The Five Best Classic TV Detectives

In trying to come up with the "five best" classic TV detectives, I used the following criteria: quality; longevity; and iconic status. And, of course, to be considered classic TV, the detective's series must have originated no later than the 1980s. Thus, it was with heavy heart that I omitted later personal favorites like Cadfael and Christopher Foyle of Foyle's War. I also left out TV series where the protagonists may have done some sleuthing, but weren't necessarily detectives by trade (e.g., The Avengers, The Saint). Without further ado, here are my top five choices:

1. Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie's Poirot) (1989 - ). Incredibly, David Suchet has never won an acting award for his pitch-perfect portrayal of Ms. Christie's Belgium detective. He captures all the nuances of the prissy, perceptive sleuth who uses his "little gray cells" to solve the most baffling cases. When Poirot proclaims he is the world's greatest detective, he's not being egotistical--he's being honest. This series, which debuted in 1989, will conclude in 2013 after 13 nonconsecutive seasons. Its enduring popularity can be partially attributed to the fact that its episodes are based on Ms. Christie's short stories or novels--which often feature ingenious plot twists and/or methods of murder. Many fans favor the one-hour episodes, but I have a soft spot for the longer "movies" based on Christie's novels, several of which are set in exotic locations ("Murder in Mesopotamia") or English country estates ("The Mysterious Affair at Styles"). 

2. Columbo (1968-78; 1989-2003). William Link and Richard Levinson created this persistent police detective for a 1960 episode of the TV anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show starring Bert Freed. Thomas Mitchell played Columbo in a 1962 stage play and Bing Crosby even once considered donning the now-famous crumpled raincoat. However, it was Peter Falk who made the part famous, first in a pair of made-for-TV movies and then in a subsequent long-running TV series. At the start of each episode, the viewer watched the murderer commit his or her crime. Then, Columbo--whom the killer always underestimated--would methodically unravel the mystery and catch the culprit (his trademark was leaving the the room after questioning the killer, only to pause with a variation of: "Just one more thing..."). Falk excelled in this cat-and-mouse game construct, often acting opposite quality guest stars like Patrick McGoohan, John Cassavetes, Laurence Harvey, Vera Miles, and Faye Dunaway.

3. Jessica Fletcher (Murder, She Wrote) (1984-96). Link and Levinson were also responsible for creating the most successful female detective on American television. Personally, I think Agatha Christie ought to get a little credit since there are similarities between middle-aged widow Jessica Fletcher and elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple. Ironically, Angela Lansbury played both characters, appearing as Miss Marple in the 1980 motion picture The Mirror Crack'd. Before Lansbury was cast as Jessica Fletcher, Jean Stapleton and Doris Day were considered for the lead in Murder, She Wrote. Frankly, though, I can't imagine anyone but Lansbury, who was Emmy-nominated 12 times for playing Jessica Fletcher--and somehow never won. The series took place in Cabot Cove, a small coastal town in Maine...and apparently a hot spot for murders. Fortunately, the town's most famous resident--bestselling mystery writer Jessica--was as astute as any of her fictional creations and never failed to unmask the culprit.

4. Jim Rockford (The Rockford Files) (1974-80). A wrongly-accused ex-convict who lived in a mobile home, Jim Rockford had little in common with most of the detectives on the airwaves in the 1970s. However, his unique persona--plus the fact he was played by James Garner--kept fans tuning in for six years. Since the series was co-created  by Roy Huggins and starred Garner, it's often compared to their earlier offbeat Western show Maverick. Yet, other than being laid-back and preferring to avoid violence, I think Rockford is a solid departure from the slippery Bret Maverick. Rockford was often assisted by his father Rocky (Noah Beery, Jr.), a retired truck driver and Angel (Stuart Margolin), a con artist Rockford met in prison.

5. Sherlock Holmes (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) (1984-94). For many Holmes enthusiasts, Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Conan Doyle's Baker Street sleuth is considered the definitive one (personally, I'm frightfully fond of Peter Cushing in Hammer's The Hound of the Baskervilles). The series debuted on Britain's ITV network in 1984, with David Burke as Dr. Watson (he was subsequently replaced by Edward Hardwicke). It was developed by John Hawkesworth, who produced other noteworthy classic series such as Upstairs, Downstairs and The Duchess of Duke Street. During its ten-year run, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes featured 35 one-hour episodes, a two-parter, and five movies (which included adaptations of Conan Doyle's novels The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four). In the U.S., the series became one of the most popular ones that appeared under the Mystery! banner on PBS. Brett, who died of heart failure at 59, also appeared on stage as Dr. Watson--opposite Charlton Heston as Holmes in The Crucifer of Blood in 1981.

Murder, She Wrote: How to Solve a Murder with Jessica Fletcher

Some detectives sit in a cramped, gloomy office, and a murder investigation is triggered by a dame walking through the door and demanding help. Others are plainclothes police offers, on the clock and awaiting a crime scene. For mystery novel writer turned amateur detective J.B. Fletcher (Jessica, to her friends) of Murder, She Wrote, which premiered on CBS in 1984, murder seems to follow her wherever she goes. The author’s knowledge and adeptness is derived from hours of research, concocting various ways in which a person(s) can be murdered. She’s so thorough, in fact, that, when working a case, she’s occasionally been named a suspect, often an unscrupulous way to glean information that she’s stockpiled on her own. (She’s also been arrested, such as the Season 5 premiere, “J.B., as in Jailbird”, but that had more to do with the fact that she was standing over a dead body.)

Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is a modern day Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s popular female sleuth. Like Jessica, Miss Marple is an older woman working as an amateur gumshoe (though Jessica is considerably younger). Both women work alone or without a regular partner, and while Miss Marple was never married, Jessica is a widow and lives in a small cottage in Cabot Cove, Maine. (Keep in mind that, while Jessica was often paired in the course of the investigation with characters such as Sheriff Amos, played by Tom Bosley, such characters worked as a counterbalance, their superficial view of a crime or suspect invariably proven wrong by Jessica.)

Though Jessica Fletcher did not go looking for murder, it always managed to find her. Whether she was visiting relatives (nieces, nephews and the like, as she and her late husband had no children), attending conferences or events related to her books, or simply staying at home, dead bodies seem to fall at her very doorstep (that almost happens in the series’ second episode, “Deadly Lady”, when a stranger shows up at her door looking for work and winds up dead -- though somewhere else, not at her door). Wherever Jessica was, or whomever the victim, there was a basic pattern to solving murder mysteries, and the novelist followed fundamental steps, much like a story’s outline.

1. Ingratiate oneself with the local authorities. Jessica typically deals with two types of authority figures. While most of the detectives or cops are familiar with her and/or her novels, they either consider her a nuisance or are gushing fans. If the investigating detective was a fan (e.g., the French inspector, played by Fritz Weaver, in “A Fashionable Way to Die”, who jokingly calls her Watson), Jessica was at a major advantage, with firsthand details of the ongoing case. But a cop who doesn’t appreciate her presence or respect her work creates another obstacle for the author. In any case, the best way seems to be working with the lead investigator, and not against -- unless, of course, said authority is suspect, like in Season 3’s “Cemetery Vote”.

2. The most effective way to prove an innocent person’s innocence is to expose the real killer. Generally the police lock onto a suspect or two, and Jessica may have doubts. Establishing someone as beyond suspicion is a nearly impossible feat, as the only real way to erase all residue of guilt is to throw it all onto the guilty party. Whether or not the unjustly accused is Jessica’s friend or a family member, the novelist will take a step back, gather all the clues and allow them to lead her to -- hopefully -- someone else.

3. Obtain a confession by any means available -- trickery, proof of deceit, etc. -- but always be prepared. On the road to the killer’s identity, Jessica often finds herself face-to-face with a person whom she’s confident (or, at least, fairly certain) is a murderer. She may remind said person of a spoken untruth or an inconsistency in his/her story, or she may intentionally cause a person to blunder, but what Jessica does nearly every time is arrive with backup. This functions as another set of ears if a killer confesses but, more than that, it’s simply protection from a person whose desperation may prove fatal. Sometimes it all comes to a head in a room full of suspects, which is preferable by offering additional witnesses and more limbs to restrain a murderer.

4. In the course of the investigation, lying or manipulation may be a necessary evil. There are occasions when Jessica flatly misleads someone or does not rectify a misunderstanding. One such example is from Season 4’s “Witness for the Defense”, when Jessica leads a suspect to believe that she’s an ambitious small-town reporter so that he will feed her further details of a murder.

5. Let the resolution happen naturally. In a number of episodes, Jessica has all the pieces she needs and doesn’t quite know how everything fits. It’s often when she’s discussing or considering another topic that a connection is made, and she can move from there to a solution.

Not every episode followed a formula. Season 3’s “Murder in a Minor Key”, as a for instance, was an interesting change of course. Jessica speaks directly to her audience, introducing and recapping (following what would have been the commercial breaks) the story of one of her novels -- the episode’s title. Perusing the plot, however, one sees familiar terrain: a law student (Shaun Cassidy) works as a novice sleuth, determined to prove that a friend did not commit a murder and ultimately extracting a confession from the person truly responsible. It seems that Jessica’s life provided the basis for her novels -- or were her books the inspiration for her investigatory process?

“Murder in a Minor Key” acted as almost a precursor to what became known as “bookend episodes” in Seasons 6 and 7. With the assumption that Lansbury would be departing after the fifth season, executive producer and writer Peter S. Fischer scripted a series finale, which had to be reworked at the eleventh hour when Lansbury signed on for two additional seasons (though she stuck around for even more). Part of her agreement was a reduced workload, which was handled by sporadic episodes throughout a season in which Jessica would only appear to introduce and/or close a story. Examples included another of her novels (“Good-Bye Charlie”), and episodes featuring her crime-solving friends, such as MI6 agent Michael Haggerty (Len Cariou), football player turned P.I. Bill Boyle (Ken Howard), and insurance investigator and former thief/conman Dennis Stanton (Keith Mitchell). There was a notable drop in ratings during these two seasons, which seemed to affirm that viewers tuned in not for the murders but for the bright and beguiling Jessica Fletcher. It was a drastic change to watch, for instance, Dennis solve a crime (Mitchell’s character starred in one of the bookend episodes in Season 6 and all five of them in 7). His method was a diametrical difference, as he sought to prove guilt, intentionally agitated law enforcement, and identified fabricated accounts from others in lieu of manipulating them (an interesting approach from an ex-conman).

Angela Lansbury was topnotch as Jessica Fletcher. She made the character immensely charismatic, sweet like a grandmother, nimble like a dancer, and elegant like a queen. She was a lady whom anyone would wish to know, although only from afar, considering the track record for her wrongfully accused family and friends. For her portrayal, Lansbury was nominated for 12 Emmys (a nomination per season) and 10 Golden Globe awards. Shockingly, she never won an Emmy, but she did walk away with four Golden Globes. The versatile actress has been nominated and won awards for her work in film, TV and theatre, including an Academy Award nomination for her 1944 film debut, Gaslight, also starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, and five Tony Awards.

Though Lansbury was the only regular, there were several recurring characters. William Windom played Dr. Seth Hazlitt, Cabot Cove’s doctor. Windom actually debuted on the series as another character (a murder suspect!) in the Season 1 finale, “Funeral at Fifty-Mile”. Seth first appeared in the second season. Tom Bosley was Sheriff Amos Tupper. Bosley left the series after Season 4 for the lead in Father Dowling Mysteries. Though Bosley’s departure was disappointing, he was replaced by Ron Masak as Sheriff Mort Metzger, a warm and favorable character on par with Sheriff Amos. Masak, like Windom, first starred on Murder, She Wrote as a different character (two, actually, in Seasons 1 and 3) before becoming the sheriff. Michael Horton also made frequent appearances as Jessica’s long-suffering nephew, Grady. He has been accused of murder a few times, including the pilot. A body is discovered soon after announcing his engagement to Donna (Debbie Zipp, who is married to Horton in real life) and another on the couple’s wedding day. In Season 6 (“The Szechuan Dragon”), a corpse makes its way into Jessica’s living room while Grady and a pregnant Donna are house sitting (Jessica still solves that one, over the phone and 3,000 miles away in London).

Jessica’s ingenuity and knack for solving murder mysteries is undisputed. The sheriffs of Cabot Cove were intelligent men, but their reliance on Jessica is clear, and, though they may not admit it, detectives and cops of other cases may never have found the real killer if not for the author. And if not for the crossover episode, who would have helped Magnum, P.I. (Tom Selleck) prove his innocence? My favorite part of Murder, She Wrote is Jessica’s moment of revelation, which happened in most episodes. It was that subtle jaw drop, the eyes a little wide, and her frozen, immobile state that lasts for a couple of seconds. She’d usually run from the room, sometimes thanking the person she’s with, the person clueless as to what she’s deduced. There are times when I know why Jessica had her reaction, and many times I don’t. But it’s always a welcome sight.