Your obedient blogger is about three discs into watching the DVD collections of Harry O, the 1974-1976 detective series starring David Janssen. There were a lot of these private eye shows on at the time and I thought this was one of the best, at least based on the episodes I managed to catch. Back in the pre-VCR days, it wasn't that easy to follow your favorite show…and after it went off ABC, the 44 episodes didn't get a lot of rerunning. So I'm seeing episodes I've never seen before.
It was a very smart show that rarely went for clichés or sensationalism…and on the rare occasions when it did, the gruff calm of Mr. Janssen made it all feel fresh. He was really, really good.
The series went through some format changes. The first half of Season One was set and shot in San Diego and there's some wonderful scenery. (Episode #10, "Material Witness," starts with a gangland killing outside the El Cortez Hotel where many of the early Comic-Cons were held.) Then it moved to Santa Monica and brought in Anthony Zerbe as Harry's police foil. He was real good, not that his predecessor, Henry Darrow, wasn't.
It is said that the ratings on Harry O, while never great, could have warranted a third season but that ABC needed to find a place on the schedule for Charlie's Angels. I'm not sure that's so. (Harry O aired Thursday nights at 10. Charlie's Angels aired Wednesday nights at 10 its first season. Farrah Fawcett-Majors was a regular on Harry O its second season.) But the contrast between the two shows said something about the direction in which television was going at the time.
You can order the two seasons of Harry O on DVD here and here. They're those "made to order" discs with no extras and there are a few video glitches here and there but they're very watchable. Season One costs fifty cents more than Season Two, I guess because it also includes the pilot. If you're only going to buy one, I remember Season Two as being better than Season One.
I'll write another, probably longer post about the series once I get through them all. I'm not going to rush because this is not the kind of show you can marathon and besides, I'm enjoying this and in no hurry for it to end.