City of Angels

I have watched reruns of CITY OF ANGELS on the Arts & Entertainment Cable Network in the mid-1990s and found the series to be enjoyable. This was one of the TV shows that Wayne Rogers starred in after leaving the highly-successful, long-running comedy, M*A*S*H; but most TV viewers hardly remember ANGELS to this day.

Rogers' character in the series, Jake Axminster, was a Los Angeles private eye who had little regard for the law when it came to doing his job, and who thought of the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1930s as inefficient, as he states every week in the series' opening. His loyal secretary, Marsha (played by Elaine Joyce), was always busy working with high-class prostitutes whenever she is not helping Jake solve cases in their nearly-bankrupt PI business.

Only thirteen episodes of this series were produced by Universal and aired on NBC-TV from February to May of 1976, with low ratings being the reason for its cancellation.

If any cable network or local TV station picks this show up in the near future, I'd definitely watch it again.

Being a fan of Wayne from Mash and him my favorite character and not understanding at the time why he left the hit show I was thrilled to see him in this unique new show. I watched it diligently as it aired and really was confounded why the network didn't give it more of a chance similar to how Mash originally tanked then the networked moved it around to find its glory time slot. I never forgot the show and spoke about it frequently as the topic of Mash would come up and the what ever happen to Wayne Roger conversation arose. It seemed no one knew it existed so it didn't have much of a chance so I suppose it was lack of advertising.

I have not seen the show since it originally aired in 1976 and would love to find it somewhere. I really loved his acting style seemingly effortless and could never understand how he didn't prevail better in his career. Most people I talk to about Mash thought he was in the show a lot longer then 3 season and many of them feel he was the best character. That's the kind of impact he had and same with City Of Angels I never forgot about this short run series.

Even though City of Angels began as a TV knock off of the movie Chinatown, it broke a big cliche in private eye TV shows. Every private eye has a friend on the force. Not Jake Axminster. He has an enemy on the force. Once a week Lt. Quint brings him downtown and beats the stuffing out of him. Jake would always look both ways before he left his office to see if the cops were laying for him.

I remember this show! I was in college at the time and loved it. It gave me the inspiration to move to Los Angeles shortly after and I've been here ever since. The art deco furniture and cars, the old streets and vintage neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the 1930's-style clothing and architecture---all contributed to a very enjoyable TV series. Wayne Rogers was fantastic as the renegade detective who questioned authority. It was entertaining and classy. I'd love to see every episode again. I hope it comes out on DVD. The clever opening scene of every episode compared Los Angeles of the 1930's to the city as it was in 1976. Wayne described the corruption, the vice, the scandal and the crime of L.A. and humorously let us know that he was talking about the 1930's, NOT the 1970's!