Either on TV, or in the movies from back in the day. The same male lead must have starred in the series if it was a movie series (like William Powell in “The Thin Man.”)
Feel free to nominate the worst as well.
To be clear, we are not talking spies, we are not talking cops, we talking private investigators. Kojak and Hawaii Five-Oh are out of the running.
I’ll start by nominating the best: A&E’s excellentNero Wolfe series. It really brought the light, snappy feel of the books to life. Maury Chaykin as Wolfe and Tim Hutton as Archie were just fricking BRILLIANT in their roles, and they had a good cast of supporting characters as well. Every last episode moves right along, and you never feel that the books have been shoehorned into a television format.
The worst … I don’t know if it’s worth bothering. There have been so many lackluster TV detective series churning out their stories by the numbers (though far outnumbered and out-horribled by TV cop shows). Oh, how about Blacke’s Magic.
Similar but not exactly the same, i think the mentalist is the best. It rarely deals with master criminals or serial killers, but the insights into human nature are priceless.
Pushing Daisies - the concept was hilarious, that even when you could actually revive the murder victim and ask them what happened, you’ll still have trouble solving the case. And the money-grubbing Emerson Cod, repressed Ned, and lonely tourist Charlotte Charles (the Undead Avenger!) made a fun team.
Jeremy Brett’s run in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Benedict Cumberbatch is doing a good job too.)
While I enjoyed both Moonlighting and Remington Steele, I can’t really see either show being the best. Madame P. would say Tenspeed and Brownshoe, just for Jeff Goldblum.
I’ll second the Timothy Hutton series on Nero Wolfe.
Rockford remembers well, but we tried to watch some recently (within the last year) and ye gods! they didn’t hold up, and were pretty much unwatchable.
The old Raymond Burr/Perry Mason also remembers well, despite the fact that it went on so long that it became trite. (Although that’s technically “lawyer” rather than “private investigator”, I think it should count.)
I do not like the David Suchet/Hercule Poirot, they move very VERY slowly.
I’ve been working thru the seasons on Netflix and still enjoy them, but that’s helped by the fact I’m a gear-head and the show is a vintage car-buff’s dream.
When it was first on I was a teenager and I just dismissed it as a show for girls to swoon over Tom Selleck. As an adult I rewatched and I think it is one of the best PI shows ever. A great blend of fun/funny/serious. “Did You See the Sunrise” still holds up as one of the best episode endings ever. Even after Archer spoofed it.
Speaking of which, how come there aren’t any private eye shows on any more? “Person of Interest” kind of wanders in some of the same territory, but it’s not really the same thing.
I’m not sure, but I’m guessing with the runaway success of CSI a number of years back, the networks all shifted to procedural police dramas as a sure thing for ratings. Once a P.I. show breaks the mold and becomes popular, it’ll all shift back that way.
Well, there’s Psych, doing its best to soldier on in place of Monk. And, of course, The Mentalist and Castle and Elementary miss it pretty close by having an eccentric amateur sleuth work alongside the authorities.
