Created by Joyce Burditt
No, DR. MARK SLOAN is NOT a private eye. Not even close.
He’s an elderly widower; a kindly, white-haired teaching physician and the Chief of Internal Medicine at a Denver’s (and later, inexplicably, Los Angeles’s) Community General Hospital, who keeps poking his nose into active police investigations, while working as a consultant to the local department. He appeared in several made-for-TV movies and the subsequent TV series Diagnosis: Murder in the 1990s. Played by popular actor Dick Van Dyke, the good doctor’s sniffing around in police business often involved (and occasionally irked) his son, Steve, a detective for the local police (who was, coincidentally, played by Van Dyke’s real-life son Barry Van Dyke).
The show has almost nothing to do with private eyes, film noir or anything remotely hard-boiled, being just another lighthearted piece of coziness and murder (with a little medical drama tossed in); a sort of Murder, He Prescribed, with a scary similarity to Matlock.
Geezer detective shows were all over the place in the last few decades of the last century, built around once-beloved but aging TV stars playing prying, snooping, elderly (usually amateur) detectives. At least Barnaby Jones was a professional. However, there are two pretty good reasons for including at least a passing reference to Diagnosis Murder on this site:
- The good doctor was originally introduced as a character in the P.I. show Jake and the Fatman.
- Eternal TV eye Joe Mannix (as always, played by Mike Connors) returned to television after over twenty years in a “Hard-Boiled Murder,” a February 13, 1997 episode in which Joe and his old friend Dr. Mark solve a 25-year-old murder case. Written by two of the show’s main writers, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, the episode featured several actual clips from “Little Girl Lost,” a 1973 episode of Mannix, with Pernell Roberts and Beverly Garland reprising their guest-starring roles from the original show. It was a smart, witty and fitting tribute to what I think was the ultimate 1960’s private eye show.
Evidently, you couldn’t kill this thing with a stick. Even after its demise as a series after eight (eight, count ’em, EIGHT!), they still managed to squirt out a couple of TV movies, and for years later, following its demise, the show’s reruns continued to be immensely popular with everyone from grannies to my five-year old niece (who planned on marrying Sloan’s assistant Jesse, played by Charlie Schlatter, when she grew up).
Not that CBS considered five-year-olds their target audience. They were clearly aiming for TV-obsessed older viewers. The show was laced with gimmicky stunt casting, with special guest stars often reprising (or at least suggesting) some of their most popular roles. Andy Griffith (playing Matlock), Barbara Bain, Peter Graves, Robert Culp, Patrick Macnee, Jack Klugman, George Takei, Bill Mumy, Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit, William Christopher , Randolph Mantooth, Robert Fuller, Erik Estrada, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Erin Moran, Pat Morita, Conrad Janis, Scott Baio and Stephen J. Cannell, as an over-the-top producer of action TV, all popped up.
It even spawned a series of original Diagnosis: Murder novels by our pal Lee Goldberg, one of the writers and a former executive producer for the series, and a man who definitely knows how to write a solid tie-in. The first, The Silent Partner, came out in September 2003, and Janet Evanovich called it “a whodunit thrill ride… a high-octane mystery that moves like a bullet train.”
TELEVISION
- DIAGNOSIS OF MURDER
(January 5, 1992, CBS)
Made for television movie
Based on characters created by Joyce Burditt
Starring: Dick Van Dyke as DR. MARK SLOAN - THE HOUSE ON SYCAMORE STREET
(May 1, 1992, CBS)
Made for television movie
Based on characters created by Joyce Burditt
Starring: Dick Van Dyke as DR. MARK SLOAN - DIAGNOSIS MURDER | Buy the complete series on DVD
(1993-2001, CBS)
Series
178 60-minute episodes
Based on characters created by Joyce Burditt
Writers: Joyce Burditt, Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin, Jacquelyn Blain, Gerry Conway, Craig Tepper, Dick Van Dyke, Barry Van Dyke, Carey Van Dyke
Executive Producers: Fred Silverman, Dean Hargrove, Dick Van Dyke, Tom Chehak, Lee Goldberg
Produced by The Fred Silverman Company and Dean Hargrove Productions, in association with Viacom Productions, Inc.
Starring: Dick Van Dyke as DR. MARK SLOAN
with Victoria Rowell, Barry Van Dyke, Michael Tucci, Charlie Schlatter
Guest stars include: Andy Griffith, Barbara Bain, Peter Graves, Robert Culp, Patrick Macnee, Jack Klugman, George Takei, Bill Mumy, Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit, William Christopher , Randolph Mantooth, Robert Fuller, Erik Estrada, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Erin Moran, Pat Morita, Conrad Janis, Scott Baio, Stephen J. Cannell, Tim Conway, Fred Dryer, Mariette Hartley, Joanna Cassidy - TOWN WITHOUT PITY
(February 6, 2002, CBS)
Based on characters created by Joyce Burditt
Made for television movie
Starring:Dick Van Dyke as DR. MARK SLOAN - WITHOUT WARNING
(April 26, 2002, CBS)
Based on characters created by Joyce Burditt
Made for television movie
Starring:Dick Van Dyke as DR. MARK SLOAN
NOVELS
- The Silent Partner (2003, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
- The Death Merchant (2004, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
- The Shooting Script (2004, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
- The Waking Nightmare (2005, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
- The Past Tense (2005, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
- The Dead Letter (2006, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
- The Double Life (2006, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
- The Last Word (2007, by Lee Goldberg) | Buy this book
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- Hand Me Down My Walking Cane…
Geezer Noir
Regretfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
