Chandler & Co.
Dee Chandler Tate & Elly Chandler
Created By Paula Milne

Chandler & Co. is one of the few private eye shows to make it onto PBS' Mystery! Not exactly hardboiled, but British critics praised it as "stylish," and "intelligent," with "nice humourous touches" and "a mercifully fresh angle."

Happily-married DEE CHANDLER TATE convinces her sister-in-law, recently-divorced ELLY CHANDLER, to team up to run a private detective agency, that seems to specialize in runaway daughters and wayward spouses (although they refer to them as personal and marital cases). Joining them, as an unofficial advisor, is Larry Blakeston, who once investigated Elly's philandering husband (and Dee's brother) Max. Dee and Elly seem to be doing okay, despite some unwanted attention from Elly's ex, Max.

An interesting show, although the message that "Men are Pigs" gets to be a bit tiresome. Dee and Elly are a believable pair, and Dee in particular, as the happily married but bored housewife, is the real attraction here, lending the whole show a certain brooding gravity that saves it from being merely a fluffy rant. People do get hurt in this show, and it's not by the usual Columbian druglords or psycho serial killers. The emotional damage caused by loved ones is gruesome at times.

Creator Paula Milne is also responsible for "The Politician's Wife," a popular Masterpiece Theatre presentation, and Die Kinder, a 1990 mini-series about an expatriate American P.I. in Hamburg, Germany.

TELEVISION

• CHANDLER & CO.
  (1996, BBC)
  4 60-minute episodes
  Created by Paula Milne
  A Skreba Production for the BBC
  Writers: Paula Milne, Jacqueline Holborough, Bill Gallagher
  Directors: Renny Rye, Robert Marchand
  Series Producer: Ann Skinner
  Executive producer for the BBC: Michael Wearing
  Starring Barbara Flynn as DEE CHANDLER TATE
  and Catherine Russell as ELLY CHANDLER
  with Peter Capaldi as Larry
  Struan Rodger as David Tate
  Ann Gosling as Joanna Tate
  Edward Holmes as Sam Tate

• 1st series (also shown on PBS's MYSTERY! in 1996)
• "On the Job"
• "Past Imperfect"
• "Family Matters"
• "Those Who Trespass Against Us"

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.