This is the best series to ever be axed in one season. The pilot ran as an episode of the NBC Mystery Movie. Ironically, the first regular season episode ran on September 11, 1975. The mystery of why a show so well produced got the axe so quickly.
The producers, Richard Levinson & William Link got an inspiration for this series for a simple reason. They were producing another show, Columbo, where they always told the audience the murderer at the beginning of the show and then amazed the audience entertaining it by showing Columbo doggedly trying to find the person we already knew did it.
This shows starts off by challenging the audience on who Kiele the victim. It starts with a teaser dangling the victim & the suspects. Then it goes through the show with Ellery issuing a final challenge near the end of the show, and then reveal the killer in the finale. It is as opposite of Columbo as you can get.
The casting for this show is perfect. Jim Hutton is perfect as Ellery Queen. David Wayne is perfect and Inspector Richard Queen, his father. The interplay between these actors has an irresistible chemistry. The guest casts were major league. The stories were good. That leaves us with the mystery, why did the show fail? Did NBC hire a bumbling rating agency that gave this show low numbers to kill it? Did the NBC execs put it in a bad time slot trying to kill it? Did Levinson & Link just develop this as practice before they got Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) hired to take the same format to higher ratings on CBS? Was there somebody else trying to kill it? Did the Love Boat need to borrow the guest casts the show was using? Was it somebody else like Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford? One thing the show does is recreate the 1940's atmosphere very well for a television show. What is left is a show that is great program that could have been more popular. Sadly, we are still looking for the killer.
The producers, Richard Levinson & William Link got an inspiration for this series for a simple reason. They were producing another show, Columbo, where they always told the audience the murderer at the beginning of the show and then amazed the audience entertaining it by showing Columbo doggedly trying to find the person we already knew did it.
This shows starts off by challenging the audience on who Kiele the victim. It starts with a teaser dangling the victim & the suspects. Then it goes through the show with Ellery issuing a final challenge near the end of the show, and then reveal the killer in the finale. It is as opposite of Columbo as you can get.
The casting for this show is perfect. Jim Hutton is perfect as Ellery Queen. David Wayne is perfect and Inspector Richard Queen, his father. The interplay between these actors has an irresistible chemistry. The guest casts were major league. The stories were good. That leaves us with the mystery, why did the show fail? Did NBC hire a bumbling rating agency that gave this show low numbers to kill it? Did the NBC execs put it in a bad time slot trying to kill it? Did Levinson & Link just develop this as practice before they got Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) hired to take the same format to higher ratings on CBS? Was there somebody else trying to kill it? Did the Love Boat need to borrow the guest casts the show was using? Was it somebody else like Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford? One thing the show does is recreate the 1940's atmosphere very well for a television show. What is left is a show that is great program that could have been more popular. Sadly, we are still looking for the killer.