The Streets Of San Francisco is a perfect fit for this format. We follow Lt. Mike Stone (Karl Malden) and Inspector Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) as they solve crimes all over San Francisco. Malden is the older, steady (Stone!) partner usually in an overcoat looking like he just walked off the set of The Untouchables. Douglas is the fresh-faced, younger detective. But this isn't Lethal Weapon. The two are serious partners. We are not bogged down by their personal relationships outside of the job. We only get small hints at Stone's fatherly influence on Keller, like the way he refers to him as "buddy boy" all the time. The other main character is San Francisco. Filmed all over the town, the town lives and breathes around the characters. There's rain, sun, darkness, rich, and poor. Current shows, like the CSI troika, use their cities as background and plot devices, but even CSI: New York doesn't come across as a city that real people live in.
So, what is the appeal of these episodes 24 years after they originally aired? Part of it is the breath of fresh air they are compared to today's detective shows. The first thing that strikes you is that there isn't a "B Story." Everything in the show pertains to the main plot; nothing is wasted. There are no personal storylines either. This is first and foremost a police procedural and the plots do not deviate from that. Secondly, this isn't the mystery of a CSI where we're trying to discover the killer along with the investigators.
There's no "a-ha" moment at the end where we guess who committed the crime. Here, we know the criminal, we've seen the crime, and the story revolves around Stone and Keller using their detective skills to figure out the crime. The brilliance is using the four-act format in slightly different ways to play with the viewers’ expectations. Two of the best episodes in this collection show how slight tweaking of the formula creates engrossing stories.
In "A Collection Of Eagles," Jamie Farr is killed and burnt very early into Act I. It's a simple set-up but we're not sure what the gold coins he had with him had to do with his murder. Act II sets up the counterfeiting storyline and the clues turn up through now familiar CSI methods - shoe prints and reconstructing the serial number on a gun. There's another murder that helps the detectives make some more connections. By Act III, the case is becoming clear but it looks like the criminal (John Saxon) is going to get away with the counterfeiting crime. In Act IV, he temporarily eludes our detectives but is fatally shot to pay for his crimes.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
I know of it, but have never seen this show. I love QM, The Fugitive is his best. I'll have to check this out.
2 - Mat Brewster
Is it me or does anyone else find it hilarious that this post is written by "el bicho" and then the very first comment is from el bicho saying he's never seen the reviewed show.
Yes I know it wasn't actually written by you bicho, but I still found it funny.