Hugh Lockwood, Nick Bianco & “C.R.” Grover (Search)

Created by Leslie Stevens

HUGH LOCKWOOD, NICK BIANCO and CHRISTOPHER ROBIN “C.R.” GROVER were operatives for Probe, a high-tech private detective agency in Search, the cheesy 1972 TV show that tried to combine the private eye, spy and science fiction genres with what was then pretty cutting-edge technology. It was actually good, hokey fun for adolescent boys of all ages.

The show alternated episodes between the three Probe “agents,” all of whom were wired up the wazoo, for everything from sound and vision to their bodily fuctions. The action flipped back and forth between the ops out in the field, and Probe Control, where a team of earnet, stern-faced experts, supervised by crochety V.C.R. Cameron (Burgess Meredith), cooly monitored everything the agents saw and heard and felt, including body temperature, heartbeats and blood pressure, and in turn relayed intructions to the ops using miniature transmitters.

The turtle-necked Lockwood (played by Hugh O’Brian), was “the cool one.” A former astronaut, he wore a hilariously clunky medallion (okay, it was the seventies) that was actually a camera, which broadcast his every move.

The other “Probes” were  Nick Bianco (played by Anthony Franciosa), a streetwise ex-cop, and Christopher Robin “C.R.” Grover (the ubiquitous Doug McClure) was the affable goofball agent.

In the course of its one-season run (plus the two-hour pilot, entitled “Probe”) the globe-trotting agents investigated the disappearance of government officials, battled counterfeiters, recovered moon rocks, tracked terrorists, helped foreign scientists defect and foiled assorted Nazis, Commies and other nefarious villians out to destroy life as we know it.

Man, I used to think this show was soooooo cool….

UNDER OATH

• “You call SEARCH “cheesy”?? Are you out of your mind? This was one of the coolest shows of its time, EVER. Very poor choice of words… It wasn’t “cheesy” or corny or anything like that… You must not have been old enough to appreciate SEARCH. It was just cool….  You are obviously an idiot.”
  — Gordon Scottt (sent from his iPhone)

TELEVISION

• PROBE | Buy this DVD
  (1972, NBC)
  Made-for-television movie
  2-hour pilot
  Premiere: February 21, 1972
  Teleplay by Leslie Stevens
  Directed by Russ Mayberry
  Produced by Leslie Stevens
  Associate producer: John Christopher Strong
  Starring Hugh O’Brian HUGH LOCKWOOD
  Also starring Elke Sommer, John Gielgud, Burgess Meredith, Angel Tompkins, Lilia Skala, Kent Smith, Alfred Ryder, Ben Wright, Jules Maitland, Albert Popwell, Robert Boon, A Martinez, Ginny Golden, Byron Chung
• SEARCH | Buy this DVD
  (1972-73, NBC)
  23 60 minute episodes
  Writers: Leslie Stevens, Irv Pearlberg, S.S. Schweitzer, Judy Burns, J. Christopher Strong III, Michael R. Stein, Jack Turley, Brad Radnitz, Don Balluck, Norman Hudis, Robert C. Dennis
  Directors: Russ Mayberry, William Wiard, Philip Leacock, Allen Reisner, Marc Daniels, Robert Friend, Nicholas Colasanto, Joseph Pevney, Paul Stanley, Allan Reisner, Jerry Jameson, George McGowan, Ralph Senensky, Michael Caffey
  Starring Hugh O’Brian as HUGH LOCKWOOD
  Anthony Franciosa as NICK BIANCO
  and Doug McClure as CHRISTOPHER ROBIN “C.R.” GROVER
  Also starring Burgess Meredith as V.C.R. Cameron
  Angel Tompkins as Gloria Harding
  Tom Hallick as Harris
  and Pamela Jones as Miss James
  Guest stars: Ford Rainey, Larry Linville, Jo Ann Pflug, Barbara Feldon, Ron Castro, Byron Chung, Amy Farrell, Ginny Golden, Albert Popwell, Bill Bixby, Cheryl Stoppelmoor (AKA Cheryl Ladd), David Gilliam, Diana Hyland, Wally Cox, Bert Convy, Anne Francis, Howard Duff, Craig Stevens, Rhonda Fleming, Cameron Mitchell, James Sikking, Mel Ferrer, Dabney Coleman
  • Season One
  • “The Murrow Disappearance” (September 13, 1972)
  • “One of Our Probes Is Missing” (September 20, 1972)
  • “Short Circuit” (September 27, 1972)
  • “Moonrock” (October 4, 1972)
  • “Live Men Tell Tales” (October 11, 1972)
  • “Operation Iceman” (October 25, 1972)
  • “The Bullet” (November 1, 1972)
  • “In Search of Midas” (November 8, 1972)
  • “The Adonis File” (November 15, 1972; AKA “The Consortium”)
  • “Flight to Nowhere” (November 22, 1972)
  • “The Gold Machine” (December 20, 1972)
  • “Let Us Prey” (January 3, 1973)
  • “A Honeymoon to Kill” (January 10, 1973)
  • “The Twenty-Four Carat Hit” (January 24, 1973)
  • “Numbered for Death” (January 31, 1973)
  • “Countdown to Panic” (February 7, 1973)
  • “The Clayton Lewis Document” (February 14, 1973)
  • “Goddess of Destruction” (February 21, 1973)
  • “The Mattson Papers” (February 28, 1973)
  • “Moment of Madness” (March 14, 1973)
  • “Ends of the Earth” (March 21, 1973)
  • “Suffer My Child” (March 28, 1973)
  • “The Packagers” (April 11, 1973)

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• TV Party: SEARCH/PROBE
  TV Party’s page dedicated to the 1972 NBC television series Search, (and the pilot “Probe”) starring Hugh O’Brian, Tony Franciosa, Doug McClure and Burgess Meredith.

NOVELIZATIONS

• Search (1973, by Robert Weverka; aka “Based on the TV Movie Starring Hugh O’Brian”) | Buy this book
• Moonrock (1973, by Robert Weverka) | Buy this book