L'homme à la Rolls

Amazingly,producer Aaron Spelling brought back his most famous show which produced 27 episodes and ran for one season on CBS from 1994-1995. The title again became "Burke's Law",and Gene Barry was back in his most famous role as Chief of Detectives,Amos Burke,who was still head of operations for the Los Angeles Police Department. This time around,Burke is assisted by his son,Peter Burke(Peter Barton). The revival,even more than the original program,was widely regarded as camp,but it was still a good murder mystery with a cast of "whodunits" leading up to Burke and his son to solve the crime and catch the killer. Also,Gene Barry's character was back chasing crooks in his fabulous Rolls-Royce only this time the producers along with some of the writers including Richard Levinson and William Link along with Harlan Ellison,Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts along with Ernest Kinmoy dusted off the original scripts for this new incarnation. Only on occasion did we see the old spark of creatively that made the original show from the early 1960's so great. Some of these episodes did have a touch of a 90's retrospective,such as a victim freezing to death on the hottest day of the year;an ambulance chasing lawyer getting run over by an ambulance. Who would have thought of bringing back guest stars such as Efrem Zimbalist,Jr. as a greedy tycoon accused of murder while practicing his golf swing from the roof of a building and doesn't care who it falls on?

And other stars such as Brian Keith,as an ex-marine turned novelist accused of first degree murder,who puts on a dress just to get into the mood to write? And other stars as suspects such as Hugh O'Brian, Richard Crenna,Stella Stevens,and Carolyn Jones to name a few. This show also featured guest appearances by many of Gene Barry's peers from the 1960's spy-fi genre including Patrick Macnee(The Avengers), Robert Culp(I Spy),David McCallum(The Man From UNCLE),Peter Lupus and Barbara Bain(Mission:Impossible),and Anne Francis(Honey West). It also have some well-known detectives including Mike Connors(Mannix)and Karl Malden(The Streets of San Francisco). After one season on the air,CBS cancelled it and replaced it with the Dick Van Dyke mystery series "Diagnosis Murder",which was the greatest travesty of its kind and to say CBS kept it on the air for seven years killing one of the greatest mystery shows of all time.

I love detective stories. I saw them all: Murder She Wrote, Diagnosis Murder, even the short-lived Blacke's magic. The revived Burke's Law would have been a welcome addition, if not for the derivative style. It's the same plot device over and over again, a murder, one suspect leading Burke and Son to another suspect, then finally calling all suspects in one room and Burke eliminating the non-murderers before naming the real one. Even Agatha Christie knew how to manipulate the storyline so it wouldn't be the same story as the last one. Sadly, the new Burke's Law was just trying to be the next Murder She Wrote without the variety. It feels like it's trapped in the 1930's, like those cozy murders in an English cottage.

The only positive thing: it's in color!

This was my first exposure to Burke's Law...I had never seen the original until a few years ago (I could tell you why I passed up opportunities in the past to see the original, but it's a ridiculous reason not to watch a TV show, you'd laugh, I'd have to kill you, and I really don't want to do that). I did, however, watch and enjoy other shows with Gene Barry (Bat Masterson, Name of the Game, even The Adventurer), so I was looking forward to seeing the still-dashing Barry race to the scene of the latest homicide in the flashy Bentley (and yes, it IS a Bentley and not a Rolls, as one episode in this series makes a point about it). I found out that Aaron Spelling was trying as early as 1981 to get Barry to reprise the role.

So...what do we have here? A lot has changed in the almost-30 years since the original series ended...apparently, Amos quit the spy business (which is what he was involved in when the series was canceled midway through the '65-'66 season), returned to the force and worked his way up from Captain of Homicide to Chief of Detectives. We're also led to believe that he gave up his freewheeling bachelor ways, settled down, got married, had a child, became a widower (one of the most poignant scenes in the series occurs when Amos and his son visit the grave of his late wife, Sarah, at the end of one episode). Speaking of his son, Peter (played by Peter Barton of Powers of Matthew Star and The Young and the Restless) is a real chip off the old block...he's handsome, quite a draw for the ladies (just like his old man), and most importantly, he's a cop as well, and is his dad's sidekick, doing all the physical stuff that Tim Tilson and Les Hart did in the original series.

The series in itself features the same quirky murder mysteries that the original did...a hated fashion designer killed by a tiny arrow from an ice sculpture, a 'celebrity' lifeguard drowned in his own pool, a temperamental tennis star named Spider being fatally bitten by a black widow spider, to name a few. One story, Who Killed Alexander the Great?, about a magician who goes into an airtight coffin in a pool very much alive but is dead from a gunshot wound when the coffin is opened, was lifted from the original series (where it was done as Who Killed Merlin the Great?). The episode's writers, Richard Levinson and William Link, also used it as the pilot for their short-lived magic/detective series Blacke's Magic. The new version adds a couple of interesting tweaks, but on the whole, cannot compare to the original.

And that is what seems to be the case for the entire show...there are interesting story ideas, but once you've seen the original (which I finally did), this is an awful pale comparison. Occasionally, you will see folks who guested on the original series dusted off to make an appearance (Rita Moreno, Anne Francis, Edd Byrnes, Marty Ingels, Frankie Avalon), but mostly it's a huge sea of familiar TV faces, including some of Barry's fellow action stars (Mike Connors, Robert Culp, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), stunt casting (Downtown Julie Brown, Dusty Rhodes) and a heaping helping of Spelling's 90210/Melrose Place gang. It seems like one of those kids is moonlighting in every episode of the show, including not one but TWO appearances by Tori Spelling, one of those an uncredited cameo.

And to the poster who mentioned people like Hugh O'Brien, Richard Crenna, Karl Malden, Patrick Macnee, Barbara Bain, Peter Lupus and Karl Malden...what show were you watching anyhow? I saw every episode of this series, and I can tell you, unless they were cleverly disguised as scenery, NONE of those actors appeared on Burke's Law! And while Carolyn Jones (the former Mrs. Spelling) did appear on the original series, it would've been some trick if she appeared on this version, as she'd been dead for a decade by the time it debuted.

Final thoughts...it's OK viewing, fun to see 75-year-old Gene Barry still looking dapper and dashing off quips and Mary Worth-like advice to everyone he meets, but the original, in glorious black-and-white, is still the one to seek out for all-star casts having a ball with quirky mysteries. My grade...6 out of 10.

Well, maybe my summary will take place of puurakek's, but he (or she?) is totally right! (so read this summary) In one episode (the one w/ Robert Vaughn) there was an identical twin brother who took place of the murdered one, and I only thought, please, don't let this be the one who is believed to be the murdered one and who took his brother's place after he murdered him. Guess what? But somehow I like that show, I don't think it's a total waste of money like "Baby Talk". I don't think, I could stand this show for more than one season, this was enough, but for one season the show was fine. I would have wanted a second or third season of Mr. Merlin, or a new concept.

Burke's Law was a 60s police detective series when it started out. First two seasons were anyway. The third season was a bizarre attempt to turn it into a Man From UNCLE type show. This reboot is a throwback to how the original show began. Burke is a swave and wealthy police captain who excels as a detective. That was the original series. Here, much of the work is not done by Amos Burke who by this time is a police chief.

The newer shows make me think ofn he Columbo reboot episodes more than the newer Perry Mason episodes. The format was always good. The writing is not quite up to the level of the original series but it is still pretty good. Recommend searching this one out. I didn't have the easiest time managing that.