Episode after episode Barnaby manages to zero in on the culprits without the slightest clue to guide him. It is sloppy uninspired writing by writers who can't be bothered or don't have the skill to develop proper mystery stories. There are no surprises, every program is predictable, Barnaby shows up, immediately knows where to look for some innocuous clue, manages to connect that clue to the most unlikely person then spends the rest of the program proving his suspect is guilty.
There are no surprises. There is always one murder, either planned or accidental. There is a second murder as someone discovers the first murder or clues that would point to the murderer and must be silenced. Then there is the last attempted murder which Barnaby stops by arriving just in the nick of time resulting in a gun fight in which Barnaby manages an impossible shot (he never misses), wounding, but not killing the perpetrator. It is exactly the same scenario show after show, after show. Ho hum, how tedious!
This series is almost as bad as Columbo when it comes to unrealistic police work, except that Barnaby as good as he is does not have the interesting quirky personality of Columbo. As charismatic as Buddy Ebsen may have been, even he could not carry a program as badly written as this one.
Then there's the constant milk drinking, which is over emphasized, that leads me to believe that the American Dairy Association must have paid large sums of money to have milk promoted on so many episodes.
The only reason for watching this program is because it starred Buddy Ebsen, and the beautiful and sophisticated Lee Meriwether. As detective shows go, it is near the bottom even among the spate of marginal detective shows dominating seventies television.
I rated it as high as four stars because of Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether, otherwise it would be one star.
There are no surprises. There is always one murder, either planned or accidental. There is a second murder as someone discovers the first murder or clues that would point to the murderer and must be silenced. Then there is the last attempted murder which Barnaby stops by arriving just in the nick of time resulting in a gun fight in which Barnaby manages an impossible shot (he never misses), wounding, but not killing the perpetrator. It is exactly the same scenario show after show, after show. Ho hum, how tedious!
This series is almost as bad as Columbo when it comes to unrealistic police work, except that Barnaby as good as he is does not have the interesting quirky personality of Columbo. As charismatic as Buddy Ebsen may have been, even he could not carry a program as badly written as this one.
Then there's the constant milk drinking, which is over emphasized, that leads me to believe that the American Dairy Association must have paid large sums of money to have milk promoted on so many episodes.
The only reason for watching this program is because it starred Buddy Ebsen, and the beautiful and sophisticated Lee Meriwether. As detective shows go, it is near the bottom even among the spate of marginal detective shows dominating seventies television.
I rated it as high as four stars because of Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether, otherwise it would be one star.