Once upon a time, people were at home on Sundays and pre- cable and pre-HBO there was a virtual monopoly held by the big three TV networks. Yes, in the 1970s, people killed time on Sundays watching the NBC Mystery Movies. There were a few different series based on different investigators. The Sunday Mystery movies had Columbo, McCloud, Banacek and a few more in the mix with something a little different every week. This was the world of 1972.
Litely lifted from the Clint Eastwood movie Coogan’s Bluff, the McCloud mysteries focus on a Deputy Marshall from New Mexico matching wits with bad guys like Milton Berle on the mean streets of NYC. McCloud is played with extry twang by then TV veteran Dennis Weaver who film school geeks will recognize as the target of trucker hostility from the first Steven Spielberg feature film called Duel.
Anyway, the NY setting is quaint and comparatively uncluttered with much of the series shot in Manhattan. The eleven mysteries still work well enough. The hippie culture is pretty well represented on the margin. The country twang is dialed up to eleven, but Dennis Weaver is charming enough. So charming that in later episodes, he gets more and more rope to play with. His son is in an episode. And Good Christ, the last of the mysteries has a Dennis Weaver song. Its like a kidney punch. Its a good mindless bit of TV history and a text book example about how to construct a mystery.