Mike Hammer

The girls had Terms of Endearment, Places In The Heart and One Life to Live; we had Mike Hammer. Fair swap. Fast and silly and tongue firmly planted in cheek, this series must've decimated Hollywood's supply of uplift bras and clinging tops and was just the thing for a twentysomething bloke with lots of hormones.

OK, it wasn't rocket science, but it's Spillane, not Shakespeare. Mike was cool, there was enough plot to see you through to the next starlet and there were some genuinely funny moments. Unfortunately, it was all cut short by Keach's arrest in England on drug charges; but even before that the politically-correct brigade had managed to dilute it of most of the things we watched it for to begin with.

Pity. I still want to know who the Face was.