Buddy Faro
Created by Mark Frost

Hey, this cat has class! Playboy private eye BUDDY FARO is a swinging dick, the "quickest-thinking, hardest-hitting, wildest-loving investigator of them all." Problem is, he mysteriously dropped out of sight in 1978. It takes BOB JONES, a straight arrow, decidedly small-time private eye, who's idolized Buddy, to find and bring him back home after 20 years. But it seems Buddy's brought 1978 back with him. In Buddy's world, nothing's changed. Cadillacs still zig, Tony Bennett's still crooning, babes are still beautiful and the crumbs around town are still trying to get away with murder. With Bob's brains and Buddy's style, a crime-solving partnership is born and Los Angeles just might become a safe place to live again.

This one sounds promising, but whether there's enough people out there who will see it for the parody it almost certainly is remains to be seen. More than one promising show TV show out there has proven too hip for the room.

"As fans of the detective genre ourselves, we're having a lot of fun with it," admits one writer. It sounds like a fun-ass show, hip AND smart, and the writers plan on having a bit of fun with some of the conventions of the genre, and paying slightly twisted tribute to several crime classics.

FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY

• "The show Buddy Faro is absolutely the worst thing I have ever seen on television and I'm 52. I like Dennis Farina......but this show sucks.
  (Mary Lou)
  .
• "One of the hippest shows I've seen in a long time. Where do I vote to keep it on? I'm afraid the public doesn't get it. I hope I'm wrong."
  (Bobbi)
  .
  Mary Lou, meet Bobbi. (I received these two e-mails within a few minutes of each other).

TELEVISION

• BUDDY FARO
  (1998, CBS)
  Series
  8 60-minute episode
  Premier: September 25, 1998
  60-minute episodes
  Writers: Mark Frost, E.M. Cosin, Kim Costello, Jon Hotchkiss, Barry Pullman
  Executive Producer Charles Haid for Spelling Television
  From McNamara Paper Product in association with Warner Bros. Television
  Starring Dennis Farina as BUDDY FARO
  and Frank Whaley as Bob Jones
  Also starring Alison Smith, Charlie Robinson
  

• Pilot (September 25, 1998)
• "The Curse of the Faro" (October 2, 1998)
• "Touched by an Amnesiac" (October 9, 1998)
• "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" (October 16, 1998)
• "Now You See Him, Now He's Dead" (October 23, 1998)
• "Death by Airbrush" (November 6, 1998)
• "Talk Show Heller" (November 13, 1998)
• "Get Me Cody Swift" (December 4, 1998)

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.