Where Can I Find a Private Investigator? Quiz

"Spenser: For Hire" was originally devised by producer John Wilder, who sought to adapt the novel series by Robert B. Parker featuring the mysterious private investigator known only as Spenser. The television adaptation, which featured Robert Urich in the lead role, was broadcast on ABC for a total of three seasons between 1985 and 1988.

Although the network moved the show around its schedule frequently, "Spenser: For Hire" retained good ratings throughout its run. Despite this, the extensive location shooting in Boston led to it costing a significant amount to make, and ultimately led to it being cancelled after 66 episodes. However, the show built up enough of a following that, subsequent to its cancellation, a spin-off series featuring the character of Hawk, Spenser's mysterious associate portrayed by Avery Brooks, was broadcast in 1989 while, between 1993 and 1995, Urich and Brooks reunited in four new TV movies as Spenser and Hawk produced by Lifetime.

"Magnum, P.I." began life under development by Glen A. Larson at ABC, which broadcast two of his then-existing television shows. However, both of these were cancelled by the network, which led to Larson moving across to CBS. At the time, the network was looking to maintain its investment in the major production facilities it had built in Hawaii during the run of "Hawaii Five-O", so a new series set in the islands was an attractive option. A pilot episode was greenlit by CBS, and Tom Selleck was cast to play the lead role. At the time, Selleck was also the first choice to play Indiana Jones in the film "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Knowing that the actor was then in demand, CBS gave a green light to produce "Magnum, P.I." as a series, with its first season debuting in December 1980.

The show ultimately ran for a total of eight seasons from 1980 to 1988, with its first few years seeing an upward trend in its ratings. Selleck originally planned to leave at the end of the seventh season, with the last episode written as a series finale. However, he was persuaded to return for a final season the following year. Ultimately, a total of 162 episodes were produced over its eight-year run. In addition, "Magnum, P.I." crossed over with two other series, forming the first part of a pair of two-part stories - the season 3 episode "Ki'i's Don't Lie" opened a story concluding in "Emeralds Are Not A Girl's Best Friend" from season 2 of "Simon & Simon", while the episode "Novel Connection" from season 7 was concluded by "Magnum On Ice", a fourth-season episode of "Murder, She Wrote".

"Vega$" was originally devised by writer/director Michael Mann and picked up by producer Aaron Spelling, who got the show to ABC. Under Spelling's auspices, much of the show would be produced on location in Las Vegas, while the lead role in the series, a private detective named Dan Tanna, was taken by Robert Urich. Mann wrote the pilot episode, titled "High Roller", which was broadcast in April 1978. The week prior to the pilot's broadcast, the character of Dan Tanna appeared in "Angels in Vegas", the season three premiere of "Charlie's Angels", another show produced by Spelling. The first season of "Vega$" premiered in September 1978.

The show ran for a total of three seasons between 1978 and 1981, although its creator, Michael Mann, was only involved with the pilot episode. Mann was dissatisfied with the direction proposed under the control of Aaron Spelling, and left before it went to series. Including the pilot, 69 episodes of "Vega$" were broadcast over the course of its three-year run, plus the original crossover episode of "Charlie's Angels" that introduced the character of Dan Tanna.

The premise for what ultimately became "Remington Steele" originated with television director Robert Butler in 1969, who came up with the idea of a show featuring a solo female private investigator. This concept was rejected as being ahead of its time by Grant Tinker, who was an executive at MTM Productions. A decade later, Tinker, by now CEO of MTM, and Butler revisited the idea. Butler, alongside writer Michael Gleason, expanded the concept - the female private investigator had invented a fictional male superior; what if one day he turned up? This led to the idea of "Remington Steele", which was picked up once Grant Tinker left MTM to become Chairman of NBC. The lead roles were taken by Stephanie Zimbalist as Laura Holt and, in what became his breakout role, Pierce Brosnan as the eponymous fictional boss. The setting for the show as Los Angeles was established by the use of the Century Plaza Towers in Century City as the location of the offices of the Remington Steele Detective Agency.

"Remington Steele" ran for a total of five seasons on NBC between 1982 and 1987. The first four saw the show as a standard weekly series, although it was regarded as unlike any previous detective show, mixing drama and action with comedy, and incorporating a "will-they, won't-they" relationship between the lead characters. However, by the end of the fourth season, ratings had slipped and the network cancelled the show, retaining an option on the cast. Following its cancellation, both Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist received major film roles (in "The Living Daylights" and "RoboCop" respectively), which saw interest in the show pick up. So, NBC exercised its option and picked the show up for a fifth season, a truncated run of three TV-movies. Over its five seasons, the show had a total of 91 episodes.

"Leg Work" was created by writer Frank Abatemarco as a show intended for CBS, which was on the lookout for a replacement for "Magnum, P.I.". Again going with the idea of a show about a private investigator, the show was, instead of another to feature a male lead, planned to have a woman headlining. The lead character, Claire McCarron, was a former Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan who, having a knack for being able to track people down, elected to go into business as a private detective, albeit one struggling to make a living from her new profession. Margaret Colin was ultimately cast as McCarron, while the show also provided future Academy Award winner Frances McDormond with one of her first major roles.

Although "Leg Work" received reasonable reviews on its debut, CBS put it up against NBC's popular sitcom "The Golden Girls" in the schedules, which led to its ratings hitting the floor. CBS ultimately aired a total of six episodes out of the ten that were produced; during its entire run, the show featured in the bottom five rated shows, with the final episode aired coming 71st out of 71 new shows aired that week. The full series of ten episodes was eventually broadcast in the United States on the TV Land cable network.

By 1989, Burt Reynolds was in something of a career slump, having had a string of box-office failures. As a result, he decided to move away from movies and turn to television in an effort to revitalise his career. He was approached by ABC, which was in the process of developing a television strand called the "ABC Mystery Movie", which was to be an anthology series of TV movies featuring a number of different detective characters. Alongside the return of "Colombo", one of the planned new shows for the strand was "B.L. Stryker", which Reynolds was to star in as the eponymous lead character, a retired police officer from New Orleans who sets up as a private investigator in Palm Beach, Florida. The shooting schedule, which allowed Reynolds six months off, and the fact that the show would be produced on location in Florida, where the actor was living at the time, were major factors in his accepting the role. Additionally, Reynolds was able to turn his hand to directing, helming a number of episodes.

"B.L. Stryker" debuted as part of the "ABC Mystery Movie" strand on 13 February 1989, with an episode broadcast every three weeks alongside "Colombo" and "Gideon Oliver"; five episodes were broadcast up to May. The show was retained for the strand's second season beginning in November 1989, this time with an episode broadcast every four weeks. Seven episodes were broadcast during the second run, which went up to May 1990, for a total of 12 feature-length episodes broadcast over two seasons. "B.L. Stryker" ended as a result of ABC's decision to end the "ABC Mystery Movie" strand.

In 2019, writer Jason Richman produced a script adapting the limited comic book series "Stumptown" by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth. The pilot script was picked up by ABC for development as a potential series, with Cobie Smulders cast in the lead role of Dex Parios, a former Marine who becomes a private investigator in Portland (which is the "Stumptown" of the series title) in an effort to support her younger brother, who has Down Syndrome. The show was given a series order by ABC in May 2019 and was scheduled for broadcast from September that year. The first episodes were successful enough that, at the end of October 2019, a full season of eighteen episodes was greenlit.

"Stumptown" received good reviews on its launch and was successful enough with viewers that, in May 2020, ABC announced that it had been renewed for a second season, for broadcast in late 2020. However, the announcement came two months into the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a halt in large swathes of television production. Although pre-production work on the second season had taken place, the pandemic caused such severe delays to progress that it would be impossible to meet the network schedule, with estimates of April 2021 before the first episodes would be ready. As a result, in September 2020, ABC effectively cancelled the show after just eighteen episodes.

The origins of "Simon & Simon" date from producer Philip DeGuere's efforts to develop a television show intended to be a "modern-day Butch and Sundance". The concept he came up with was developed into a pilot called "Pirate's Key", which featured a pair of brothers working as private investigators in Florida, with the central conceit being that the brothers were completely dissimilar. Although unseen, the pilot was successful enough for the concept to be picked up, with CBS ordering a full season, as part of which, the setting of the show was moved to San Diego, where the first season was largely shot. The leads were played by Jameson Parker, who played the urbane younger brother AJ Simon, and Gerald McRaney as the earthy and plain-spoken Rick Simon.

"Simon & Simon" had difficulties initially, with the high cost of producing the show in San Diego allied to low ratings, almost leading to it being cancelled after its first season. However, to reduce costs, production was moved to Los Angeles, while the network kept faith by moving the show to the slot following "Magnum, P.I.". In a further effort to attract an audience, the first episode of season two, "Emeralds Are Not A Girl's Best Friend", formed the second half of a two-part crossover story that began in "Ki'i's Don't Lie", the third episode of "Magnum, P.I."'s third season. This led to the audience improving, with the show garnering its best ratings up to season four. "Simon & Simon" eventually ran to eight seasons, with the last network episode broadcast in December 1988, leaving two episodes unaired - these were eventually broadcast in September 1989. Six years later, a TV movie, "Simon & Simon: In Trouble Again", was broadcast by CBS in February 1995.

In 1984, two pairs of writers, John Baskin & Roger Shulman and George Schenck & Frank Cardea, developed an idea for a detective series featuring a free-spirited private investigator and his uptight lawyer son, who invariably ends up embroiled in the cases his father has taken on, whether he wants to or not. The show, which was given the title "Crazy Like a Fox", became a starring vehicle for Academy Award-nominated actor Jack Warden as San Francisco-based private investigator Harrison "Harry" Fox, with John Rubinstein cast as Harrison Fox, Jr. The show was picked up by CBS, with its first episode broadcast in December 1984.

Airing as a mid-season replacement, the first season of "Crazy Like a Fox" ran to thirteen episodes, ending in April 1985. Ratings for the show were good enough for the network to order a full second season beginning the following October. However, midway through the second season, CBS moved the show from its regular Sunday night timeslot in favour of the return of the "CBS Sunday Night Movie" strand. The network proceeded to move the show around the schedule, leading to a ratings drop - by the end of the second season, "Crazy Like a Fox" had fallen to 44th in the ratings, which ultimately led to the show being cancelled after just 35 episodes. However, a year after its cancellation, having performed well in syndication, CBS ordered "Still Crazy Like a Fox", a TV movie intended to serve as a barometer for a potential new run. Although the film got decent ratings, they were judged as not good enough to warrant restarting the series.

In 2013, Shane Brennan, then the executive producer of "NCIS", began developing an adaptation of author David Baldacci's novel series featuring former Secret Service agents turned private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. The planned series was picked up by cable network TNT, with Jon Tenney as King and Rebecca Romijn as Maxwell, with episodes containing both material adapted from the original novels (of which five had been published when the series was greenlit) and original material. Although set in Washington, D.C., the series was primarily shot in Vancouver.

"King & Maxwell" debuted on TNT in June 2013, with a season running until August that year. However, although the show gained reasonable ratings, they were not sufficient for TNT to decide on renewing it for a second season, with other shows determined to take priority. As a result, "King & Maxwell" ended after just ten episodes.