Complete series cast summary: | |||
Robert Wagner | ... | Pete T. Ryan 71 episodes, 1975-1978 | |
Eddie Albert | ... | Frank MacBride 71 episodes, 1975-1978 | |
Charlie Callas | ... | Malcolm Argos 71 episodes, 1975-1978 | |
Sharon Gless | ... | Maggie Philbin 71 episodes, 1975-1978 | |
Former bunco Detective Frank MacBride (Eddie Albert) joins forces with a con artist he once sent to jail, Pete Ryan (Robert Wagner), to operate their own private detective agency. Most of their cases involve running cons on the bad guys in order to trick them into surrendering or revealing the whereabouts of the stolen loot, jewels, et cetera. Maggie Philbin (Sharon Gless) was their cute receptionist, and wacky restaurateur Malcolm Argos (Charlie Callas), whose mastery of disguise often came in handy in helping MacBride and Ryan on their cases, provided the comic relief. Written by Marty McKee <mmckee@soltec.net>
This is another CBS series which started very strong. A lot of that was the cast. Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert & Sharon Gless are three extreme talents put together on this series. They were what held the later shows together.
The first scripts of this show were extremely intelligent. Wagner playing off Albert & Gless trying to stop the 2 of them from going at each others throats was very effective. The friction gave this show a strong start. The early shows had something special. Charlie Callas helped the early shows too but he strangely stopped appearing after the second season.
Later on in the series, a report about excessive violence on TV came out & CBS reacted by watering down the quality of the action & the parks between Wagner & Albert. Once this happened, the show abruptly lost ratings & got canceled. This was a very good series originally, but if you watch the first shows & then watch the last ones, you will see what I mean about the change.