Coronado 9 (1960-61)

Coronado 9 is a now entirely forgotten American private eye series that aired in syndication from 1960 to 1961. Thirty-nine episodes were made in total.

Rod Cameron plays PI Dan Adams. Initially we’re not told very much about him but over the course of the first ten episodes or so we can piece together the vague outlines of his story. He’s an ex-Naval Intelligence officer, unmarried and apparently never has been married, and his greatest passion in life is his sailing boat. This offers the opportunity to introduce some vaguely nautical storylines which gives the series a bit more colour.

Rod Cameron was a big hulking guy who was pretty much born to play tough guys and cops. And private eyes. He’s reasonably convincing but he is just a little lacking when it comes to personality. Which I suspect is the reason the series only lasted one season. He certainly doesn’t have the charisma of the stars of other private eye series of that era, like Darren McGavin in Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer or John Cassavetes in Johnny Staccato.

Dan Adams is also very much a straight arrow, perhaps to an excessive degree. He believes in keeping nothing from the police and he definitely does not believe in cutting legal corners. That’s no doubt a sensible philosophy for a real-life private detective but you expect a TV detective to be prepared on occasions to sail a bit closer to the wind in protecting the interests of his clients.

Dan Adams also seems to be quite uninterested in any romantic entanglements with women, another factor that possibly contributed to the show’s cancellation.

The setting is San Diego. Dan Adams actually lives on Coronado Island, in a rather cool modernist beach house.

Much of this series was directed by William Witney who a couple of decades earlier had been probably the finest ever director of movie serials. As a director of serials he had been known for his skill at shooting action scenes and he gets a few chances to demonstrate that skill in his work on Coronado 9.

Private eye series proliferated in American TV in the late 50s and the biggest problem facing the producers of such a series was to give your production some touch of individuality or originality. You could do that by having a slightly offbeat detective (such as Johnny Staccato) or you could try putting your PI in an exotic setting (Hawaiian Eye being an example). Giving Dan Adams a sailing boat and having a few episodes with some connection to boats was a kind of token attempt to give Coronado 9 a mildly exotic flavour but unfortunately apart from the opening episode the budgets weren’t sufficient to allow actual shipboard settings.

So it’s not that it’s a bad series. It just didn’t have anything much to make it stand out.

Episode Guide

This covers the dozen or so episodes I’ve watched.

In the opening episode, The Widow of Kill Cove, a woman hires Dan Adams to take her to Mexico to look for her missing husband. Adams finds he’s been set up and it’s a tense battle for survival on his boat. A pretty good way to kick off a series although it actually tells us nothing at all about Dan Adams except that he owns a boat and he’s a guy who can handle himself in a fight. He could be a PI or he could just be an ex-military guy.

Stroll in the Park clarifies the situation. He is definitely a PI. He’s been hired by a guy who was mugged while enjoying a romantic idyll in the park with a young lady. He’s a married man but the young lady in question was definitely not his wife, so of course he didn’t report the matter to the police. His big problem is that the muggers stole some papers and if he doesn’t get them back he’ll lose his job, so he’s relying on Dan to do so discreetly. Being discreet becomes more difficult when Dan discovers that he’s dealing with much more than a mugging. A good solid episode.

Doomtown is one of the countless TV and movie stories in which a city person travels to a nice little country town only to discover that all country people are evil knuckle-dragging rednecks and all country lawmen are corrupt thugs. This is a particularly tedious example of a tedious species. My advice is to skip this embarrassingly bad episode.

The Spinster of Nob Hill is an OK was it suicide or was it murder story. The police certainly think the dead woman’s husband murdered her and Dan has to find out the truth.

The Groom Came D.O.A. starts with a drive-by shooting, at a wedding. Dan has a kind of indirect connection with the groom and he agrees to look into the case. There are some nice little plot twists here and it’s a pretty effective story.

The Day Chivalry Died puts Dan in an awkward position. He runs into Joe Cardoza, an old Navy buddy,  at a party. Joe has to return to his ship (he’s now in the Coast Guard) and he asks Dan to keep an eye on his wife. Dan keeps an eye on her and what he sees is very disturbing. But is it what it appears to be? And how will the notoriously hot-headed Joe react? Dan needs the skills not of a private detective but of a marriage counsellor, a diplomat and a psychologist. And some all-in wrestling skills will come in handy too. A slightly offbeat episode and a good one.

I Came for the Funeral takes Dan to Mexico, to attend the funeral of the son of an old friend. Dan wants to find out exactly what happened to the deceased young man. It seems that whatever the circumstances everyone is overjoyed that the guy is dead. Including the Mexican police, represented by the vain, arrogant, foolish local police lieutenant. Or at least he likes people to think he is vain, arrogant and foolish. A good episode.

I Want to Be Hated is a serious misfire. Dan meets a woman on the ferry. Nancy is obviously crazy. And it’s not just your regular kind of craziness. This is bad craziness. The craziness that ends with someone in the morgue. But Dan decides to rescue her. Now I may be wrong but I’m not at all convinced that a hardbitten PI like Dan Adams would be dumb enough to try a thing like that. But he does. And it all becomes rather contrived. And it left me totally unconvinced.

Four and Twenty Buddhas is more of a straightforward private eye tale and it’s pretty good. A young Chinese girl is conned out of some valuable art treasures but Dan Adams is on the case and pretty soon he has a personal reason to nail these hoodlums. Good episode.

In Run Scared a guy who’s just come out of prison is threatening to kill Dan, for sending him to prison in the first place. Everyone assures Dan that Harry Matthews is really serious about his threat. Which is odd, because Harry has never seemed the type for vengeance. Another very competent episode.

Alibi Bye a stereotypical over-privileged spoilt rich young man kills a woman in a hit-run accident. His rich mother wants to hire Dan to prove her son’s very dubious alibi but Dan has a really bad feeling about this case.

In A Bookie Is Not a Bibliophile gambling leads to murder, although in this case in a rather indirect manner. And it may lead to more direct forms of murder as well. A solid enough episode.

Careless Joe is a musician and he’s a nice guy but he’s too fond of women and much too fond of the ponies. Now he’s in real big trouble and wants Dan to bail him out.

Remember the Alamo presents Dan with a kidnapping case but there’s that doesn’t feel right. We know that there are several possible twists in this kind of story and Remember the Alamo does a fairly good job of keeping us uncertain as to which twist it’s going to pull. It also makes great use of the wonderful Hotel del Coronado with a fine action climax. An excellent episode.

Blow, Gabriella is a spy story about two brothers. Both are young scientists. One is a scientific genius, the other is - well let’s just say he isn’t a scientific genius. This leads to some tensions, and these tensions cause one brother to get mixed up in an espionage plot. A slightly odd episode. I wish I could assure you it’s odd in a good way, but it isn’t really.

Loser's Circle is a murder case, but it’s a murder in the distant past. Except the past doesn’t always stay in the past. The mystery in this story is not too difficult to figure out.

Obituary of a Small Ape is an enjoyable spy thriller story. The small ape in question is actually a monkey and he’s the key to an espionage plot. Despite the title you’ll be pleased to know that at the end of the story the monkey is still alive and well and happy. Which is not a spoiler. The monkey is the key but whether he’s alive or dead makes no difference to the plot.

In Film Flam Dan travels to Paris and then to Algiers (through the magic of stock footage) to help out a Frenchwoman who is being blackmailed. Dan has to convince the blackmailers that he’s as crooked as they are. Not a bad episode.

Londonderry Heiress takes Dan to London, for a job as bodyguard to the daughter of a retired Irish-American gangster. Someone has been making threats against the daughter. Keeping her safe is a challenge; fending off her amorous advances is an even bigger challenge. An OK episode.

Run, Shep, Run takes Dan to an old mansion in the bayou country for a week’s duck shooting. There turns out to be shooting but it’s not the ducks being hunted. The bayou setting is effective, the plot has some decent twists and it’s reasonably exciting. All in all a good episode.

The Daley Double benefits from its setting, a movie studio where star Belinda Daley’s latest picture is being shot. Miss Daley thinks someone is trying to kill her and the recent death of her stunt double in an accident heightens her fears. So she calls in Dan Adams. The problem is that Belinda Daley has an awful lot of enemies. This one has some decent action scenes and it’s not bad.

Final Thoughts

Coronado 9 is an average sort of American private eye series for its era. If you like private eye series and you like American TV of that era it’s a harmless enough time-waster. Just don’t expect it to be in the same league as Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer or Johnny Staccato.

Timeless Media Group have released all 39 episodes of Coronado 9 in a four-DVD set. The transfers are reasonably good.

I’m a big fan of American TV of this era and of private eye series and I quite enjoyed Coronado 9. I think it’s worth a look if you can find it as a rental.

Magnum, P.I. season 3 (1982)

The third season of Magnum, P.I. went to air in late 1982 and early 1983.

More than most television series a private eye series has to have a charismatic lead actor. Magnum, P.I. has no problems there. Tom Selleck’s middle name is charisma.

If it’s going to keep us interested over multiple seasons such a series also has to have a protagonist who is more than just a stereotype. And while Thomas Magnum might initially seem like a stereotyped self-centred playboy it’s soon evident that he’s actually a pretty complicated guy. Thomas went through some very bad stuff in Vietnam and he’s still haunted by it. That gives the character a touch of darkness and a touch of pathos.

What makes this series unusual for a P.I. series is that its great strength is the ensemble acting. There are four regular characters, all of them different and all of them interesting. And the interactions between them are subtle and complex. Magnum is a guy who is only too happy to shamelessly manipulate his old wartime buddies TC and Rick into giving him outrageous amounts of help in his cases, often at considerable expense, inconvenience and even danger to themselves. But he’d do the same for them if they needed help. He’s not really selfish. He is a very demanding friend, but he’s a loyal one as well. Magnum can be childish and petulant, and then turn on a dime and behave in a noble and generous way. And as much as Higgins irritates him, when the chips are down he’ll stand by Higgins just as he’ll stand by his wartime buddies. Magnum is a flawed hero but he’s a hero just the same.

As in the earlier seasons there’s an obsessive preoccupation with the shadow that the past is able to cast over the present. The strength of this series is that this theme is explored so often, but never in quite the same way twice. In fact it’s a series that is constantly trying to take familiar themes and give them an original twist. Sometimes this is risky, but it’s a risk worth taking.

One important point has to be made about watching TV series on DVD. There’s a real danger of indulging in too much binge-watching. If you’d been a Magnum, P.I. fan back in the 80s you’d have seen the 162 episodes over the course of eight years. If you watch too many episodes (and this applies to every TV series) in too short a space of time you can overdose. This is important particularly when you get to the third season of a series. 

Like Hawaii Five-O this series tends to blend crime and espionage elements, sometimes in the same episode. It’s one of the things that makes Magnum, P.I. a slightly unusual private eye series.

Thomas Magnum is a guy who appears to be big, loud and dumb but he isn’t. He’s smart and he’s sensitive. And you can say the same thing about Magnum, P.I. as a series. Like Magnum the man it’s deceptive. It seems superficial but actually it’s thoughtful and it has some substance. It’s intelligent fun.

Magnum, P.I. is also incredibly stylish. Like Mannix it has that glossy polished look that American television perfected in the late 60s.

This seems at first to be a traditional private eye series but Magnum, P.I. often takes unexpected risks and unconventional approaches. More surprisingly, the risks usually pay off. It really has a distinctive flavour of its own. The polished and very stylish surface has led to its being very underrated. And in its third season it’s still taking risks.

Episode Guide

Did You See the Sun Rise? opens the season in a very impressive manner. It’s one of the many Vietnam-related episodes and it’s one of the best. A guy Magnum served with in Vietnam is convinced that a Russian named Ivan is out to kill him. Ivan had been attached to the North Vietnamese Army and Magnum and his buddies had encountered him when they were P.O.W.s and he’s one nasty customer. But why would he be trying to kill one of them now? And why is Colonel Buck Green, a Marine intelligence officer for whom Magnum has an undying hatred, involved? This is a very dark episode (and Magnum, P.I. had some very dark moments).

In The Eighth Part of the Village Thomas picks up a carton of books from the docks for Higgins. But the carton doesn’t contain books, it contains a young Japanese woman named Asani. She is the daughter of a man named Sato, a Japanese officer Higgins had befriended during the war. But why are a couple of hoodlums now trying to kill Thomas? And why is it so hard to find Asani’s husband who is supposed to be in Honolulu? Not to mention Asani’s stories of the cruelty of her father, even though Higgins assures Magnum that Sato is a very kind and honourable man. It’s a decent episode.

In Past Tense TC’s chopper is skyjacked and used in a daring prison escape and TC and Higgins find themselves held hostage on a small island by a bunch of desperadoes. The question is why a small-time white-collar criminal nearing the end of his sentence would stage a violent prison break, and what does it have to do with Magnum? Magnum will have to find the answer to both questions. A good episode.

There are quite a few Magnum episodes dealing with Thomas’s nightmare memories pf the Vietnam War. In Black on White it’s Higgins who has to confront such memories. He was in Kenya in 1953 during the Mau Mau Rebellion. Lots of terrible things occurred at that time and one of those things involved his regiment. Now three members of the regiment have been murdered, by the same methods the Mau Mau used. A certain member of the regiment, Edwin Clutterbuck by name, is on the list to be killed. And so is Higgins. But why? This is a welcome change from the Vietnam episodes although it explores similar themes. Some thing you just can’t ever forget. A very good episode.

Flashback is a dream episode. Most of the episode is one long extended dream sequence. This is the kind of thing that is usually best avoided but in this instance it’s done very cleverly and with style and wit. Magnum wakes up to find that it’s 1936 and his client has just arrived in Hawaii, by flying boat. Her father is going to be charged with murder. Magnum has to prove his innocence. He has T.C. and Rick to help him, only they’re not quite the same people that they are in 1982. Similar, but not quite the same. He has Robin Masters’ car, only now it’s a 1927 Bugatti. Magnum knows it’s a dream. The viewer knows it’s a dream. But it’s a dream that has unexpected significance. A clever idea superbly executed, and it looks fabulous with the 1930s cars, planes and fashions. It’s offbeat episodes such as this that make this such an intriguing series.

In Foiled Again Higgins becomes reacquainted with an old enemy from his school days, and there is no hatred that can compare to the hatreds formed in schooldays. He also becomes reacquainted with an old love from the same period of his life, and these two encounters lead to disaster. A good episode. 

In Mr. White Death an ageing professional wrestler by that name (played by Ernest Borgnine) saves Magnum from being beaten up. The wrestler loses his job and his apartment as a result so Magnum puts him up in the guest house. You’d expect Higgins to be appalled but amazingly he and Mr White Death get on like a house on fire. The wrestler wants Magnum to find his long-lost son. Magnum becomes suspicious that there’s more to it, and there is, but the plot twists are genuinely clever and offbeat. Ernest Borgnine is in fine form, Rick gets knocked unconscious every few minutes and it all builds into an emotional climax. This is vintage Magnum.

In Mixed Doubles Thomas and Rick are playing in a pro-am tennis tournament and Thomas likes the idea because he thinks he’ll be partnering an old flame, Ginger Grant, who’s now the top women’s tennis player in the world, But instead he has to partner an obnoxious brat named Carrie Reardon, a rising star on the women’s circuit. He has to partner because she’s been threatened and he has to act as her bodyguard. The case gets complicated and Magnum’s personal life gets mixed up in it as well. It’s another Magnum episode dealing with the fact that we can never quite escape the past and we can’t put it right either. Quite a good episode.

With Almost Home we have another episode dealing with the past. Magnum is hired by cocktail waitress Bridget Archer who wants to clear her father’s name. He was court-martialled by the Navy 40 years ago. Her case seems hopeless and Magnum knows the smart thing would be to put Bridget on the next plane back to Omaha, but Magnum does have a weird thing about the Navy and honour and all that sort of thing. As a result he has to deal with an enraged admiral and an annoyed gangster, and he manages to get the Ferrari stolen. It’s an episode that deals not just with the past but with conflicting loyalties and differing interpretations of honour, themes that this series often tackles. And in this case tackles very well. A very good episode.

In Heal Thyself a nurse named Karen whom Magnum knew in Nam is now a doctor and she may be facing a triple murder charge. Thomas is sure she’s innocent but she did crack up after Nam so that makes things more awkward for her. She’s not even sure herself that she’s innocent. This one has a decent mystery plot with multiple plausible suspects (including Karen herself). Another story with Vietnam flashbacks but it’s a good episode.

In Of Sound Mind a former client named MacLeish is killed in a plane crash and leaves his $50 million fortune to Magnum, but there’s a catch. Magnum has to find MacLeish’s killer. Not an original idea but it’s given some new twists and it’s executed with enormous wit and style. The ending is very very clever. A fun lighthearted episode, and a very very good one.

The Arrow That Is Not Aimed is typical Magnum, P.I. - you take a conventional private eye plot and then add some wildly unconventional elements. A valuable Japanese porcelain on its way to Robin Masters is stolen. What’s unconventional is that it was stolen by ninja, and the courier was a samurai named Tozan and he’s going to commit ritual suicide if the plate is not recovered. Magnum learns about the samurai code of honour, and Tozan learns a few things about himself as well. A very good episode.

In Basket Case Magnum and T.C. are coaching rival kids’ basketball teams and Magnum has a secret weapon - a girl named Willie. But Willie has a few secrets. This is an interesting low-key episode focused on questions of loyalty and trust. It avoids sentimentalising and works surprisingly well.

The Birdman of Budapest is a mad Hungarian ornithologist and Magnum has to find him so that Robin Masters’ old high school English teacher Elizabeth can interview him for her book on ornithology. But there’s something to this story that Magnum doesn’t know. And Magnum has to find the ornithologist before Higgins is driven to murder. There’s also a homicidal macaw. Quite a good episode.

Magnum gets married in I Do? but of course you’re going to suspect that it’s not quite so straightforward. And it isn’t. In between squabbling with his new bride Marsha MacKenzie he has to find out why so much money has gone missing from the MacKenzie corporation. It’s not a complicated plot but it’s well executed and the repartee between Magnum and Marsha is amusing.

Forty Years from Sand Island is another story dealing with the past. Forty years earlier Japanese-Americans were interned in a camp on Sand Island in Hawaii. One night something terrible happened, and that long-ago event could get Higgins killed. Maybe sometimes it’s best to forget the past but some things can’t be forgotten. Another strong episode.

In Legacy from a Friend Magnum acquires a partner. Sort of. Very reluctantly. It starts with Magnum’s friend Marcus drowning. Only that doesn’t make sense. Marcus was a lifeguard. And always penniless, so where did he get the very expensive brand new sports car he’d been driving? Then Tracy turns up with a story that she was Marcus’s fiancée but then she says she’s an undercover cop but Tracy changes her story numerous times. Either way she forces herself on Magnum as a partner. The comic interchanges between Magnum and Tracy are the highlight of the episode but there’s also a decent plot which will eventually explain the sports car, and Marcus’s death. Magnum P.I. is at its best in the darker episodes but the more comic stories such as this can be quite delightful. And while Tracy is irritating she’s also likeable even if as a detective she can be more of a hindrance than a help.

Two Birds of a Feather is another episode with Vietnam flashbacks. During the war Magnum was trapped by Vietcong forces in Cambodia and he only escaped because a Marine Corps Phantom pilot, Sam Houston Hunter, bent the rules and gave him air support. Now Hunter has crashed a light plane in Robin Masters’ tidal pool. Magnum and Hunter never actually met in Nam but they both have a weird feeling that they should know each other. What puzzles Magnum is what he found in the wreckage of the light plane.

Sam Hunter is the kind of character who pops up regularly in Magnum, P.I. - he’s a nice guy but he’s a dreamer. One of his dreams is connected to the fateful day in Nam more than a decade earlier. This is an unusual episode in that Magnum plays virtually no part in the story. Maybe there were thoughts of a spin-off series featuring Sam Hunter?  It’s at best an OK episode (the plot is a bit thin). Magnum, P.I. without Magnum falls a bit flat. There are some good flying sequences though.

The guest star in ...By Its Cover is Stuart Margolin, best known as Angel in The Rockford Files. And in this episode he plays Rod Crysler, a character who is simply a slightly older version of Angel. But it has to be said that he’s the sort of character Margolin plays incredibly well. Rod was in Nam with Magnum. Now he sells encyclopædias and he persuades Magnum to deliver a crate of encyclopædias for him, except that the crate actually contains marijuana. Rod has an explanation for this. He has an explanation for everything. Magnum should just call Five-O but he owes Rod from Nam and maybe Rod isn’t lying this time. There’s some comic relief provided by Rod’s parole officer who is really excited about getting involved in Magnum’s plan to get Rod out of trouble because she’s never had the chance to play at being a real cop. It’s basically a fun episode (and it does have a very Rockford Files flavour) and it works.

The Big Blow is a hurricane that is just about to hit Oahu. That however is not going to stop Higgins from going ahead with Masters’ spring equinox party, one of the highlights of the social season. The party attracts three unexpected guests - two prison escapees one of whom has his pregnant wife in tow. There's also another complication that only Magnum knows about. He has a plan for dealing with that complication but it goes wrong. But that’s OK. He has another plan. But first there’s the problem of the two escaped convicts with guns. And there’s also the problem of the hurricane, and the phone lines being down and the power being out. There are both thriller and mystery elements in this story and both are handled pretty well. An excellent episode.

Faith and Begorrah begins with Magnum tailing someone when he runs into an Irish priest and the priest looks a bit like Higgins. So Magnum tells Higgins about the encounter and Higgins realises, to his horror, that his half-brother Father Paddy McGuinness is in Hawaii. It’s not just that Father Paddy is a somewhat disreputable priest with a fondness for whisky. The real embarrassment is that Father Paddy is illegitimate. That sort of thing bothers Higgins and it bothers him even more that Magnum knows about it. Father Paddy is looking for a relic stolen from his church in Northern Ireland and he blames the British and then another relic, this one a British relic in the keeping of Higgins, is stolen. Meanwhile Magnum is trying desperately not to find evidence that a boxer’s wife has been unfaithful.

This is a story in which not much happens and yet quite a lot happens. There’s no great mystery to be solved. What happens is all character stuff. It’s all very light-hearted. It’s the kind of quirky episode that makes this series so fascinating. I liked it.

Final Thoughts

Along with Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Mannix, The Rockford Files and Harry O this is one of the great American private eye series. Very highly recommended. 

I’ve also reviewed season one and season two.

Simon & Simon, season one (1983-84)

Simon & Simon is a quirky private eye series that premiered on CBS in 1981. Its roots however go back further than that. The original pilot, Pirate’s Key, went to air in 1978. It was set in Florida. When the series was finally given the green light the setting was changed to San Diego. Apparently the pilot also has a very different kind of tone.

Simon & Simon was an immediate ratings disaster and after a single 13-episode season was on the verge of cancellation. It was saved by a change of time slot. A very clever change of time slot - it now followed the established private eye hit Magnum, P.I. and to cement the relationship in viewers’ minds a crossover episode was made. Simon & Simon now became a major hit (and Magnum, P.I.’s ratings were boosted as well).

There’s some similarity in tone between the two series. Both are slightly offbeat and both rely quite a bit on charm, style and wit. Magnum, P.I. skilfully combines these elements this with some occasional very dark subject matter. Simon & Simon is more consistently light-hearted but the idea that Magnum, P.I. fans would probably enjoy Simon & Simon was a pretty sound one.

As so often happened in American television the series gradually became, under network pressure, more and more conventional. That first season remains genuinely offbeat and incredibly entertaining.

Brothers Rick and A.J. Simon run a small private detective agency in San Diego, right cross the street from Myron Fowler’s huge Peerless Detective Agency. The Simon & Simon agency survives (just) because it offers the personal touch. And also they’re cheaper!

Their relationship with Myron Fowler is uneasy to say the least but this is basically a lighthearted series so that aspect is mostly played in a humorous way. Rick and A.J. do get along very well with Myron’s daughter Janet (Jeannie Wilson). She’s a lawyer and she helps them out a lot, much to Myron’s disgust.

The brothers (in the finest television tradition) make an ill-matched pair. A.J. looks like he could be an accountant and he has the sense of responsibility and the work ethic to match. Everything about him screams middle class. He dresses neat. He wears nice suits. He drives a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible. He’s a bit of a yuppie. Rick by contrast is a good ole boy. While A.J. does the paperwork he watches sports on TV and drinks beer. He wears jeans. He looks disreputable and he’s totally irresponsible. He drives a pick-up truck.

Rick and A.J. squabble constantly but in fact they’re very close. It’s not just brotherly affection. Despite their differences they like one another. And they work together as a team because they trust each other. It’s a classic Odd Couple setup but it works because Gerald McRaney (as Rick) and Jameson Parker (as A.J.) have genuine charm and the scripts make the most of their relationship.

It was a series that had enormous potential. There have been plenty of series with enormous potential that were cancelled after a single season because in those days the networks had no patience with any series that was not an immediate hit. Simon & Simon just got very very lucky. It was given the opportunity to survive and viewers came to love the show enough to keep it going for eight seasons.

While Magnum, P.I. remains the great American private eye series of the 80s Simon & Simon runs it a pretty close second. Both series have a slightly offbeat feel but each has its own distinctive flavour. Thomas Magnum is the ultimate glamorous private eye even if his glamour is borrowed (he lives in a mansion he doesn’t own and drives a Ferrari he doesn’t own). He’s impossibly good-looking and sexy. The Simon brothers are totally unglamorous. They’re the kinds of guys nobody ever notices. They’re just ordinary.

No matter how appealing your lead characters might be you still need stories that will persuade people to start watching and keep them watching until the closing credits. The first season scripts consistently do this. There are always a few nice unexpected touches. Some of the stories are outrageous, but they never become merely silly.

The humour is good-natured. There’s no graphic violence. This is a feelgood series but it’s a smart quirky witty feelgood series.

I should also mention the great opening titles sequence and the opening theme tune, both of which were unfortunately changed to something more conventional for the second season.

Episode Guide

In Details at Eleven the brothers have to find a missing girl but finding her is just the start of their troubles. It’s what she’s running away from that matters. There’s a whole world of corruption to deal with. Political corruption and media corruption. Corrupt people who are very dangerous. They play for keeps.

In Love, Christy Rick is overjoyed when blonde bombshell college student Christy hires the brothers to get her stolen car back. Unfortunately Christy is the kind of blonde who gives blondes a bad name. She’s spoilt and rich and doesn’t care about her car. What she cares about is the biology test paper that’s in the car, the test paper she stole (Christy doesn’t see why she should have to study for tests because after all she’s blonde and rich). Getting the car back gets Rick and A.J. into all sorts of trouble with some very nasty criminal elements. Untrustworthy clients getting private eyes into trouble were a staple of private eye series but this episode handles the theme pretty well. It’s light-hearted fun and it works.

Trapdoors deals with computer crime, a new and exciting subject in 1981. A 13-year-old has hacked into the local bank’s computer. The kid, Terry, has an awesome computer setup in his bedroom. He has a dial-up connection. A real dial-up connection - you have to dial the number by hand on a telephone handset. There was no internet to connect to. Even bulletin board services were in their infancy. And he has a tape drive! If you’re of a certain age you’ll get a nostalgia blast from this episode. Terry hasn’t exactly been robbing the bank - he’s been borrowing money from other people’s accounts and collecting the interest. The bank hires the Simon brothers to catch the kid but of course the story is not as straightforward as it seems. As well as early 80s computers the story also involves role-playing games so there’s even more 80s nostalgia. And it’s a great story.

In A Recipe for Disaster a woman hires the Simon brothers when she thinks her estranged husband has kidnapped their daughter. But that’s not what happened at all. Sure Steve Gaines has his daughter with him down in Mexico where’s he’s working on an oil field. In fact Gaines in in trouble. A lot more people could be in trouble. A whole town full of people. It’s all to do with oil and money. Rick and A.J. will have to try to get both Gaines and his daughter out of that trouble. Lots of action in this one, and suspense, and humour as well (as the kid slowly drives A.J. and Rick insane). Rick also has a new gadget to play with. He loves gadgets. A very enjoyable episode.

In The Least Dangerous Game Rick and A.J. are hired by the zoo. There was an unfortunate incident there. One of the lions ate one of the keepers. That’s not good publicity for the zoo so the brothers’ job is to preserve the zoo’s good name by smearing the character of the keeper. Nothing about this case adds up. The Simon brothers re more and more suspicious but the solution to the mystery is weirder than they could have imagined. And Rick almost gets eaten by a bear. The Simon & Simon is pretty well established by now - clever scripts like this one combining humour and mystery with a few offbeat touches. A fine episode.

The Dead Letter File presents the Simon brothers with an opportunity to make a name for themselves. The only thing is, the murder took place in 1959. If there was a murder. The trouble with a 23-year-old murder case is that everyone involved is dead. Everybody except the murderer. The case involves tacos and burgers, and disc jockeys. It’s a typical episode, which means it’s clever and amusing and charming. It’s good stuff.

In The Hottest Ticket in Town the trouble starts when Rick and A.J. agree to try to get tickets for the sold-out Rick Brewster concert for their cousin Dianne. They manage to get hold of not the three tickers that she asked for but 8,000 tickets. They’ve stumbled on a racket. They try to do the right thing but people keep misunderstanding their intentions and pointing guns at them and hitting them. It’s a fun and original kind of episode, the kind of slightly offbeat thing this series did so well. John Travolta’s older brother Joey plays rock star Rick Brewster.

Ashes to Ashes, and None Too Soon is a tangled tale of love and diamonds. The Simon brothers hate serving papers on people but private detectives have to eat. This time they have reason to doubt the identity of the man they served the papers on, and then there’s a corpse to deal with. And there’s a Fed to deal with as well. And a woman. Actually two women. It’s all delightfully complicated. A great episode.

The Uncivil Servant brings the brothers an unexpected and very reluctant client - Myron Fowler. There’s a serious security leak at the Peerless Detective Agency and it has to be investigated by an outsider. Nobody will talk. They’re all too scared. What kind of monster could reduce grown men to abject terror? Could it be the Mob? In fact it’s worse. It’s a man from the IRS. The IRS is no laughing matter but there is plenty of humour in this episode, much of it courtesy of Jerry Stiller as a discount furniture king who does his own TV commercials which are so awful that Rick just can’t stop watching them. It all turns out to be a tale of revenge long delayed. And it’s great fun.

In Earth to Stacey Rick thinks he’s been clever, poaching a client from right under Myron Fowler’s nose. But Stacey proves to be something of a nightmare client. She’s rich, spoilt and crazy. Her husband-to-be stood her up at the altar and she wants him found. Finding him is easy but after that things get complicated and Stacey gets crazier. It’s a typical Simon & Simon episode - clever and whimsical.

Double Entry starts with a very routine surveillance case. A woman thinks her husband is cheating on her. The surveillance reveals that something quite different is going on. Then the husband gets kidnapped. It’s a pretty solid episode with some amusing interplay between the brothers and their client who seems to be enjoying the whole thing way too much.

In Matchmaker Rick and A.J. are offered a case by Vicky Whittaker. Whittaker works for an insurance company which wants to buy back stolen antiques from a burglary gang. The brothers have worked for Whittaker before and they know she’s totally untrustworthy and would double-cross her own mother but the money on offer is good. The burglary racket is worked from a computerised dating service so A.J. will have to date lots of beautiful women in order to find the one behind the racket. Dating beautiful women in the line of duty is just one of those unpleasant jobs a private eye has to do. The brothers still have a bad feeling that Whittaker os going to land them in trouble, and she does. It’s an amusing little episode with everybody having problems with love.

In Tanks for the Memories the Simon brothers are hired by their old high school teacher to find a former classmate of theirs, and they find themselves plunged into a world of survivalists, mercenaries and crazies. They’ve also stumbled into the middle of an FBI investigation. Lance LeGault plays a totally crazed mercenary leader and as you’d expect he has a great time chewing the scenery. There’s even a bit of A-Team style action. A fun ending to the season.

Final Thoughts

The first season of Simon & Simon is an example of a great TV series which, given a chance, was always eventually going to build a big audience. Luckily it was, against the odds, given that chance. This first season is just amazingly charming and enjoyable. Highly recommended.

Charlie’s Angels season 2 (1977-78)

If you’re entirely unfamiliar with 1970s America it’s just possible that you don’t know about Charlie’s Angels. It was a major pop culture phenomenon. The premise is that there are three young pretty female cops (Jill, Sabrina and Kelly) just out of the Police Academy and they discover that being a rookie cop is really boring. They wanted excitement and they got routine. Then Charlie came along. Charlie runs a very upmarket private detective agency and he hires them. Now they have all the glamour and excitement they could wish for.

They never get to meet Charlie but one thing we learn about him very early on is that he has an eye for feminine pulchritude. He’s the kind of guy who likes the idea of having gorgeous women working for him. In fact, given that these three girls are totally inexperienced, we can be fairly confident that Charlie hired them because they’re, well quite frankly, because they’re babes. And maybe it makes some kind of sense - beautiful charming young women undoubtedly get more information out of informants than fat balding middle-aged guys.

The first season was a major hit. Then disaster struck, or so it seemed. Of the three Angels the one who got the most attention was Jill, played by Farrah Fawcett. It made Farrah Fawcett a star, a household name and a pop culture icon. At the end of the first season Farrah Fawcett made the biggest mistake in television history. She broke her contract, walked out on the series and set off for Hollywood to become a huge movie star. The glittering movie career that she thought awaited her never happened. And Charlie’s Angels lost by far its biggest star. It was obviously the end for the series but the producers didn’t see it that way. They set out to find a replacement and they found Cheryl Ladd. And surprisingly the gamble paid off. Rather that the series falling apart the second season, which started airing on ABC in late 1977, was marginally more successful than the first.

Charlie’s Angels may have been hugely popular but critics were disdainful. It was dismissed as a series that relied entirely on the attractiveness of the three female leads, or more crudely they felt it relied on T&A. And it’s certainly true that the Angels have a habit of wearing very revealing clothing and if a plotline offers even the slightest excuse to get the girls into bikinis you can be sure the opportunity will not be allowed to go by. It’s also reasonable to say that the various lead actresses over the show’s five-year run were not distinguished by extraordinary levels of acting ability. But they looked great in bikinis.

So what appeal does this series have today, apart from showing as much female flesh as you could get away with on network TV at that time? That’s a difficult question to answer. The premise is silly. Many of the plots are silly and far-fetched. The acting is nothing to get excited about. This series was, to a large extent, just a babe-fest. But it has an undeniable charm. Partly it’s because it was the 70s and people didn’t agonise so much about such things. The series makes no apologies for relying heavily on beautiful stars in skimpy clothing.

It also undeniably has a considerable camp appeal. The fact that the lead actresses play things so straight just makes it more deliciously camp.

Of course there have been attempts to retcon the series as a feminist statement. Which really is largely wishful thinking. OK, so the three glamorous female detectives are reasonably capable as private eyes but while you can make a feminist case for other series featuring women private eyes or secret agents (series like Honey West or The Avengers) trying to make that case for Charlie’s Angels does seem like clutching at straws.

Maybe that’s why Charlie’s Angels is so much fun. It doesn’t take itself seriously and it isn’t preachy and it isn’t trying to hit us over the head with political correctness. It’s just a fun lightweight adventure series with gorgeous scantily-clad women. Back in the 70s TV was allowed to be fun. And female TV stars were allowed to be sexy and glamorous and not wear very much clothing.

It’s not quite a private eye spoof series but it is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It doesn’t expect its audience to take it too seriously. And it gets the tone just right, not pushing the tongue-in-cheek element too far. It’s also a fundamentally good-natured series. The three Angels are not treated in a mocking way. There’s no trace of snarkiness. There’s humour but we’re laughing with the girls, not at them.

Neither the Angels nor the viewers ever get to see Charlie but we do hear him. He’s voiced by John Forsyte, a very good choice with his rich fruity voice. Forstye manages to bring Charlie to life fairly effectively. We know he’s sublimely self-confident, he loves beautiful women, he enjoys the good life and he’s lazy - he lets Bosley and the Angels do all the work. He has a sense of justice but we feel he likes being in the detective business because it fits in with his glamorous playboy lifestyle.

One of the many things I love about this show is that the Angels are not super-women. They’re determined and capable and they can handle themselves OK but they can’t take on big guys in physical fights. That means they have to be smart to get themselves out of dangerous situations and it makes the writers work a bit harder. There’s a great moment in the season opener when one of the Angels is confronted by two really big guys on a beach. Her response? She screams, and every guy on the beach rushes over to protect the little lady. It’s a smart move and it’s both more fun and more convincing than having her take on the goons in hand-to-hand combat.

What the Angels do have going for them is that they’re gorgeous and that can be more useful to a private eye than martial arts skills. It’s amazing what a pretty PI can make a male suspect do.

One unexpectedly realistic touch (and realism is the last thing you would normally associate with this series) concerns guns. We know that the Angels all have gun licences because we see them carrying guns in the occasional episode. But they’re very reluctant to carry them and even more reluctant to use them. Which is of course quite realistic. Reading private eye thrillers and watching most private eye TV series you get the impression that the average American PI kills maybe a dozen people a year. Which is clearly ludicrous. A private investigator good at his (or her) job is not going to run around shooting people all the time. For one thing they don’t need the aggravation they’d get from the cops and the courts, and the media. So the Angels probably use guns the way real-life PIs would - only as a last resort.

A particular highlight is the fun the series has mocking every sort of 1970s California craziness.

Kate Jackson’s performances are a bit hit-and-miss. When she’s good she’s very very good but sometimes she just gets it badly wrong. Jaclyn Smith is uniformly good and Cheryl Ladd makes even the bad episodes worth watching.

There are definitely some bad episodes, with scripts that really needed a lot more work. But there are some terrific episodes as well. Oddly enough considering that this is basically a light-hearted series the standout episodes tend to be the slightly darker ones. On the whole the good episodes outnumber the bad ones.

Episode Guide

In the feature-length Angels in Paradise the Angels are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new member of the team, the replacement for Jill. They expect to hate the new girl but it turns out to be Jill’s kid sister Kris (Cheryl Ladd) and they take to her straight away. And besides, they have bigger problems to worry about - Charlie has been kidnapped. The kidnapper is glamorous racketeer Leilani Sako and she doesn’t want money, she wants the Angels to do a job for her. A job that is kinda illegal (breaking people out of prison usually being illegal). The problem is that there’s another player in the game.

Charlie was in Hawaii when he was kidnapped so that’s where the Angels (and Bosley) are now headed. The Angels are working for Leilani Sako but it’s an uneasy relationship. Leilani is a crook, although by the standards of racketeers she’s ruthless but not especially evil. Her husband Billy (the one the Angels have to spring from prison) is a crook as well but he’s really a pretty nice guy. It’s Leilani’s opposition who are the seriously bad guys. There’s plenty of hijinks, lots of opportunities to get the Angels into their bikinis and Cheryl Ladd even has a nude scene (although shot so that we don’t see anything). She has to interview a contact and the only place she can interview him is on a nude beach and since she has a job to do she takes her clothes off. The producers were obviously determined that Cheryl Ladd was going to make an impression in her first appearance in the series! It’s all complicated and silly but great fun.

This is a great season opener. Lovely location shooting, Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd showing lots of skin, lots of teasing the audience with the possibility we might finally see Charlie, wonderful guest starring performances by Tommy Fujiwara as the nice guy crook Billy and France Nuyen as sexy villainess Leilani. They were pulling out all the stops to make sure that audiences weren’t going to miss Farrah Fawcett and it works.

Angels On Ice is another two-parter. Ice skating was a big thing in the 70s, and female ice skaters wear very revealing consumes, so an ice skating episode was an obviously terrific idea. Two ice skating stars have been kidnapped. The gloriously ludicrous plot has something to do with oil sheikhs and terrorists. What matters is that all three Angels get to shine. There’s a fun sequence where Sabrina steals a truck to chase the bad guys and slams straight into a police car, then tries to talk her way out of it and talks herself into the slammer. Kris gets to be a clown on ice. Kelly gets to wear a harem-girl outfit and do a belly dance, and does a wonderful escape scene. None of it makes much sense but it’s deliriously entertaining.

Pretty Angels All in a Row makes it clear that no opportunities are going to be missed to get Kelly and Kris into skimpy outfits. This time they go undercover at a beauty pageant. A couple of good old boys from Texas are trying to rig the contest. This is a cheesy episode but it’s quite deliberately and delightfully cheesy. Of course the Miss Chrysanthemum pageant contestants have to demonstrate that they have talent as well as looks, so Kris does a magic act and Kelly does a sexy dance routine. Cheryl Ladd does get one serious acting moment - she gets shot at, she reacts instantly as she’s trained to do and then after it’s over she is obviously seriously shaken up. It’s an unexpected moment of authenticity that Ladd handles extremely well. Apart from that it’s a lighthearted witty story with amusingly inept villains and a very high cheesecake content. A very good episode.

Angel Flight once again puts the Angels into a world of glamour. This time they go undercover as airline stewardesses, and they have to go to stewardess school. An old friend of Sabrina’s, a stewardess, is being threatened. And the Angels’ first flight could be their last, unless they can find out why. To continue the policy of providing some titillation in every episode there’s a locker room scene. This was the heyday of airline disaster movies so an episode featuring potential mayhem in the air was a shrewd move. This one stretches credibility a little. Wait a minute, what am I saying? This is Charlie’s Angels. No-one cares about credibility. What we care about is whether it’s fun or not. And it is fun.

It was inevitable that there would eventually be a circus episode. I love mysteries and thriller and horror stories set in circuses but Circus of Terror falls a bit flat, mostly due to an uninspired script and the excessive cheapness of the production that never quite convinces us we’re at the circus. On the plus side Kelly gets to look amazingly hot as a daredevil motorcyclist, Kris looks just as hot as the knife-thrower’s assistant and gets some knives thrown at her some of which are not intended to miss, and Sabrina does a pretty fair mime routine. So it’s enjoyable but slightly disappointing at the same time.

Angel in Love means what it says. One of the Angels finds love. They’re investigating a murder at a hippie-dippie New Age resort where people go to get in touch with their feelings, and touch each other. That part is handled well - they don’t go overboard spoofing the New Age stuff, they just let its silliness speak for itself. At one of the encounter sessions Sabrina gets touchy-feely with one of the suspects and falls in love with him. She pretty much forgets about the actual case from this point on but it does give Kate Jackson a chance to do some real acting and she does a fine job.

It’s left to Kelly and Kris to solve the case, which they do (with Kris demonstrating her prowess with a lasso). We get some humour and some romance, and we get to see all three Angels in a hot tub. This one is all very California in the 70s but it’s an extremely very good episode.

Unidentified Flying Angels gets the angels involved in the UFO subculture. A wealthy elderly lady has disappeared. She said she might be going to another planet. And Angels have to find out where she actually has gone and it most likely has something to do with a pseudoscientific charlatan and an ex-astronaut. Kris gets to play act being a ditzy blonde bimbo who desperately wants to meet spacemen and learn about inter-galactic sex while the sight of Kelly as a spacelady in an incredibly short silver minidress (or rather micro-dress) is something you won’t soon forget. Lots of fun here.

Angels on the Air takes the Angels into the world of radio where death threats have been made against a female reporter. Kelly takes the reporter’s place and soon finds out that the death threats were meant seriously. Sabrina goes undercover as the radio station’s eye in the sky to check out a prime suspect, a macho Vietnam vet helicopter pilot. Kris pretends to be a biker chick to investigate another suspect, a motorcycle-obsessed hippie cult leader (and they have some very amusing verbal exchanges). Another suspect is a respectable research scientist and Sabrina volunteers to be a guinea pig in his experiments. What’s nice about this story is the way obvious expectations are flipped. Kelly gets to do some really dumb things and some really heroic things. A clever and witty episode.

The subject of Angel Baby is the black market in babies. The Angels get involved when an ex-juvenile delinquent goes AWOL looking for his missing girlfriend. The plot is fairly predictable but there are a few very good moments, both of which give Cheryl Ladd further opportunities to prove she really could act. The scene in which the baby marketeers show Kris three studs in a bar and inform her that they’re the ones selected to impregnate her (which will earn her a cool twenty grand) is memorably sleazy and Kris later gets to do something else she’s never done before and her reaction is harrowing and something you don’t expect in a show that is basically TV fluff. Kate Jackson has some good moments too as Sabrina goes undercover as a rich bitch prospective purchaser of a baby. So overall a very good and surprisingly dark episode.

Angels in the Wings takes us to Hollywood. During filming of a musical the leading lady Ellen Jason is almost killed in a mysterious accident. And it’s just the latest in a long line of accidents on that supposedly jinxed sound stage. So the Angels have to find out who is trying to kill the star. Is it her leading man, who happens to be her estranged husband? Unfortunately it’s too obvious from the start what’s going on and the red herrings won’t fool the viewer for a moment. There’s an obvious Phantom of the Opera influence at work. On the plus side Cheryl Ladd demonstrates her singing skills (Kris manages to get herself cast as the female second lead in the movie) and she has great chemistry with guest star Gene Barry. This is very much a Kris-centric episode and Cheryl Ladd is terrific. On the minus side there are too many not-very-good songs and the plot is too weak and moves much too slowly.

Magic Fire sounds promising. An arsonist has become known as the Magic Man because nobody can figure out how he starts the fires he sets and the police suspect he’s a professional magician. Which means they suspect that he is in fact famed magician Wendell Muse whose whole act is built around tricks with fire. Muse hires the Angels to prove his innocence. There are quite a few scenes set in the Magic Castle, which was in real life the premier venue for magic acts in LA and these scenes are a highlight. Bosley and Kris do a terrible mentalist act but it’s very amusing and Cheryl Ladd shines. Kelly convinces down-on-his-luck magician The Great Danzini that she can provide him with the one great illusion he needs to restore his reputation.

So far so good. Unfortunately there are problems with this episode. Sabrina goes undercover as a French fashion designer and her accent isn’t amusing it’s just embarrassing and irritating. And the script is lazy and incoherent and has just too many gigantic holes in it and it doesn’t make any sense. Silliness is fine in a Charlie’s Angels story but this is uninspired silliness. So this one just doesn’t quite work.

The Sammy Davis, Jr. Kidnap Caper is very obviously about a plot to kidnap Sammy Davis, Jr. by a gang who probably could not successfully kidnap a kitten. It’s just as well they don’t know what they’re doing because the Angels don’t exactly cover themselves in glory in this episode. They’re supposed to be Davis’s bodyguards but they do a pretty poor job. They’re saved by dumb luck, since the kidnappers snatch a Sammy Davis lookalike (played by Davis of course) by mistake. They’re also saved by the fact that the man behind the plot has done nothing to cover his tracks so an intelligent five-year-old could have solved the case. There’s one very brief scene in which Cheryl Ladd manages to be amusing but apart from that unless you’re a very keen Sammy Davis, Jr. fan this episode is a complete washout - the plot is pitifully thin, the bad guys are stupid without being amusing, the Angels do nothing sensible or interesting.

Angels on Horseback starts with a murder at a dude ranch. Actually the murder took place on the bus on the way to the dude ranch. The murderer had to be one of four people on that bus. So the Angels and Bosley pose as guests. Unfortunately they make it much too obvious that they all know each other and it quickly becomes clear that their covers are blown so things are likely to get dangerous. This one has a pretty solid mystery plot and the Angels conduct the investigation fairly professionally - they pick the weak link among the suspects and really pile the pressure on that person. And there’s a horseback chase finale. Cheryl Ladd shines as usual. Jaclyn Smith has a wonderfully catty moment and shows she knows how to draw blood. All in all an entertaining episode.

Women’s professional tennis provides the background for Game, Set, Death. There have been too many suspicious accidents happening to top players. Kris goes undercover as one of the competitors (luckily she was a decent tennis player at college). Sabrina and Kelly go undercover as a designer of sporting fashions and her model. Since the modelling involves wearing a very revealing outfit you get no prizes for guessing that it’s Kelly who poses as the model (and she looks extremely hot). In this story the Angels actually behave like very competent private investigators. Sabrina has to talk down a killer who’s all set to shoot her and Kris has a very good fight scene and wins through a mixture of brains and sheer determination. Kris also gets to do the driving in a car chase.

This is another episode that does what Charlie’s Angels does best - mocking California flakiness. This time it’s yoga and meditation (one of the players in the tournament is a total New Age fruit loop). Game, Set, Death has the strengths of this series without any of its weaknesses. It’s good stuff.

Hours of Desperation actually has a pretty nifty plot. A jewellery heist goes awry when one of the three robbers (a guy named Murdoch) takes off with the diamonds. So the other two robbers, including a total psycho by the name of Dinsmore, hold Bosley and Sabrina hostage and demand that Kelly and Kris get their stolen diamonds back. Dinsmore has rigged up an explosive device that is strapped to Sabrina - if the other two Angels don’t come back with the diamonds within ten hours he’s going to blow her up. It’s a race against time with some neat plot twists. Kelly and Kris get to do some genuinely smart thinking - their eventual solution to the problem is very clever. In fact all three Angels are forced to be clever. Ray Brenner’s script is excellent. Plus we get to see Kelly clad only in a towel grilling a suspect and Kris in the cutest country and western outfit. A very very good episode.

Diamond in the Rough sounds promising. A bunch of bad guys are after Freddy the Fox because they think he’s stolen a famous diamond from a museum. A reasonable assumption since Freddy was in his day a renowned cat burglar. Freddy is adamant that he is innocent but he does know who has the stolen diamond - a very rich collector. He wants the Angels to help him steal the diamond from the collector and return it to the museum. Then everybody will be happy.

It’s a great idea that could hardly miss. And it sort of works. The biggest problem is Kate Jackson trying to sound like an aristocratic Englishwoman. Jackson could act but she just could not do accents. As a result she comes across as a complete ham. David Doyle is equally cringe-inducing trying to pass as an English gentleman’s gentleman. The pacing is also much too slow. A heist story needs a lengthy setup but in this case it takes a bit too long. On the plus side we get cult movie icon Sid Haig as a rich Arab’s manservant/bodyguard, we get Jaclyn Smith doing the sexy femme fatale thing and we get Cheryl Ladd doing the cat burglar bit and also wearing some fairly revealing outfits. It should have been a real showstopper episode. It isn’t, but it’s still reasonably enjoyable.

In Angels in the Backfield the Angels become jocks. Or jockettes. In fact they become pro football players. Sort of. Amy Jarvis is trying to get a women’s football league started. She has her own team, the Ducks, but someone is terrorising her players. So the Angels have to go undercover. Luckily Kelly and Sabrina played football at the Police Academy. Unluckily for Kris she didn’t but she still has to play for the Ducks. Now with a Charlie’s Angels episode involving women athletes you know there’s going to be a scene in the showers and you know there’s going to be a cat-fight but in this case we get a cat-fight in the showers! Of course there’s nothing but the very mildest titillation but for the Charlie’s Angels audience just knowing that Kris is wearing nothing under that towel was presumably enough. Sabrina starts to take the game very seriously - she’s taken a dislike to the owner of the rival team.

Of course the Angels manage to look gorgeous in their football gear. And Kelly gets to beat the daylights out of a player she doesn’t like. She also gets to fall in love, with a loser. Even she thinks he’s a loser. Maybe she has a thing for broken-down ex-football players. The mystery that has to be solved is why anybody would want to sabotage the Ducks when they’re the worst football team in the history of football and are obviously going to lose anyway. There has to be something else going on. Of course the Angels aren’t the least bit convincing as football players but it’s not a bad story and it’s kinda fun.

Whenever I find myself losing faith in this series along comes an episode like The Sandcastle Murders. A serial killer leaves his victims buried in the sand on the beach, with a sandcastle next to them. Kris gets involved accidentally through a friend, Betsy, who says she knows something but she’s really scared. This episode demonstrates that the series could delve into darker subject matter quite effectively. The three lead actresses have to play things more seriously than usual and acquit themselves well. Even David Doyle tones down the hamminess. There’s a decent mystery plot with several convincing suspects (one of the suspects lives above a merry-go-round which adds a nice touch). Sabrina undercover as a bag lady is a brief highlight. There are a couple of nicely creepy scenes. A very good episode.

Angel Blues starts with the death of famous country singer Amy Waters. Her father refuses to believe it was a drug overdose and hires Charlie’s detective agency to prove it. This one has a strong mystery plot. Amy was involved with some shady people any of whom could have killed her. Amy spent the last night of her life riding around for hours in a cab and Kris’s job is to retrace her movements. As Kris checks out the places at which Amy stopped on that night the plot slowly comes together. Sabrina and Kelly are tailing Kris and as she uncovers the leads the other two Angels follow them up. And while they’re tailing Kris someone is tailing them. It will take about two-and-a-half hours to retrace all Amy’s movements and in that time the Angels will have to solve the case. It’s a good structural technique and it works well.

This is a tightly constructed story with good plot twists. And the Angels (who sometimes make dumb mistakes in other episodes) are totally professional and they even remember that they were trained as police officers so they’re allowed to know how to fight. A great episode. In fact the best of the season.

Mother Goose Is Running for His Life takes the angels into a strange and dangerous world - the world of toys. Someone is trying to take over Leland Swinnerton’s toy company and they’ll stop at nothing. It’s dog-eat-dog in the toy business. Sabrina romances a crazed toy designer, Kelly turns to crime and Kris gets to prove (quite adorably) that she’s a real doll. Toy companies have been used as settings for murder and mayhem before but this one has a solid plot and all three Angels shine (and do their jobs very competently) and with murderous toys and plots hatched in English pubs and gangsters it all works delightfully. After two extremely good darker-tinged episodes this equally good light-hearted outing is a nice change of pace.

In Little Angels of the Night three hookers have been murdered so the Angels have to go undercover as ladies of the night. They come up with all sorts of amusing excuses not to actually have any clients. This is one of those stories in which you have to try really hard not to think about the plot which is much too contrived. It’s also an episode that sets up three plausible suspects, all with suitably creepy vibes, but then reveals the identity of the killer too early. It’s rather adult-themed with a casual and extraordinarily judgment-free acceptance of prostitution and (very surprisingly for this era) the Angels make no attempt to save any of the girls from their life of vice. In fact the they’re delighted that the girls can get back to work! This one is a very mixed bag.

The Jade Trap starts with a cat burglary and a murder, which are connected but maybe not in the obvious way. Both crimes take place in a seafront residential hotel. The suave cat burglar has an accomplice, his elderly mother (played with panache by Lureen Tuttle). The murderer is a gigolo (played by Dirk Benedict) who’s peeved because the woman who’s keeping him won’t buy him a yacht. The guest performances are great, the characters are colourful and supremely decadent. Bosley makes a mess of things as an auctioneer, Kelly falls in love (with the wrong man again), Cheryl Ladd does the world’s worst Swedish accent but gets away with it because she’s Cheryl Ladd and totally awesome. It’s all kind of fun.

With Angels on the Run we’re in thriller territory. After a minor car accident a guy throws a package into Larry Cantrell’s dump truck. Then they kidnap Larry. It seems that maybe that package was important. If the Angels had known about the package at the start the case would have been solved immediately. Due to a misunderstanding the bad guys think Kelly is Cantrell’s wife so they kidnap her too. There are lots of comic touches that work reasonably well - Doyle and Mrs Chicken, Larry’s numerous girlfriends (one of whom wants to flatten Sabrina with her tractor), Kris in a charming exchange with a bartender. There’s plenty of sexual innuendo. The Angels make a mess of things when they let Kelly get snatched but they get their act together at the end. Not a great episode but pretty enjoyable.

Antique Angels has a promising initial setup - a gang using a vintage car and a movie camera to bluff their way past a security guard to steal some new experimental rocket fuel. There are some other good moments. There’s the bad guys dressed as gangsters holding Kris hostage being able to do openly because they explain that they’re pretending to be bank robbers (for an antique car rally) so they’re just pretending to hold her hostage. There’s a car chase with antique cars. But somehow it just doesn’t gel. It doesn’t generate the fun that it should generate. The pacing is much too slow and the tone is all over the place. It just doesn’t work.

Final Thoughts

The second season is a mixture of some very good episodes and several real clunkers but there’s Cheryl Ladd’s awesomeness to compensate. And Charlie’s Angels remains an iconic pop culture moment. Recommended.

I reviewed season one some years back.

Mannix season 3 (1969)

Mannix boasts one of the best opening credits sequences in television history and one of the best theme tunes (written by Lalo Schifrin who also did the theme to Mission: Impossible). That opening credits sequence sets the tone - there’s going to be a tough handsome hero, lots of action, lots of violence and lots of beautiful women. Glamour, action, excitement.

And that’s exactly what Mannix delivers. In its day it was just about the most violent and action-packed series on American network TV.

The third season aired on CBS in 1968-69.

Like the character he plays Mike Connors was Armenian and, unusually for the time, his ethnic origins are emphasised in the series. He gets regular opportunities to demonstrate that he speaks fluent Armenian. The cultural stresses involved in making a life in a new land are also emphasised, particularly in relation to Mannix’s dad. Mannix is in most ways a red-blooded all-American hero, but he’s a red-blooded all-Armenian-American hero as well.

When it comes to onscreen cool few people could touch Mike Connors. Joe Mannix gets beaten up regularly but although he’s often bruised and battered he never loses that cool.

Joe Mannix also has few peers as an action hero - he drives racing cars, he’s a pilot, he’s proficient in just about every sport, he was a high school football star, he had a distinguished war record in Korea and he has a black belt in karate. Mannix has testosterone coming out of his ears. Being hyper-masculine he has no qualms at all about showing his sensitive side. You might think a guy like this would be beating women off with a stick and you’d be right. Mannix might be a male wish-fulfilment fantasy but it’s a positive wish-fulfilment fantasy. As a hero he’s the real deal. And it’s done with style and frenetic energy.

One of the enduring clichés of the private eye genre is the antagonistic relationship between the PI hero and the cops. Mannix is a bit of an exception to this rule. Mannix is on quite friendly terms with the police. He gets on pretty well with Lieutenant George Kramer (Larry Linville) who appears in several early episodes and he gets on very well with Lieutenant Adam Tobias (Robert Reed) who becomes a semi-regular character. Mannix doesn’t let anyone walk all over him but he doesn’t have the chip on his shoulder that many fictional PIs have. He’s a relatively up-market private eye and he knows it’s in his best interests to work with the cops rather than against them. His relationship with the cops is also a reflection of his boundless self-confidence, his charm and his general likeability.

One of the most appealing things about this series is that it’s so wildly out of sync with modern sensibilities. I’m not talking about political incorrectness here. What makes Mannix likely to shock contemporary viewers is its optimism and its belief that uncomplicated old-fashioned heroes are not only real but are to be admired. Mostly though contemporary viewers will be struck by the fact that there was a time when good television programs didn’t have to be ironic.

Mannix is representative of the best of American network TV of its era - high production values, a charismatic star (with good support from Gail Fisher as his patient secretary Peggy), great guest stars and remarkably consistent scripts. Everything about the series is slick and professional. Mannix gets to drive some wonderful classic American convertibles (in this season a Dodge Dart GTS 340). He has a car phone - very unusual for the late 60s and something that makes it clear that Mannix is at the rich and glamorous end of the private eye spectrum. Even his office is classy and stylish. His job brings him into contact with an enormous number of women, all of them beautiful (even the ones with homicidal tendencies).

The whole package is glossy, polished and ultra-cool.

Everything about the series is just right. This is perfect television entertainment.

Episode Guide

Eagles Sometimes Can't Fly is overly earnest with a contrived ending. A young black guy and his Indian friend are causing trouble in a liquor store but they’re really just having a bit of harmless drunken fun. Then two other guys and a girl arrive and they’re after more than harmless fun. It ends with two people dead. The setup, which makes it difficult for the first two guys to prove they weren’t involved in the robbery, is quite clever. But really just a bit too earnest.

In Color Her Missing a PI is thrown to his death from the window of an apartment belonging to attorney Charles Egan. The dead PI and Mannix were old buddies. Egan has an alibi of sorts, a girl who saw him when he was out driving in the country a the time of the murder, or so he claims. The police cannot find any trace of the girl. Mannix doesn’t like Egan one little bit but he also doesn’t like the idea of an innocent man going to the gas chamber so he agrees to try to find the witness. And then things get really complicated. And of course Mannix gets beaten up, but then Mannix always gets beaten up. It’s a pretty decent episode.

Return to Summer Grove takes Joe back to his home town. An old college buddy is facing a murder charge and that’s just the start of his problems. And Joe has some issues from the past that he needs to deal with, mainly his uneasy relationship with his father. It’s a solid enough episode.

The Playground sees Mannix trying to stop a movie star from getting killed. Mitch Cantrell (Robert Conrad) is a particularly arrogant obnoxious star and he likes to maintain his reputation for not scaring and he doesn’t want a bodyguard. Mannix detests Cantrell but he has a job to do. Whether Cantrell wants his life saved or not Mannix intends to save it. But first he has to figure out exactly what is going on. The movie studio setting is used very effectively. A good episode.

A Question of Midnight takes Joe Mannix to Pleasant Valley California, only it isn’t so pleasant. Two years earlier Dr Ben Holland had his licence withdrawn after a patient died at the Pleasant Valley Hospital and now he’s in trouble for practising medicine without a licence. His girlfriend thinks there was something suspicious about the way Dr Holland lost his licence. She hires Mannix to find out what really happened. And Mannix finds out plenty. A very sound episode.

A Penny for the Peep Show has some interesting twists and turns. There are three desperate convicts on the run, and there’s an attache case containing $312,000 but that’s the least valuable item in the case. A very good episode.

In A Sleep in the Deep Mannix is hired by Ellen Stone to find out if the scuba diving accident in which her husband Roger was killed was really an accident. Mannix finds that Roger had some secrets. Pretty young Barbara Stoner is one of those secrets. Barbara’s father has some secrets too. As does shipping tycoon Andre Korvak. There’s also lawyer Tom Hewitt, who’s in love with Ellen Stone. And there’s Korvak’s glamorous European actress girlfriend. Not to mention the guy who’s been shadowing Mannix from the beginning. Not one of them is telling the truth. The solution to the puzzle is a bit unexpected for a Mannix story but it’s a very good episode.

In Memory: Zero a private eye named Benson, a man of whom Mannix had a rather low opinion, has been murdered. Now someone is also trying to murder Benson’s secretary Maggie Wells. Maggie wants Mannix to find out who’s trying to kill her, but she has absolutely no idea why someone would want her dead so Mannix doesn’t have much to go on. Luckily he finds out about the parking ticket and then everything becomes clear. Another solid episode.

The Nowhere Victim begins with an old man hit by a car but when the driver goes back to find the man he’s vanished. The driver’s wife, worried that they may have killed somebody, hires Mannix to find out what happened. And Mannix finds himself in the middle of a Mob war. A very good episode.

In The Sound of Darkness Mannix suffers temporary blindness which is a problem since he’s being stalked by a killer. He will have to learn to defend himself without his eyes. An idea that has been done quite a few times. It’s done reasonably well here.

In Who Killed Me? Mannix is hired to solve a murder, but he’s hired by the victim. This one has a pretty clever plot. Great stuff.

Missing: Sun and Sky is a kidnapping story, but the kidnap victim is a horse. A very valuable racehorse. The horse was onboard a cargo plane and the circumstances of the disappearance are very puzzling. It seems like an impossible crime, but Mannix has been hired by the insurance company and he’s going to have to find the answer. A solid mystery episode with several likely suspects. And of course Mannix gets beaten up. It’s not a proper Mannix episode unless he gets beaten up.

Tooth of the Serpent involves yet another friend of Peggy’s who’s in trouble. Eve Chancellor’s husband is a tough police detective, maybe too tough. And her rebellious son Cap has managed to get mixed up in something that is likely to turn out to be both dangerous and illegal. Mannix has to sort it out. Mannix doesn’t actually get beaten up this time but he does get thrown down a lift shaft so he still ends up battered and unconscious. This one has quite an ingenious plot. Unfortunately director Paul Krasny goes way overboard with the tilted camera angles which get distracting. It’s still a clever episode.

In Medal for a Hero evidence is found suggesting that Peggy’s deceased husband was a crooked cop. Mannix of course doesn’t believe it. It’s an OK episode.

Walk with a Dead Man is nicely devious. Mannix is on his way to meet a client when he gets warned off and then shot at. It’s a blackmail case and maybe Mannix should have realised that if someone is prepared to shoot him to stop him seeing the client then it’s likely the case has more to it than meets the eye. Someone is playing games with him. A very good episode with some nice twists.

The case Mannix takes on in A Chance at the Roses is one he really knows he shouldn’t waste his time on. There’s an eyewitness that says the guy shot a pharmacist during a robbery and the assailant ran out the door straight into the waiting arms of the police. But the guy’s wife wants him to take the case and Peggy wants him to take the case and faced with a united front from two women Mannix just doesn’t have a chance. He takes the case. There are some very good twists in this “nothing is as it seems to be” story.

Harlequin's Gold sees Mannix pitted against pirates! Not just pirates, but Australian pirates. It has a nice opening sequence in which a shambling bum wanders into a bar and asks some strange rambling questions about a ship. The shambling bum is none other than Joe Mannix. The pirates come later, and Mannix will also have to look out for sharks. This is an enjoyable episode.

Who Is Sylvia? is another very solid episode. His old Korean War buddy Phil invites Joe to a party, only Joe finds out that it wasn’t Phil who invited him, it was Phil’s wife Kathy. Kathy thinks someone is trying to kill her. In fact she’s sure of it and Mannix is convinced as well. There are some nice twists and while they might not be entirely original they’re handled skilfully. The key to the case is Sylvia, but exactly who is Sylvia? This episode does suffer just a little from having to be very coy about sex but other than that it’s exceptionally well done, with a great performance by Jessica Walters as Kathy. Good stuff.


In Only One Death to a Customer someone is hunting Mannix but he doesn’t know why. He just knows they want him dead. He figures out who it is pretty quickly, and you will too. It’s telegraphed just a bit too obviously. Not a terrible episode but everything is just a bit too obvious.

In Fly, Little One Mannix has to solve a case involving pirates and buried treasure. Well actually it’s just a regular robbery but the mentally disturbed nine-year-old girl who is the key witness thinks it’s about pirates and somehow Mannix has to separate truth from fantasy in her story. Mannix gets to show his gentle side, and since he’s so sublimely confident in his masculinity showing gentleness is never a problem for him. Not a great episode - it relies a bit too much on people doing the obvious. But still reasonably enjoyable.

In The Search for Darrell Andrews another private eye has a fatal accident but he’s earlier told Mannix that he thought he might be in line for such an accident. So Mannix has no doubt that this was murder, and obviously he intends to find the killer. But can he do so without risking Peggy’s life? As usual Mannix gets himself into a dangerous situation and the way he gets out of it is much too contrived. In fact the whole episode suffers from lazy writing. The various plot strands just don’t come together. This is one of the rare Mannix episodes that is pretty much a washout.

Murder Revisited presents us with an intricate mystery after a political fixer is murdered. There are two million witnesses - at the time he was murdered he was talking on-air to a sensationalist TV interviewer. You expect Mannix to run into cute blondes but this time there are two of them - twins. Two cute blondes (both potential murderesses) means double the trouble but double the fun. This one has quite a clever plot. A very good episode.

War of Nerves starts with a girl and a horse both disappearing. It seems like it’s going to be a typical rural paranoia story, with a city slicker (in this case Mannix) running afoul of crooked small town types. There is however a major twist and it becomes a paranoia story of an entirely different stripe. Far-fetched perhaps but very entertaining.

In Once Upon a Saturday Mannix spends the day at the carnival run by his old friend Bev. Carnivals are fun, as long as you don’t get killed, and this is the kind of carnival where you could very easily get killed. The big problem with this story is the implausible motive. The carny setting however is great and is used cleverly, so it ends up being an OK episode to finish the season.

Final Thoughts

Despite a couple of weak episodes towards the end the third season of Mannix is great well-crafted stylish entertainment. Highly recommended.

I've also reviewed Mannix season one and season two.