Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Forgotten TV: REMINGTON STEELE

 The death last week of Michael Gleason reminded me of an old favorite.


REMINGTON STEELE was on TV from 1982 to 1987 and starred Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan. It was a light romantic detective series. Their chemistry worked for a while-and then it didn't. But in the early years, it gave us lots of pleasure. More a romance than a detective series, it still managed to put out 20 some episodes a year with concrete plots.

It began like this:

Try this for a deep, dark secret. The great detective Remington Steele? He doesn't exist. I invented him.

I always loved excitement, so I studied and apprenticed, and put my name on an office. But absolutely nobody knocked down my door. A female private investigator seemed so . . . feminine. So I invented a superior. A decidedly masculine superior.

Suddenly, there were cases around the block. It was working like a charm. Until the day he walked in.

With his blue eyes and mysterious past, and before I knew it, he assumed Remington Steele's identity.

Now I do the work and he takes the bows.

It's a dangerous way to live, but as long as people buy it, I can get the job done.

We never mix business with pleasure. Well, almost never. I don't even know his real name.


We know what happened to Pierce Brosnan but what happened to Stephanie Zimbalist? 

13 comments:

Jerry House said...

Loved this show (well, except for the final season). We liked it far better than MOONLIGHTING.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Never watched MOONLIGHTING. Did watch this for 2-3 years.

Apparently, Zimbalist has done quite a bit of theater work, at least according to Wikipedia. I haven't seen her on television in years.

Charles Gramlich said...

I remember it fondly

Dana King said...

I liked this show and remembered it well enough that I used the conceit--woman using someone else as what could be described as a professional beard--as a plot point in the book I finished last spring.

George said...

Diane really liked the chemistry of Brosnan and Zimbalist. I liked the first couple of years of MOONLIGHTING, but then it went off the rails.

Rick said...

As far as I'm concerned, they ruined this terrific show by adding Doris Roberts as the ex-FBI agent in Season 2 (?).
They blew up the wonderful plot line that Laura was the brains and Steele was the beard for the firm.

I was never a Doris Roberts fan anyway but--perhaps childishly--I couldn't bear her in anything after RS. Not to speak ill of the dead,but I think it's revealing that in this and EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND she found her greatest success playing annoying characters.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I totally agree! Murphy was perfect as the third.

Al Tucher said...

She was one of my major on-screen crushes.

Cap'n Bob said...

Since when has this been forgotten?

But I agree with Rick, I never could abide Doris Roberts.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I always liked this show, Patti. It just..worked for me.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

I know what you mean Al, she was equally stunning in The Awakening (1980) and The Golden Moment (1984).

pattinase (abbott) said...

Well, he wasn't hard to look at either.

Jennifer Croissant said...

I always enjoyed that incredibly charming moment when she said to him "Tonight i dont think i could refuse", and he said back to her "Tonight i dont think i could even ask", pure joyous romantic magic, one of the highlight moments of the entire series.