Dan August

'The House on Greenapple Road' was the original pilot for this series, and in fact starred Christopher George as Dan August, not Burt Reynolds. The was never an episode called 'Once is Not Enough', let alone it being the pilot episode 'introducing us to the character of Dan August'. For goodness sake, there is an episode list alongside the subject! It's so easy to verify your facts. People use the IMDb as a source of reliable information, so unreliable information such as that previously posted on this subject, and many others I might add, should not be allowed to find its way here. I thought the IMDb personnel vetted these postings?

Quinn Martin made hour-long dramas, from crime to science-fiction, most notably THE INVADERS, that had the colors and sets, and sometimes acting, of situation comedies, and DAN AUGUST, starring a young Burt Reynolds before his signature mustache, is no different...

Taking place in a small California town based on Santa Barbara, the plot-device is that Reynolds' title character, once a football hero of the local college, knows everybody he investigates: so everyone accused of murder are either a friend or friend-of-a-friend, family-of-a-friend, friend-of-the-family, or merely an acquaintance, but he does what he can...

Not with the kind of likeable persona that would make Burt a huge star not long after, beginning with DELIVERANCE and really igniting with SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, the Reynolds here his robotic and unfeeling, morose, monotone and pretty cold, actually, but it seems deliberate...

Not a bad series; a kind of mystery more based on modernized film noir than progressive modern cop, but it's that too, taking on subjects from race to Vietnam to drugs... it's just too bad Burt didn't let himself out a little more here... the whole thing, no matter the serious issues, needed more joy within the investigative process.

Reynolds' golden era is the time of Smokey and the Bandit when he was around 40years old.This series is before he really hit it big,about 7years before Bandit,and before he established himself as a funny-guy from Johhny Carson's show.So,here he is not trying to be funny but rather plays it straight and being rather the heavy cop type.Still its interesting because he is young and probably in the best-looking time of his career,especially if you like him better without mustache. Several other stars make guest appearances,the stories are typical cop-fare of the time and Reynolds does some interesting stunts himself that make it all more believable.This series lasted only one season so there's not too much of it and i would expect to see it on DVD,at least for Reynolds' fans but its not available yet.

Pretty cool old show. Neat vintage footage. Reynolds is a little stiff but he had yet to grow into his thing. Even Norman Fell is different to see in this role, my biggest memory of him was threes company where he was a laugh. Good story lines, typical drama from the 1970s. No humor at all in it. Neat to see a lot of the bit characters that kept popping up into the late 1970s and 1980s. It seek to get better as it goes along. Unusual format with the different 'acts'. I'm a old car lover so it's cool to see all of the old rides. It's too bad they reformat the screen to wide-screen on these old shows, would be better in the original format.

I always enjoyed Burt Reynolds film and TV career but after purchasing this DVD TV series and watching it again some fifty (50) years later I would have to say that the story lines were almost all similar and for todays standards, pretty stale. Most of the episodes focused on a murder of a rich affluent person(s) in the tony neighborhoods of Santa Luisa, California, and Lt. Dan August (Burt Reynolds) and his dower looking sidekick Sgt. Charles Wilentz (Norman Fell) who continually chases after Dan August like a lap dog, whilst Dan is running down his suspects and usually gang tackling them in mid air.

To the series credit, it does attempt to bring to the forefront some racial injustices, homosexuality and social injustices, but good old Dan always figures out by the end of each episode whose the bad guy(s) and who the victims are that deserve our sympathy and/or respect.

There were some cameo appearances by some very young and upcoming superstars such as Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Jan-Michael Vincent, Joan Van-Ark, Martin Sheen, Donna Mills, David Soul and Larry Hagman, and with a bevy of veteran actors far too many to name.

The TV series theme music is a period piece that brings us back down memory lane for the 1970's Quinn Martin productions, nothing more, nothing less.

I am glad that I watched this memorable TV series once again some five (5) decades later just to watch Burt Reynolds in his TV prime before he went on to film stardom, but sadly it is not something I would watch a third time. Anyone interested in purchasing a slightly used DVD copy of the 1970 Dan August TV series?

I give the series a so so grade of 6 out of 10 IMDb rating.