The Outsider

I had never seen this show when it was on the first time as I was working 2 jobs at the time. This show was on one of the cable channels over the weekend. The only reason I watched it was the fact that I like Darren McGavin. This was not the tough Darren that played Mike Hammer or Kolchak but a very toned down character with no bite. The story line was awful and right out of the private-eye tv show cookie-cutter scripts of the time. I will never bother watching another episode again.

While the plot lines and stories escape me...I was pretty young then...I remember the show.

My dad used to love this series. I remember him being pretty amused by the credits where Darren opens his fridge and slugs down some milk only to discover it had gone over.

The show and actor were soon, and forever, nicknamed "Sour milk" in our house.

Later I caught the premiere of the "Night Stalker" movie. I was hooked.

Darren presented himself in most of his characters, in such a way that you wish that you could have known him personally. He was the irascible uncle with the heart of gold.

Darren passed away this last weekend. The world is poorer for his passing.

McGavin, tired, depressed, alone and lonely drinking milk from the carton: an image seared in the mind from 1968. I did all I could to watch every episode of this high point in the skilled acting of Darren McGavin. The atmosphere, the ethos, of "The Outsider" captured its title exactly. While I am sure that no reference to Camus' "L'Etranger", so frequently translated as "The Outsider", was meant, nevertheless there were resonances of the existential anti-hero of the famous book.

I haven't seen this show since it first appeared, but it still stands out in my memory of the 1960s so it must have been good.

There's one scene I remember vividly and it encapsulates the "loser" aura of McGavin's character in the show. He is looking out of the window of a tall office tower and sees someone in the parking lot far below backing into his car. He watches helplessly as the driver gets out, writes a note and slips it under his windshield wiper. Later, when he gets back to his car he reads the note. I can't remember the exact words after 40 years but it says something like "Sorry I dented your car. There are people watching and they think I'm leaving my name, address and insurance company. But I'm not!" I still grin at the memory of that scene, and it sums up the character's life. You have to feel for him and when he manages to solve a case you have to rejoice for him. Our natural support for the underdog is one of the main reasons for watching this series.

I can understand why I love this show, because the Rockford Files is another of my favourites and they are similar except that Jim Rockford has family and friends (some of them false). But David Ross doesn't seem to have anyone. To that extent The Outsider is what the title announces it to be, and to that extent it's a bit bleak. But it has some wonderful moments - at least in my memory. Faced with the rubbish that is on TV today I am dying to see it again.

Darren McGavin is always able to inject cynical humour into a part. Like Vincent Price you can always detect that he as a real person is relishing his role. This is why he is one of my favourite actors of the period. I think he was sadly underused, and when I caught up with him later he always seemed to be playing superior villains in roles which restricted him. As an aside I may be the only person alive who never saw him in The Night Stalker.

Flash in the pan in spite of a strong star.

It was O.K., but frankly fell into the species (genus?) of L.A. P.I., not the most original idea. In a way, however, THE OUTSIDER may have anticipated the wildly successful ROCKFORD FILES, with its small-time and financially struggling sole proprietor, but the latter was far more lively, stocked with interesting characters, and had a whimsical touch. The T.V. movie which preceded THE OUTSIDER, if I recall it accurately after more than thirty years, promised more than the series subsequently delivered. Too bad, because Darren's good.