I should really wait to post this review/appreciation until I’ve had the time to watch the whole series through on YouTube, but I need a topic tonight and I already know what I think. Harry O, starring David Janssen, was one of the best TV PI series of the 1970s, and could have done even better if the network hadn’t clotheslined it.
The series struggled a bit getting launched. The first pilot movie, which you can watch above, was about a grumpy Los Angeles private eye named Harry Orwell (Janssen). He used to be a police detective, but a bullet near the spine put him on the disabled roster, so now he freelances. Only he’s a bit of a misanthrope (though he always seems to have a beautiful girlfriend) and actively discourages business. His injury interferes with his activity at times. He lives in a shack on the ocean, where he’s constantly working on his sailboat, “The Answer,” which is never quite finished (metaphor sighted!). He has a car, but it’s always in the shop and he rides the bus instead – which offers interesting creative opportunities for the writers, as when he loses a “tail” while riding it.
It seems network executives found the first pilot a little dark, so they ordered another one, which was lighter but hardly cheery. But that one was enough to get the series green-lit. (Jody Foster plays a homeless girl in this one.)
As the season begins, we find Harry living on Catalina Island near San Diego. Still in a shack, still working on his boat and riding the bus. His cop buddy is now Lt. Manny Quinlan (Henry Darrow, whom you may remember as Manolito on The High Chapparal). They’re on and off friends, but have each other’s backs when the chips are down.
Then, half-way through the first season, the network decided it was too expensive to shoot on Catalina and moved Harry closer to LA, but in a nearly identical living situation. His police buddy is now Lt. Trench, played by Anthony Zerbe, who won an Emmy as a supporting actor. The two actors’ chemistry was extremely good. Harry’s car was finally liberated from the shop, but it still broke down a lot. The tone was lightened yet again.
In the second season, Harry’s back injury – though never forgotten – became less important. Toward the end, a young actress named Farrah Fawcett-Majors (at the time) showed up as Harry’s stewardess girlfriend. (This attracted my increased interest.)
And then the network decided it wanted to change its entertainment direction. The relatively intelligent Harry O series was cancelled to be replaced by a star vehicle for Farrah – Charlie’s Angels. I’ll confess I was a big fan of the Angels at the time, but today I find I can’t bear to watch it, even when Farrah’s on. Harry O, on the other hand, holds up extremely well.
Private eye shows were a staple of prime-time TV in the 70s. Quinn Martin Productions, especially, ran a content factory that turned them out like sausages. QM did some quality work – he’d produced The Fugitive, which made David Janssen a star. But they also turned out shows like Cannon and Barnaby Jones that were almost indistinguishable in format, and even recycled each others’ scripts from time to time. I came to see the Quinn Martin trademark as a sure sign of phoning it in.
But Harry O was a smart show with good writing, good acting, and atmosphere. I’d put it right up there with a very different show, The Rockford Files. It could have been a classic, given the chance.
David Janssen swore never to do a network series again. He did a miniseries, but never a weekly show.