Burke's Law

At a time when Angela Lansbury's wildly successful "Murder She Wrote" was winding down, and Dick Van Dyke was in the throes of his late-career resurgence with the equally popular "Diagnosis: Murder", CBS, smartly recognizing the trend of uncomplicated, viewer-friendly mysteries that skewed toward an older demographic, rolled out a reboot of Gene Barry's famous Aaron Spelling-produced '60's series "Burke's Law"! The fact that Spelling had been able to consistently reinvent his product throughout the years to continue producing hit shows marketed toward a younger audience only helped him in the creation of this new "Burke's" endeavor! The fact that star Gene Barry was still a commanding presence in his later years greatly bolstered the seamless execution of this reboot! The new "Burke's Law" benefited from the apparently unlimited budget Spelling threw into the first year of all of his shows! He could place in guest-star roles just about any of the esteemed older actors of one-time prominence, and mix them with the popular younger actors who'd appeared in one of his many nighttime soaps! The solutions to the various "mysteries" were largely, arbitrarily resolved, but the real fun lay in Gene Barry's infectiously fun lead turn, ably supported by his TV "son"---the reliably stoic Peter Barton! This "Burke's Law" reboot was, to my mind, every bit the satisfying, cotton candy-mystery TV puffery that these other hit CBS mystery series were! It was far from amazing, but it was genuinely enjoyable as a latter-day example of pure formula TV made uniquely entertaining and compellingly watchable by all the ingredients that comprised the singular imprint of an Aaron Spelling production!

I love detective stories. I saw them all: Murder She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder, even the short-lived Blacke's magic. The revived Burke's Law would have been a welcome addition, if not for the derivative style. It's the same plot device over and over again, a murder, one suspect leading Burke and Son to another suspect, then finally calling all suspects in one room and Burke eliminating the non-murderers before naming the real one. Even Agatha Christie knew how to manipulate the storyline so it wouldn't be the same story as the last one. Sadly, the new Burke's Law was just trying to be the next Murder She Wrote without the variety. It feels like it's trapped in the 1930's, like those cozy murders in an English cottage.

The only positive thing: it's in color!

Burke's Law was a 60s police detective series when it started out. First two seasons were anyway. The third season was a bizarre attempt to turn it into a Man From UNCLE type show. This reboot is a throwback to how the original show began. Burke is a swave and wealthy police captain who excels as a detective. That was the original series. Here, much of the work is not done by Amos Burke who by this time is a police chief.

The newer shows make me think ofn he Columbo reboot episodes more than the newer Perry Mason episodes. The format was always good. The writing is not quite up to the level of the original series but it is still pretty good. Recommend searching this one out. I didn't have the easiest time managing that.

This was my first exposure to Burke's Law...I had never seen the original until a few years ago (I could tell you why I passed up opportunities in the past to see the original, but it's a ridiculous reason not to watch a TV show, you'd laugh, I'd have to kill you, and I really don't want to do that). I did, however, watch and enjoy other shows with Gene Barry (Bat Masterson, Name of the Game, even The Adventurer), so I was looking forward to seeing the still-dashing Barry race to the scene of the latest homicide in the flashy Bentley (and yes, it IS a Bentley and not a Rolls, as one episode in this series makes a point about it). I found out that Aaron Spelling was trying as early as 1981 to get Barry to reprise the role.

So...what do we have here? A lot has changed in the almost-30 years since the original series ended...apparently, Amos quit the spy business (which is what he was involved in when the series was canceled midway through the '65-'66 season), returned to the force and worked his way up from Captain of Homicide to Chief of Detectives. We're also led to believe that he gave up his freewheeling bachelor ways, settled down, got married, had a child, became a widower (one of the most poignant scenes in the series occurs when Amos and his son visit the grave of his late wife, Sarah, at the end of one episode). Speaking of his son, Peter (played by Peter Barton of Powers of Matthew Star and The Young and the Restless) is a real chip off the old block...he's handsome, quite a draw for the ladies (just like his old man), and most importantly, he's a cop as well, and is his dad's sidekick, doing all the physical stuff that Tim Tilson and Les Hart did in the original series.

The series in itself features the same quirky murder mysteries that the original did...a hated fashion designer killed by a tiny arrow from an ice sculpture, a 'celebrity' lifeguard drowned in his own pool, a temperamental tennis star named Spider being fatally bitten by a black widow spider, to name a few. One story, Who Killed Alexander the Great?, about a magician who goes into an airtight coffin in a pool very much alive but is dead from a gunshot wound when the coffin is opened, was lifted from the original series (where it was done as Who Killed Merlin the Great?). The episode's writers, Richard Levinson and William Link, also used it as the pilot for their short-lived magic/detective series Blacke's Magic. The new version adds a couple of interesting tweaks, but on the whole, cannot compare to the original.

And that is what seems to be the case for the entire show...there are interesting story ideas, but once you've seen the original (which I finally did), this is an awful pale comparison. Occasionally, you will see folks who guested on the original series dusted off to make an appearance (Rita Moreno, Anne Francis, Edd Byrnes, Marty Ingels, Frankie Avalon), but mostly it's a huge sea of familiar TV faces, including some of Barry's fellow action stars (Mike Connors, Robert Culp, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), stunt casting (Downtown Julie Brown, Dusty Rhodes) and a heaping helping of Spelling's 90210/Melrose Place gang. It seems like one of those kids is moonlighting in every episode of the show, including not one but TWO appearances by Tori Spelling, one of those an uncredited cameo.

And to the poster who mentioned people like Hugh O'Brien, Richard Crenna, Karl Malden, Patrick Macnee, Barbara Bain, Peter Lupus and Karl Malden...what show were you watching anyhow? I saw every episode of this series, and I can tell you, unless they were cleverly disguised as scenery, NONE of those actors appeared on Burke's Law! And while Carolyn Jones (the former Mrs. Spelling) did appear on the original series, it would've been some trick if she appeared on this version, as she'd been dead for a decade by the time it debuted.

Final thoughts...it's OK viewing, fun to see 75-year-old Gene Barry still looking dapper and dashing off quips and Mary Worth-like advice to everyone he meets, but the original, in glorious black-and-white, is still the one to seek out for all-star casts having a ball with quirky mysteries. My grade...6 out of 10.

Chief Amos Burke (Gene Barry) is a wealthy man. With his police detective son Peter Burke (Peter Barton), they take on high profile and convoluted cases. Henry is their Oriental man-servant. Chef Vinnie Piatte (Dom DeLuise) is their friend.

This feels light and old especially for the 90's. For heaven's sake, they have an Oriental man-servant. If the old Henry actor is already dead, they may as well write off that character. They could put a picture of him in a prominent place to honor the guy. It's an Aaron Spelling production and he's not known for anything hard and gritty. The main draw seems to be nostalgia for the 60's show. I've never seen it. This definitely has a lot of guest stars. Many of them are old-timers, but there are plenty of young newbies. That's probably the show's most appealing aspect. We get to see a lot of familiar faces. Gene Barry is an old-timer in several ways. He's solid but nothing more. Peter Barton is pretty average and rather bland. The father and son banter needs more spice. This lasted two seasons. One of them has to be for the nostalgia.