Synopsis
Janssen starred as the title character Harry Orwell, a San Diego cop forced into retirement when he is shot in the back. To support himself, he sets up a private investigation practice out of his beach house on Coronado Island, in San Diego. Henry Darrow originally starred as Lt. Manny Quinlan. For the second half of the first season, the series was retooled, with the location of the series shifted to Los Angeles, California (due to the high production costs of filming in and around San Diego,). The retooling consisted of just more than a location change; a new theme and incidental music were composed, new supporting characters; with Henry Darrow's character Quinlan killed off in a crossover episode with Anthony Zerbe. Zerbe, who later won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role on the series became Orwell's new foil/contact, Lt. K. C. Trench of the Santa Monica Police Department, and most noticeably a darker tone for the scripts and acting was adopted. One item carried over was that Harry would still live in a beach cottage (this time somewhere along the PCH between Santa Monica and Malibu), and the beach location ended up being the same as what was used for production of both pilot movies. The second season would see a further reworking of the opening credits and theme song, and recurring characters added.
Additional characters included Farrah Fawcett-Majors, as Harry's attractive next-door neighbor and sometime girlfriend Sue Ingram; Paul Tulley as Sgt. Don Roberts, Lt. Trench's assistant; Les Lannom as Lester Hodges, a bumbling private-eye wannabe; Tom Atkins as Sgt Frank Cole; and Bill Henderson as Spencer Johnson, Harry's frustrated car mechanic. Harry's small Austin-Healey, which spent almost all of the first season in non-running condition would see more time on the road, and Harry himself had an operation to remove the bullet in his back, that improved his ability to get around.
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