Harry O - The Complete First Season

TV's Greatest Private Detective Series
Over the years I've enjoyed many TV private detectives: Mannix, Rockford, Magnum, the guys of 77 Sunset Strip, SurfSide 6 and Checkmate, however none more than Harry O. Harry O was the melding of a great actor and a perfect role for that actor. The Fugitive is one of my 10 favorite series and I'v always considered the late, great David Janssen as TV's all-time best actor for that series. However I've always felt that he was as good, or better, as Harry O.
The character of Harry Orwell was sort of a low-key and grouchy one for Janssen, definitely not your average tv detective. (Janssen does a noirish voice-over at the beginning and the end of each episode.) He was a former cop for the San Diego Police Department, shot in the back on the job and receiving disability from the department. He works as a private detective on the side to supplement his income. He lives on a drydocked boat on the beach that he is always fixing.(Sort of like Gibbs and his boat in the early seasons...

STILL GREAT AND ABSORBING!
I became a "Harry O" fan in the 1980s when I began my first job, working the 3pm-11pm shift and getting home in time to watch Johnny Carson's monologue and then switching to The CBS Late Movie. Each night of the week, CBS broadcast a rerun of "The Night Stalker", "McMillan and Wife", "McCloud", "Columbo" or "Harry O" among many others! All of these shows were high on character and story and low on action. So different from today's crime shows!! This show still holds up. I'm in the process of watching Season 1 and the narration and stories are still absorbing! I love the line near the end of "Guardian At The Gates" when Harry says of Barry Sullivan's mean character: "Maybe that's the secret of greatness; to always be alone and never be lonely. That's a hell of a price to pay." A show like this would never make it on the air today. This show is way over the head of the corporate suits that make the "creative" decisions. I'm sure it wouldn't "test" well because there aren't...

"A hundred bucks a day, plus expenses..."
Right up front I'll admit that I wasn't a huge fan of "The Fugitive" when it aired on network television for four seasons starting in 1963. Oh, I watched it, along with most other Americans, but I was very young at the time and the show didn't make a strong impression on me. Nor did actor David Janssen, who played the title role.

Fast-forward 10 years to 1973, though, when Janssen returned to network television as crusty private detective Harry Orwell in the short-lived series "Harry O." That one DID make a strong impression on me, and I've been anxiously awaiting its arrival on DVD for--well, for about as long as DVDs have been around. At last my waiting is over. Warner Brothers finally released the first season in a six-DVD set that includes all 22 episodes plus the original pilot, all in color. Hopefully the second and final season will follow soon. All six DVDs come in a case no thicker than the type that normally contains just one DVD--it's very efficient...

Click to Editorial Reviews