terrorist with enough plutonium to make an atomic bomb.

The Sins of the Father (never aired on CBS)   Written: Michael Gleason. Directed: Rob Thompson.   Mr. Smith disappears while in mid-assignment when he is blackmailed with his past. While The Factory writes him off, Mrs. Smith rushes to his rescue, whether he wants her to or not.

MAIGRET. Granada TV, UK. Second series: six 60-min episodes. 14 March through 18 April 1993. Michael Gambon (Chief Inspector Jules Maigret), Geoffrey Hutchings (Sgt. Lucas), Jack Galloway (Inspector Janvier), James Larkin (Inspector LaPointe).

   A second six part series of Maigret has recently been and gone. I watched with extra vigilance after the adverse comments about the first series in Mystery & Detective Monthly. I enjoyed this series. It’s steady and reliable without being flashy or exciting and adapts the stories well into a 50-minute format.

   The difficulty of adapting stories from a long series of books to screen is to achieve a uniformity of time and character. The decision to shoot exterior scenes in Budapest, since it was easier to recreate 1950’s (the time period chosen for the series) Paris there rather than in the Paris of 1993 seemed reasonable, although exterior scenes were kept to a minimum anyway.

   I do not subscribe to the theory that English actors speaking English portraying Frenchman speaking French should adopt the accent of a Frenchman speaking English badly (as, say, Poirot — although, of course, he’s Belgian). The producers, correctly in my opinion, used the appropriate English accent to portray the rank or position of the speaker, so a doctor would speak with a polished accent where a labourer would adopt a rougher less educated one. A foreign sounding accent was only used for characters who were not French and could be assumed to be speaking French with a foreign accent.

   I thought an article in the current issue of Armchair Detective rather silly. It seems we should have had a French actor playing the part, although it isn’t made it clear if the actor should be speaking in French or English.

   If English, I suppose we’d be looking for a French actor who speaks English but not well. If they ever make a series of Lindsey Davis’s books I wonder how they’re going to cast Falco? Perhaps they’ll be able to dig up an ancient Roman from somewhere.

   The author of the article also says: “If we wanted an Englishman playing the part, we’d watch a repeat of the dreadful American TV movie starring Richard Harris.”

   I’m quite at a loss as how to evaluate this statement. Apart from the fact that Harris is not English anyway, is he saying that once an actor has portrayed a character, even if badly, he would watch it repeatedly rather that watch an actor from the same country play the same role?

   Anyway for the record the six stories were: “Maigret And The Night Club Bouncer,” “Maigret And The Hotel Majestic,” “Maigret On The Defensive,” “Maigret’s Boyhood Friend,” “Maigret And The Minister,” and “Maigret And The Maid.”

ACCUSED. BBC-TV, UK. 15 November through 20 December 2010. Featured players, left to right: Mackenzie Crook, Marc Warren, Juliet Stevenson, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Andy Serkis, Benjamin Smith & Peter Capaldi. Creator: Jimmy McGovern.

   This was a series of six separate plays (one hour each, no adverts) in which the central character is on trial and we see the story build up by a series of flashbacks of events leading up to the trial.

   We see little of the trial itself until the final verdict which comes just before the conclusion of each story.

   The series seemed promising since the writer was the much respected Jimmy McGovern, the man behind Cracker. It fact it turned out to be a series of unremitting and absolute tosh. I carried on watching story after story thinking that at least one of them must turn out well, but they were all deplorable.

   The stories were designed, I think, to enlist sympathy for the defendant but in that respect (as in all others) they failed in this household. One problem, for this rosy-eyed watcher, was that it was difficult to find a likeable character in the whole series but, even worse, is that the actions of so many of the characters were just unbelievable on so many levels.

   A series to be avoided.

ABOVE SUSPICION: DEADLY INTENT. ITV, UK. January 3, 4 and 5, 2011. Kelly Reilly, Shaun Dingwall, Ciarán Hinds, Celyn Jones, Amanda Lawrence, Stine Stengade, Richard Brake. Screenwriters: Noel Farragher & Lynda La Plante, based on the latter’s novel. Director: Gillies MacKinnon.

   This is the third in a series based on books by Lynda La Plante with Kelly Reilly as Anna Travis, a Detective Constable in the first two, but here for some reason bumped up to an impossibly young-looking Detective Inspector, and Ciarán Hinds as her rather grumpy boss, James Langton, now a Detective Superintendent.

   In fact Langton says that his and Travis’s paths haven’t crossed since the previous case but here they are together again investigating the death of an ex-cop at a scene involving drugs. We know from the start that a high-powered drug dealer has had plastic surgery to change his appearance, but it’s how Travis gets on to the case despite put-downs from her colleagues that take up the bulk of the story (shown in three one hour, less adverts, instalments).

   The whole thing is quite watchable but also quite risible in many respects both for Miss Reilly’s improbable dress sense as she investigates crimes in high heels and revealing tops, and the attraction here expressed, but not to each other, between the two leads.

   Disappointing, too, for this blue-eyed optimist, was the rather downbeat ending. So, in summary, it’s not bad but flawed and not to be taken seriously for a moment.

MONK. USA Cable Network. Seasons 1-4: 2002-2006. Tony Shalhoub (Adrian Monk), Jason Gray-Stanford (Lt. Randall Disher), Ted Levine (Captain Leland Stottlemeyer), Traylor Howard (Natalie Teeger), Stanley Kamel (Dr. Charles Kroger), Bitty Schram (Sharona Fleming).

   As an extremely devoted admirer of Golden Age mystery fiction — just read last week’s Lee Thayer review! — I perhaps have a tendency to not give credit where credit is due to more modern work.

   Yet I will freely admit that my favorite American television mystery series is one of recent vintage: the magnificent Monk, which ran from 2002 to 2009. My nephew John Hendricks prevailed upon me to watch this series, and I am glad that he did.

   In Monk, the eccentric Great Detective of grand, old tradition is alive and well (well, perhaps not entirely well). As brilliantly created by three-time Emmy award winner Tony Shalhoub, consulting detective Adrian Monk, traumatized by the murder of his wife, Trudy, is a teeming mass of compulsions and phobias, yet he is also utterly brilliant and indispensable to the San Francisco police, who, in classical tradition, clearly would not have a prayer of solving one of their sixteen yearly murder cases without him.

   Representing the San Francisco police force in each episode are the imposing but perhaps not overly percipient Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine, otherwise most familar to me from his creepy performances in the genre films The Silence of the Lambs and Shutter Island) and his bumbling, overgrown boy scout assistant, Lieutenant Randy Disher (as broadly though amusingly played by Jason Gray-Stanford, he seems to have graduated from a police college surely located somewhere on Gilligan’s Island).

   Completing this band is Monk’s personal assistant (and essential caretaker), the brassy and sometimes abrasive former nurse Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram), who is later replaced midway through season three by the rather sweeter-natured (I think she has the patience of a saint) Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard).

   Appearing more occasionally is Monk’s psychiatrist (I think he has the patience of a saint), Dr. Charles Kroger (Stanley Kamel). Dr. Kroger’s therapy sessions with Monk are themselves often mini-masterpieces of humor (Kamel sadly died after season six, but thankfully he appeared in nearly half the Monk episodes filmed during his life).

   Season one of Monk has some inspired episodes (I particularly liked one that played a brilliant variation on G. K. Chesterton’s “The Invisible Man”), but also some clunkers. The series seems to have had a smaller budget (it looks more studio bound) in the first season and characters who had not quite gelled, as is common in debut seasons of series.

   Season two, on the other hand, seems to me nearly flawless. The ingenuity of the mystery plots often is quite remarkable, in my view, for forty-five minute television shows.

   Some highlights from various episodes include: perfect alibis (“Mr. Monk Goes Back to School” and “Mr Monk and the TV Star”); a locked exercise room murder (“Mr. Monk Meets the Playboy”); a bizarre case of a parachutist drowning in mid-air (“Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico” — this is not quite fair play but still very clever and wonderfully outre); a murder committed by a man in a coma (“Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect”); and the classic situation of the murder committed during the performance of a play (“Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater” — this crams novel length complexity into a small space).

   With their impossible situations and miracle problems, many of these episodes successfully invoke the brilliance of the Golden Age of the detective novel, as penned by such past masters as John Dickson Carr, Freeman Wills Crofts and John Rhode.

   There is also an episode, “Mr. Monk and the Three Pies,” that was surely intended as an homage to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Clearly modeled on Jacques Barzun’s favorite Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,” “Pies” also introduces a brother for Adrian Monk (the gifted Oscar-nominated actor John Turturro), who in turn is obviously influenced by Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft (he’s not fat, but he’s even smarter than Adrian and, more phobic as well, he’s essentially immobile, never leaving his house).

   Often in addition to being clever, the series is extremely funny. Mr. Monk confronting a rather less than five-star motel in Mexico should have you in stitches, as should his being forced to sham marriage with Sharona (in “Mr. Monk Gets Married,” which involves another classic Golden Age plot, the treasure hunt).

   Season three strikes me as not quite up to the sheer perfection of season two. There was a particular plot structure that, while clever, became overused in this season and there seemed, in the middle of it, to be evident problems with the actress playing Sharona. (She was entirely written out of one episode and apparently was either fired or quit.)

   After Sharona was abruptly and completely written out of the series, a replacement for her, the chipper Natalie, had to be written in, and her relationship with Monk did not really gel until season four.

   Another problem from my perspective is that the series started to indulge a bit much in the psychodrama of Monk’s obsession with his dead wife, Trudy (she even starts to appear to him in physical manifestations). A true Golden Age traditionalist likes the writer to stick a bit more to the plot!

   However, there are some excellent episodes in season three, including one of the very best in the series, “Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever,” which takes a remarkably original and delightful approach to the classical “drawing room lecture” (where the Great Detective reveals all to the assembled suspects).

   Also compelling are “Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic,” a clever inverted mystery (where we know who committed the murder) unfolding entirely within a highway traffic jam, and “Mr. Monk Goes to Vegas,” which revolves around the strangling murder of an unwanted wife while she was alone in an elevator (this one is reminiscent of a classic John Dickson Carr-John Rhode novel).

   Season four nearly maintains the level of season two, with a raft of clever episodes: Monk confronting a rival detective who somehow is smarter than he his (“Mr. Monk and the Other Detective”); Monk reuniting with his brother to confront a really baffling murder problem (“Mr. Monk Goes Home Again”); a case involving the teasing question of why someone would break a stock analyst’s right hand (“Mr. Monk Goes to the Office”).

   More from season four: A variation on the Paris Exposition “Lady Vanishes” problem (“Mr. Monk Gets Drunk”); a variation on Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo (“Mr. and Mrs. Monk”); a variation — okay, seemingly total theft from — Anthony Berkeley’s classic poisoning short story, “The Avenging Chance” (“Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa”); a comedic variation on the amnesia plot (“Mr. Monk Bumps his Head”); another perfect alibi case (“Mr. Monk and the Astronaut”) and Mr. Monk solving a present-time murder while serving on a jury (“Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty”).

   Once again, some of the episodes are extremely funny, especially “Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist,” with it hilarious parody of the Laurence Olivier-Dustin Hoffman “Is It Safe?” scene from the film Marathon Man. Some are funny and poignant, like “Mr. Monk Goes to the Office,” because we realize that behind the humor of Monk’s eccentricities are really mental disorders that set him apart from humanity and make him a very lonely man. As Monk regularly pronounces, his genius truly is “a blessing — and a curse.”

   Simultaneously successfully portraying the amazing deductive genius of the classical Great Detective and making us see as well his human side in the modern manner makes Monk a pure blessing.

THIS GIRL FOR HIRE. Made-for-TV movie, CBS, 01 November 1983. Bess Armstrong, Celeste Holm, Cliff De Young, Hermione Baddeley, Scott Brady, Howard Duff, Jose Ferrer, Beverly Garland, Roddy McDowall, Percy Rodrigues, Ray Walston, Elisha Cook Jr. Directed by Jerry Jameson

   This 1983 made for television movie aired on CBS as a pilot for a proposed series about B.T. Brady (Bess Armstrong), a somewhat less than perfect female private eye with a penchant for trench coats and fedoras, an exotic mother, Zandra (Celeste Holm) who is a former B movie actress living in the past (the 40’s to be exact), and a policeman boy friend (Cliff de Young).

   The plot involves a group of mystery writers, one of which — an arrogant and obnoxious fellow (Jose Ferrer) has been murdered. The writers are Hermione Baddeley (Agatha Christie more or less), Scott Brady (Spillane down to the pork pie), Howard Duff, Beverly Garland (who writes under a man’s name), and Roddy McDowall (who writes a Saint like character but is not Charteris).

   In solving the case B.T. is aided by her mother’s old Hollywood contacts and haunted by a mysterious fellow (Ray Walston) of suspicious motives.

   If any of this sounds a little familiar it may be because save for the actual plot, the characters, setting, and the name are all taken from This Girl For Hire by G. G. Fickling — the first Honey West novel, by a husband-and-wife writing team.

   This is not an adaptation of that book — at least not officially. In fact among the army of writers on the teleplay, the characters are attributed to Clifford and Jean Hoelscher. Neither has any other writing credits; other than this film Clifford’s name appears only as an editor and sound designer on a handful of movie and TV productions.

   Is it just a coincidence that this This Girl For Hire was apparently created by a husband and wife team too (Jean could be a man, but I’m guessing not) who have no other screen writing credits whatsoever?

   I don’t know about you, but something stinks.

   It’s not the movie, thankfully It’s nothing special, but a pleasant way to kill two hours, with Armstrong a feisty likable unlikely private eye, Celeste Holm underutilized, and Brady pretty much doing a dead on imitation of Mickey Spillane. Nice to see the old faces, and the plot isn’t terrible. Nothing great, but not terrible.

   Did I mention B. T. Brady’s dad was a murdered detective — just like Honey West’s father?

   If I recall this right I think she even lives in Bellflower, the Los Angles suburb Honey is from.

   A much bigger mystery than any solved in this mediocre film is how they used the title of the first Honey West book with a plot so similar to it. You can’t copyright titles, but neither can you write a Civil War novel called Gone With the Wind and get away with it.

   Who were the Hoelschers? Why is this their only credit? And how come no one noticed or mentioned this was so close to the original Honey West — not the later Honey, or the Anne Francis Honey, but the one in the first couple of books — who, like B.T. Brady is a bit of a klutz and a bit out of her element as a private eye.

   To paraphrase Red Skelton about a joke that didn’t get a laugh — I just state the problems, I don’t explain them.

   Anyone have a solution?

   Is this a lost Honey West movie in all but name? A case of out and out plagiarism that they got away with? A huge unlikely coincidence? Corporate intrigue? Cosmic Karma?

   Poltergeist?

   I place the mystery in your hands, oh mighty bloggers on this site.

   What the heck is going on here?

Part 1: Basic Characteristics (A Swift Overview)

   It is hardly surprising, perhaps, that one of the main reasons why so little has been written about the TV crime and mystery genre is that while everyone knows what constitutes as crime drama, no one has been able to define quite what it is. As has often noted before, the general consensus is that the crime and mystery, at its core, is a puzzle.

   Essentially, when not a Whodunit (identifying the criminal) it is a Whydunit (the reasons for the crime). While the puzzle factor does indeed lie at the heart of the genre, the shape and structure of the puzzle may adopt a myriad of forms.

   Certain basic characteristics can be deduced from the presentations themselves. It is more often than not contemporary. It has an urban setting (the city). It involves a crime of some nature (murder and robbery being among the foremost).

   But these, of course, are not the mandatory hallmarks of a TV Crime & Mystery. The Western, for instance, has lawmen and outlaws, gunfighters and hold-ups, but they are hardly crime and mystery. Although in keeping with the TV vein here, the 1870s investigations of gunfighter/private eye for-hire Shotgun Slade (syndicated, 1959-61) and the police procedurals of Denver police detective Whispering Smith (NBC, 1961) may well be the cause for some constructive argument. And not forgetting Richard Boone’s early forensics in NBC’s Hec Ramsey (1972-74).

   It has been expressed before that realism rather than stylization, a sense of authenticity and not outright adventure are the keynotes. The settings, the look, the narrative, and the procedure are all intended to be realistic. Or at least plausible. Content may often appear to be ritualized and behaviour somewhat stereotyped, but the characters are (in the majority of cases, at least) individuals rather than archetypes.

   In this view, the TV genre is at times variably flexible and tends to be audience-led. It often bows to contemporary flavours and fashions. Its richest moments, however, offer access to a world not normally afforded the ordinary citizen, the slightly sinister world of the dogged detective or the cynical street cop, the nocturnal prowling of the private eye or the ice-cold operation of a secret agent.

   The spirit of the genre is that law and order must be maintained at all costs, or, from the flip side of the coin, outwitted, outsmarted, and even defeated.

   It can take the form of the pursuit: quiet and observational (as in Maigret [BBC, 1960-63], Agatha Christie’s Poirot [ITV, 1989-93; 1995]) or physically fast and furious (The Sweeney [ITV, 1975-76; 1978], Starsky and Hutch [ABC, 1975-79]), or even the long-form (The Fugitive [ABC, 1963-67]). It can be a psychological chess game (Cracker [ITV, 1993-96]), a medical examination (Quincy ME [NBC, 1976-83]), or a forensic probe (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation [CBS, 2000-present]).

   The setting can range from Miss Marple’s cozy English village of St. Mary Mead to the dangerous night-time streets of The Wire’s Baltimore. Then there’s the milieu, the occupational routine of the sleuth. Or the social and/or professional world they inhabit. The hospital/medical milieu (Diagnosis Murder [CBS, 1993-2001]). The clerical milieu (Father Dowling Mysteries [NBC, 1989; ABC, 1990-91]). Wealthy eccentrics (Burke’s Law [ABC, 1963-65]). Horse racing (The Racing Game [ITV, 1979-80]). Et cetera, et cetera…

   Because it contains so many elements and facets related to crime, engaging the viewer from a variety of directions, the TV genre can not be defined precisely.

   The basic story-telling characteristics are an extrapolation of the forms and formats of, in one-part, the literary genre, one-part the radio drama and one-part the cinema. The TV form (not unlike the literary form) can embrace almost any genre, and can pursue any narrative strand. It can be set in the past or in the present. It can select as its point of narrative focus the law enforcer, the criminal, or the innocent bystander. It can be a TV play, a TV film, a miniseries/limited serial, an episodic series, or a series of self-contained episodes or thematic episodes (the anthology).

   The detective or sleuth character is usually the leading figure in the narrative. Leading the path that the viewer is obliged to take, they follow the pattern of the investigation. It is the sleuth’s particular application to the details of the crime that provides the dramatic interest or action (whether the gung-ho tactics of a Lt. Frank Ballinger of M Squad [NBC, 1957-60] or the careful scrutiny of a Hercule Poirot).

   The sleuth may have an assistant (Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson) or a partner (Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis). Or may consist of the a team (Ironside [NBC, 1967-75]) or a specialised squad (the cold cases unit of Waking the Dead [BBC, 2000-present]).

   The subgenre of the private detective provides, usually, the loner (Peter Gunn [NBC, 1958-60; ABC, 1960-61], Shoestring [BBC, 1979-80]). Among the subdivisions are the amateur sleuths (Hettie Bainbridge Investigates [BBC, 1996-98], Kate Loves a Mystery [NBC, 1979]) and the sleuth couple (The Thin Man [NBC, 1957-59], Hart to Hart [ABC, 1979-84], Wilde Alliance [ITV, 1978]).

   They can belong to established organisations (The FBI, Scotland Yard, MI5, the CIA, the French Sûreté, Interpol) or carry out their assignments on behalf of made-up agencies (U.N.C.L.E., C.O.N.T.R.O.L., Nemesis, CI5).

   The most popular, and the most associated with the TV genre, has been the police drama. Mainly the Police Detective (Columbo [NBC, 1971-77; ABC, 1989-93], Inspector Morse [ITV, 1987-2000]) but also the Police Officer (Dixon of Dock Green [BBC, 1955-76], Joe Forrester [NBC, 1975-76]).

   Among the subdivisions here are the undercover cop (Wiseguy [CBS, 1987-90], Murphy’s Law [BBC, 2001-2007]), the internal affairs/investigations cop (Between the Lines [BBC, 1992-94]), as well as the mobile cop (Z Cars [BBC, 1962-78], Highway Patrol [syndicated, 1955-59], CHiPs [NBC, 1977-83]).

   The Adventurer. Thrill seeker; often on the lookout for dangerous and exciting experiences. Perhaps a round-up of the expected suspects along these lines would include Roger Moore’s The Saint (ITV, 1962-69), Robert Beatty’s Bulldog Drummond (in “The Ludlow Affair” pilot [ITV, 1958] for Douglas Fairbanks Jr Presents), The Agatha Christie Hour (with “The Case of the Discontented Soldier” [ITV, 1982]), Raffles (ITV, 1977), Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar (BBC/A&E, 1986), Modesty Blaise (pilot; ABC, 1982), The Lone Wolf (syndicated, 1954), Jason King (ITV, 1971-72), The Baron (ITV, 1966-67) and, since this type of programming seems to have the greatest appeal to casual TV viewers, the countless others that we could all name.

   The Private Detective (or Private Eye) has had a long and popular run in the TV genre. In the traditional American sense (77 Sunset Strip [ABC, 1958-64] as team, The Rockford Files [NBC, 1974-80] as loner) as well as the more British tradition of the ‘consulting detective’ (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes [ITV, 1984-85], Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime [ITV, 1983-84]), along with the occasional UK leanings toward the American style (Public Eye [ITV, 1965-75]).

   The Hard-Boiled sleuth (Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer [syndicated, 1957-59]) comes into this category. Also the amateur sleuthings of The Snoop Sisters (NBC, 1973-74) and The Beiderbecke Affair (ITV, 1985), either by design (a sense of over-curiosity) or by accident.

   Perhaps as a footnote to the private detective division is the insurance investigator (John Ireland in The Cheaters [ITV, 1962-63]) or investigator for the diamond industry (Broderick Crawford in King of Diamonds [syndicated, 1961]).

   The Lawyer sleuth and the Legal Procedural offer stories combining both private investigation and courtroom drama (Perry Mason [CBS, 1957-66], Sam Benedict [NBC, 1962-63]), and in more recent times the format has been used for corporate as well as constitutional enquiry (L.A. Law [NBC, 1986-94], Judge John Deed [BBC, 2001-2007]).

   Spies, government agents and espionage have been in the literary genre almost as long as the crime and mystery genre itself. However, for the most part, their activities on both the printed page and the small screen have been popular for as long as there has been established political enemies to fight – which means, the genre was popular for most of the last century and remains (with the threat of terrorism), unfortunately, popular today.

   The television espionage genre has presented the spy (the Anglo-U.S. side, of course) as either a lone crusader (during the communist witch-hunt early 1950s; I Led Three Lives [syndicated, 1953-56]) or as part of a secret, highly organised corporation, an element that reached its peak of popularity (quite often as parody) during the 1960s (The Avengers [ITV, 1961-69], The Man from U.N.C.L.E. [NBC, 1964-68]).

   Later, Callan (ITV, 1967; 1969-72) returned the genre to a more serious track, culminating in John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in 1979. The highly popular Spooks (BBC, 2002-present; in U.S. as MI-5), for instance, features a youthful team of operatives involved in anti-terrorist activities. And so it goes…

   The Period Sleuth has been popular on UK television since the early 1970s. A winning combination of costume drama and detective fiction, the works of such authors as Christie, Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, and others, have produced the sagas of Lord Peter Wimsey (BBC, 1972-75), Father Brown (ITV, 1974), Campion (BBC, 1989), the ITV Sherlock Homes series (with Jeremy Brett; 1984 to 1994), Agatha Christie’s Poirot (ITV, 1989-93; 1995) and The Mrs Bradley Mysteries (BBC, 1998-99). The fascinating Canadian series Murdoch Mysteries (Citytv, 2008-present) continues to fascinate.

   Occasionally, there are observations on contemporary life from the distant viewpoint of ancient Rome and Medieval England (the Falco and Brother Cadfael stories, respectively). The most popular period, it seems, is the fairly recent past, roughly the late Victorian era of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper to the ‘nostalgic’ decade of the 1960s with Crime Story (NBC, 1986-88) and Heartbeat (ITV, 1992-2010).

   A small note on the future and/or fantasy as ‘setting’: Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel (BBC, 1964); The Outer Limits (ABC) episodes “The Invisibles” and “Controlled Experiment” (both from 1964); The X Files (Fox, 1993-2002); Star Cops (BBC, 1987).

   The Scientific Sleuth has surfaced intermittently over the decades (The Hidden Truth [ITV, 1964], The Expert [BBC, 1968-69; 1971; 1976]) until 2000 when CSI blazed a trail that brought the work of forensics experts to the fore.

   Weapons and ballistics experts have featured in past stories, and currently Dexter (Showtime, 2006-present) has amassed an unexpectedly popular following by portraying the work of a blood splatter specialist (alongside his alter ego as a serial killer). The criminal psychologist has also gained a following over the years, especially with the success of Cracker in 1993 (Profiler [NBC, 1996-2000], Wire in the Blood [ITV, 2002-2008]).

   Needless to say, there is more to the TV Crime & Mystery than just the above basic descriptions. In time, I intend to discuss aspects of the TV Gaslight Era drama, the Underworld, the Psychological Thriller, and other related TV forms.

   In Part Two of PRIME TIME SUSPECTS, I will trace early examples of the genre (from 1930s/1940s TV works by Christie, Edgar Wallace, G.K. Chesterton, Patrick Hamilton and Edgar Allan Poe, among others), leading up to the episodic series of the late 1940s (such as The Plainclothesman, 1949-54).

Note:   The introduction to this series of columns on TV mysteries and crime shows may be found here.

RAINES. NBC-TV, March 15 thru April 27 2007. Created by Graham Yost. Cast: Detective Michael Raines: Jeff Goldblum, Captain Lewis: Matt Craven, Carolyn : Nicole Sullivan, Lance: Linda Park, Boyer: Dov Davidoff. Recurring Characters: Dr. Kohl: Madeline Stowe, Charlie: Malik Yoba.

    Raines is a rare example of a creative television series with a premise so different even the seasoned TV mystery fan will be pleasantly surprised.

   Detective Michael Raines is a failed writer turned homicide detective who needs to talk out the crime with someone. When he loses his partner, and no one else will partner with him because they think he is a weird jerk, Raines turns to the dead victims.

   Raines is not Topper meets Sherlock Holmes. The dead victims are not ghosts but figments of Raines’ own imagination. Because of this, the victims can not tell Raines anything he does not know. In “Fifth Step,” the victim’s head had been shot off by a shotgun blast. Raines sees the headless victim walking around until he sees a picture of her.

   In each episode we watch how the victim changes as Raines learns more about the dead person. In the pilot, Raines imagines the dead girl as a young innocent woman. As he learns more that image changes. When he learns she may have had an affair with a married man, Raines’ image of her changes to resemble Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, complete with the film’s theme song playing on the soundtrack.

   As Raines and the viewer learn more about the dead body the character of the victim becomes more developed. No longer is the victim just a body to start the mystery. He or she becomes more and more real to the viewer, so much so we mourn the loss and tragedy of the victim’s death.

   Raines is eager to solve the case and get the victim out of his head. When he does solve the mystery, we have grown close enough to the victim to share Raines’ relief and sadness of closure.

   The humor is dark, sarcastic, and at times can be laugh out loud funny. With the dead victim hovering around Raines waiting for answers, we feel the anger that fuels such humor. As a result the humor in this series has substance that is rare outside Raymond Chandler.

   Jeff Goldblum is perfect as Raines, a man who lives with the terror he might be insane, yet driven to help find closure for the dead victims and those close to them.

   Award winning showrunner Graham Yost (Justified, The Pacific) enjoys twisting the normal roles and rules of the mystery genre. In “Meet Juan Doe,” the police artist wants to do “graphic novels” and his sketch of a badly disfigured Mexican looks like Eric Erstrada.

   Perhaps the best genre description of Raines is Victim Noir. Everything including the plot is centered around the victim. In “Stone Dead”, the plot begins as a story about a racist’s revenge against a judge, but as we learn more about the victim the crime changes. Often the backdrop of the crime challenges Raines’ perspective regarding social issues such as the homeless, addiction, and illegal immigration.

   Raines is a series no TV mystery fan should miss.

   All seven filmed episodes can be seen at Hulu.com.

MIDSOMER MURDERS. ITV, UK. Season 13, Episodes 4-6. John Nettles (D.C.I. Barnaby), Jason Hughes (DS Ben Jones), Jane Wymark (Joyce Barnaby), Barry Jackson (Dr Bullard), Kirsty Dillon (WPC Gail Stephens).

   This past fall we had a burst of four new episodes of this long-running series (2 hours each, less adverts). I missed the first of these but the second, “The Silent Land” (03 August 2010) was a typical episode with a con man who leads a “ghost walk” around various sites in the Midsomer area.

   Of course when a body turns up he is able to attract more followers, though he clearly makes things up and Barnaby pooh-poohs all things ghostly. However the producers couldn’t resist, after all the crimes have been cleared up rationally, giving Barnaby a ghostly encounter of his own.

   The third, “Master Class” (06 October 2010), was, I’m afraid to say, even worse (possibly the worst episode ever, though there have been some pretty bad ones) with a totally barmy story based on a vision — yes really — that a young girl has, replaying an incident when she was a babe in arms.

   The characters, actions and motives were unbelievable and the whole was a complete mess. Unless you are a Midsomer completist you will do best to avoid this episode.

   Following that the fourth episode, “The Noble Art” (13 October 2010), though not the most intriguing of stories, maybe, was a return to the good old days with a story that made some sense and a villain that one could make out if the clues were picked up on. If only they were all like this.

LAW & ORDER: UK. ITV. Series Three: 09 September through 21 October 2010. Bradley Walsh, Jamie Bamber, Harriet Walter, Ben Daniels, Freema Agyeman, Bill Paterson.

   Another seven episodes (making a total so far of 20) of original Law & Order stories adapted to a London setting.

   Somehow it doesn’t quite work, partly, perhaps, because the stories were designed to operate in a slightly different culture. Maybe it would have been better to commission new stories and fit them within a more recognisable British setting.

   An exception might have been “Masquerade,” based on the US episode “Good Girl,” which seemed, to me at least, to be rather stronger than the others. I’m not convinced, however, that prosecutors in England would investigate in the way they do here.

Of course when I’m watching the original I have no idea how the legal system works in New York (except from watching similar programmes — although as I’ve said before the difference in procedures between L&O, NYPD Blue and CSI:NY leaves this viewer rather confused) and accept it all without a quibble.