# What's the best private eye series? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2013, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094 "2013-10-24T08:25:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/61 "2013-10-26T02:47:09Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Here’s the thing: I have to nominate _Monk_ as well. So if it’s nominated, does it still have to be brought to the floor, after any points of order or clarification? Well, I’d second the nomination. We sit on the couch with our dogs and watch two back-to-back episodes every night on our local rerun channel. If we forget, someone’ll yell “Arrrgh! Mr. Monk’s on!” and we run for the couch (hey, just like the Simpsons…). ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/62 "2013-10-26T04:10:29Z")
> [@digs](#): > > So if it’s nominated, does it still have to be brought to the floor, after any points of order or clarification? Well, I’d second the nomination. > > We sit on the couch with our dogs and watch two back-to-back episodes every night on our local rerun channel. If we forget, someone’ll yell “Arrrgh! Mr. Monk’s on!” and we run for the couch (hey, just like the Simpsons…). Yes, it has to be debated and brought to the floor. Then we need to take a secret vote. I believe in doing things in the proper order. You’ll thank me for it later. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/63 "2013-10-26T04:57:16Z")
**Rockford Files** was probably closer to reality. He wasn’t glamorous, he had a difficult time getting some of his clients to pay, he didn’t have a permit to carry a pistol. (which, in that era, was reality for most PI’s in most states). I’m thinking, though, most people watched PI shows for entertainment, not reality. Many investigators do workers comp surveillance as the majority of their work. Sitting in a vehicle 2 blocks away from the house of a guy who claims he’s too injured to work waiting for him to do something wouldn’t make much of a series. Then again, considering some of the drek that’s on TV now-a-days I’m not so sure!:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/64 "2013-10-26T14:25:13Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > 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. As per _Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me_, NBC has just now announced a reboot of _Murder, She Wrote_ with Octavia Spencer. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/65 "2013-10-26T23:29:32Z")
I think PI shows have been disappearing because people don’t find them believable anymore. A PI today sleeps in their car holding a video camera and works for lawyers or insurance companies. Anything more serious than fraud and the police are a far better choice to handle it. I think they kind of peaked in the 50s and 60s because police were far less reliable than today. Its kind of nonsensical today to imagine a murder case or felony burglary that the police are too busy to solve or decide to just close it for a lack of evidence. Its also unimaginable for a PI to take on a drug cartel or corrupt politician. I think its stretching belief too far already that a novelist would be hired by the police to solve crimes. Monk had by far the most plausible backstory but even then i think most people would know his participation would stop the second the captain was replaced. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/66 "2013-10-27T00:24:23Z")
I’ve read a lot of the “Case Closed” books (originally “Detective Conan”). Although it has a needlessly complex premise (including a plot point that Conan is a de-aged older guy…why???), the deductive reasoning is fun to watch. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/67 "2013-10-27T00:45:15Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I think its stretching belief too far already that a novelist would be hired by the police to solve crimes. IIRC, they (a) first asked Castle to consult because a copycat killer was basing crimes on the guy’s books, and (b) haven’t paid him a cent; he just hangs around the police station, offering amateur-sleuth insights to people who haven’t hired him, ever since his buddy the Mayor said _hey, what’s the big deal if the rich donor to my campaign enjoys a ride-along or the equivalent whenever possible, huh?_ ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/68 "2013-10-27T02:52:50Z")
Don’t forget _ **Flavia DeLuce**!_ oops, she’s in a series of _books_ — (went back and reread the OP). ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/69 "2013-10-27T03:30:23Z")
I probably should have opted to include books if I wanted to cast a wider net. I’ve enjoyed the books of Ross MacDonald, John D. McDonald, Rex Stout, Richard Parker and prolly some others, and I know there’s a lot more detective novels than detective TV shows. Parker is given credit for singlehandedly reviving the detective genre with his Spenser novels, except I haven’t seen a resurgence of good detective fiction of the hard-boiled variety since then. However, I really don’t think the genre has died because of it’s implausiblity, it was always a kind of implausible genre. I suspect that genre has come about because of a change in our understanding of crime. Back in the 40s and 50s, crime was considered a moral flaw of a personal nature: no matter who you were, what your background was, it was because you as an individual had some defect that was manifesting itself in crime, and even if the defect was due to some horrible maltreatment you received at some point in the past, it was your personal flaw that made you “turn to crime” as a result of it. Now we see crime as more relative, and the act of chasing down the criminal as not necessarily something noble and good, but more the dogged rendition of inexorable “justice” to someone who may or may not deserve it. We also see it more as product of social class than individual moral flaws. Thus the rise of police procedurals like Law & Order and CSI where the cops are fighting cartoonishly evil drug lords and dealing with pathetic junkies and ordinary people who’ve been pushed over the edge by circumstances. They’re not moral arbiters dispensing rich, steaming bowls of fragrant justice, they’re civil servants trying to navigate a moral morass without becoming damaged themselves. The classic PI is conceived of as the heroic outsider, the white knight who navigates the land between the seamy underbelly of society and the world of middle and upper class white people (OK, in the old days that would simply have been “decent folks”) meting out justice and solving problems that the police can’t or won’t solve. Thing is, solving ordinary crimes won’t do it, that’s not where we find evil. Plus, we may have become too fractured as a society to have a consensus about what a white knight does. Now I personally would LOVE a TV series about a detective who spends every week investigating, beating up and shooting rich investment bankers, war profiteers, corrupt politicians (basically, almost all of Congress but especially the Republicans). “Hit 'em again, Franken!” I’d yell, watching the show, “Now gut shoot that investment banker … make him crawl through a pool of his own blood!” But others, I suspect, might find the content, or the target of the private eye’s investigations, disagreeable. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/70 "2013-10-27T03:57:08Z")
I see the history of the private eye very differently. The genre begins in the pages of Black Mask magazine in the early 1920s. The time is important, because that’s the Prohibition era. By 1923, the full scope of the gangster takeover of cities was obvious to all. So was the complicity of the police forces. The rise of the vigilante had nothing to do with the moral defects of the individual and everything to do with the corruption of official governmental forces. They could not be counted on to protect individuals. In fact, it was more likely that they would set you up or turn a blind eye to predators because they were being paid off. Hammett made his mark with the Continental Op, a Pinkerton detective who went up against corrupt cops and cleaned up messes. Chandler made his mark with the knightly Marlowe, who was beaten up by corrupt cops in almost every book. Mickey Spillane made his mark with Mike Hammer, who fought the evil outsiders that officialdom couldn’t handle. The private eye went south during Eisenhower and was nearly dead by the 60s, precisely at the time when the ordinary citizen started looking to the police for protection from the outsiders within. Not Communists, but hippies, blacks, and anybody else who bucked the system. The 50s saw the rise in police procedurals. The police were not seen as corrupt as they used to be - probably accurately, since the mob didn’t run cities any more. The police were now on their side. Your timeline is off by decades. But even if you stick to television, you can see the pattern. Dragnet was the big cop show of the 1950s, a police procedural. Private eyes came and went, but so did cops, who were dominant until after Watergate. That era of government suspicion led to the rise of private eyes again, like Rockford and Harry O. Hill Street Blues comes in with Reagan. That’s where the image of cops changes. Law & Order starts during Bush 1. CSI is about technology; the cops play second fiddle. There are no shows about private eyes, but lots of them about amateur detectives. No surprise in an era when the amateur individual is celebrated, just as it was during the age of Holmes. It will be interesting to see whether this new era of awareness of government surveillance (it’s always been there, it’s just making more headlines) leads to a new round of private eyes. My guess is not, but that some transparent substitute will make its debut next season. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/71 "2013-10-27T04:00:07Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Hammett made his mark with the Continental Op, a Pinkerton detective who went up against corrupt cops and cleaned up messes. I love Hammett. He really was a PI, and he was able to put across a lot of the drudgery that the work is while still making the story fascinating. The endless hours spent sitting in a car on a stake-out, other things. Far from glamorous. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/72 "2013-10-27T04:40:22Z")
No show should be on the list where, at the beginning of the show, the title was announced followed by “a Quinn- Martin Production”. Those shows were execrable. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/73 "2013-10-30T16:51:42Z")
> [@The Severed Head of Prof. P](#): > > Madame P. would say _Tenspeed and Brownshoe_, just for Jeff Goldblum. Oh yeah, I watched that one. It was great. ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/74 "2013-11-01T05:55:27Z")
I like your choice of Nero Wolfe, but I gotta nominate Spenser (if it hasn’t been already). ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/75 "2013-11-01T06:16:17Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > 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. I also vote for _Magnum_. A show that gets better the more it ages. I love me some _Psych_, but I don’t really think of it as a Private Eye show, or even a mystery. It’s more about the comedy and the buddy-thing. If we’re talking literature, _Sherlock Holmes_ walks away with it in a route. Not even close. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094/76 "2013-11-01T17:14:54Z")
**The Rockford Files** for me, too. **Veronica Mars** (Season 1), for humor and great writing. **Nero Wolfe** (Timothy Hutton’s) and [**Case Histories**](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/casehistories/), with Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie, both for translating novels to television and getting it _exactly_ right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-private-eye-series/672094.md?page=3)