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The 1960s
In Britain, the BBC introduced a new form of gritty realism to
television in the 60s with the creation of
Z Cars, a police
show, which was supported with the spin-off
Softly, Softly.
Another highly successful espionage series was
Danger Man
(known in the US as Secret Agent) starring Patrick McGoohan. As
a result of this success McGoohan was allowed to produce the enigmatic
The Prisoner , which, although only 17 episodes long,
became one of the great cult series of all time. Roger Moore starred
in "mid-Atlantic" thriller, The Saint, which was
followed less successfully in the 1970s by
The Persuaders
in which Moore co-starred with Tony Curtis.
Mission: Impossible debuted in 1966, although it would be
another year before Peter Graves would take the role of IMF head Jim
Phelps. As good as the show was, it never truly lived up to the
excitement of its kinetic opening sequence, which featured a lit fuse
combusting in time to Lalo Schifren's memorable theme.
The 1970s
Featured as a regular installment of
The NBC Mystery Movie,
Peter Falk's Columbo was one of the most popular detectives in
the 1970s. Decked out in a ratty raincoat and wrinkled suit, Columbo's
mind was as sharp as his appearance was disheveled. Half the fun of
the show was seeing him toy with the criminals who almost never took
him seriously. In the UK, Euston Films Limited (a wholly owned
subsidiary of Thames TV) developed a portfolio of crime programs for
the ITV network, including Van Der Valk and the
brilliant The Sweeney. Series' from other commercial
companies included The Professionals (LWT) and two grittily
realistic and much applauded serials made by the BBC, Gangsters
and the four-part Law and Order.
The 1980s
The 1980s saw a revival of crime drama. NBC created
Hunter, a police drama about a rebellious and tough cop, reminiscent of
Clint Eastwood's 'Dirty Harry' role in the movies. Barbara Corday and
Barbara Avedon shaped the first successful female "buddy" show, CBS'
Cagney & Lacey, about two female cops fighting crime and
managing life in the big city. That show was saved by its fans in 1983
who wrote in protesting its cancellation. But aside from the novelty
of using women as the stars, the show added little to the style of
action-adventure.
There were new experiments with the drama genre of crime during the
1980s - The most interesting was Miami Vice which represented a
return to a conventional 'buddy show' with two policemen (albeit one
white and the other black) plus lots of speed and doses of violence.
But Miami Vice was unusual in that it appropriated the look and
feel of music videos on MTV. The show made great use of pastel
colors and dressed its stars in hip clothes and featured rock music
backgrounds. In short Miami Vice offered viewers an
extravaganza of sights and sounds. (Such effort cost money, up to $1.5
million per episode, which made Vice one of the most expensive
series of the period).
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