Created by Scott Pendergast A disappointingly underwhelming TV show that smothers its own potential cleverness and wit with a thick, warm blanket of comfy family drama that never quite pays off, at least until the seventh episode—coincidentally a Thanksgiving-themed episode. Your enjoyment of So Help Me Todd (2022, CBS/Paramount) will depend on your tolerance for having … Continue reading Todd Wright (So Help Me Todd)
Tag: Con Artist
Norm Swallow (Blackmail)
Created by Bill Crenshaw "Now, knowing what I know about you two, I could turn you in. It's my civic duty. But it ain't that simple." -- Norm decides to cut himself in SLEAZE ALERT! Here's a real low-budget pleasure, if your tastes run towards those old noirish B-films of yesteryear. In the densely-plotted 1991 … Continue reading Norm Swallow (Blackmail)
Alice Vaughan (The Catch)
Created by Allan Heinberg, Jennifer Schuur & Helen Gregory Based on a treatment by Kate Atkinson So there was this TV show, The Catch (not to be confused with a failed 2005 pilot of the same title), executive produced by TV miracle worker Shonda Rhimes (which seems to be her only contribution to the project). But, … Continue reading Alice Vaughan (The Catch)
Eddie Flynn
Created by Steve Cavanagh "Lawyers don’t usually question whether or not a client is telling truth. That way lies madness. You do what you have to and trust the system. So, the guilty plead guilty. The innocent fight their case and the jury decides. If a by-product of that process is the emergence of the … Continue reading Eddie Flynn
On the Con
Scam Artists: A Suggested Reading List Perhaps it's my own particular aversion to the "amateur" sleuth thing, but my appreciation for private eyes and other "professionals" may just have to do with competence. I mean, in the right mood, I can take unlikely amateurs rising to the occasion and grabbing the gold, saving the girl … Continue reading On the Con
Frank McBride & Peterson T. “Pete” Ryan (Switch)
Created by Alan Godfrey & Glen A. Larson In 1975, CBS tried to cash in on the then-white hot success of The Sting, the 1973 big screen Newman/Redford con man smasheroo, with Switch. The show's pilot, a 90-minute made-for-TV movie, was called "Las Vegas Roundabout," and aired in March 1975, and quickly set up the series. The … Continue reading Frank McBride & Peterson T. “Pete” Ryan (Switch)
Beverly Laborde & Adam Dutton
Created by B.V. Lawson This oddball team-up squeak onto this site just under the wire--neither BEVERLY LABORDE or ADAM DUTTON is a private eye. In fact, Dutton's a friggin' police officer! In Vermont! But with sexy scamster Laborde helping him with some off-the-books investigations, that's close enough to rock'n'roll for me. And boy, does the sad sack … Continue reading Beverly Laborde & Adam Dutton
J. Sheringham Adair
Created by P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) P.G. Wodehouse wrote nearly 100 books, almost all of them comic novels. He's best known, of course, for creating the characters of Jeeves, the ultimate valet (or as he would have it, the ultimate "gentleman's gentleman") and perennial upper class twit, Bertie Wooster, as well as other memorable figures such … Continue reading J. Sheringham Adair
Max Latin
Created by Norbert Davis (1909-49) Guiterrez came out of the kitchen in a cloud of steam and slapped the heavy metal swing door violently shut behind him. He was a tall man with a dark, bitterly disillusioned face. He was wearing a white jacket and a white apron, and he had a chef's hat crushed … Continue reading Max Latin
Lester Leith
Created By Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) "Do you know, Scuttle, an impartial observer hearing Sergeant Ackley's theories might come to the conclusion I was guilty of some crime or another..." He's not really a private eye, in that he doesn't really take on paying customers, but he certainly gets paid (and paid well) for his, … Continue reading Lester Leith