Petrocelli: Purchase or Pass?

During Comfort TV’s classic TV tour of the 50 states, the legal drama Petrocelli was selected to represent Arizona. I recently finished my journey via DVD through all 44 episodes of this 1974-1976 series, and though this isn’t really a review site I thought I’d share a few thoughts while the show is fresh in my mind. 

For the uninitiated, Petrocelli stars Barry Newman as Anthony J. Petrocelli, a Boston-bred, Harvard educated attorney who becomes fed up with the big city rat race, and relocates with wife Maggie (Susan Howard) to the small town of San Remo. He is assisted on his cases by ex-cop turned investigator Pete Ritter (Albert Salmi).

In addition to his legal acumen, Tony had two quirks that were part of nearly every episode. The first was his aversion to parking meters, expressed through an array of creative tricks that were not always successful. The second was his decision to build his own house, brick by brick, out in the desert, while he and his wife lived in a trailer parked on the property. The home was nowhere near completion when the show was canceled. I like to think they eventually got around to finishing it. 

There was an obvious fish-out-of-water premise that I expected to be explored more frequently; Tony, the Italian in his shiny dark three-piece suits, didn’t mix naturally with the blue-collar, denim-clad locals. But such culture-clashes were surprisingly rare.

Instead, there were three successive phases of Petrocelli explored through 44 shows, suggesting a network and creative team struggling to find the right winning formula.

The “Yet Another Version” Phase

The first and best of these dominates the show’s first season, positioning Petrocelli within the tradition of crusading attorneys and courtroom climaxes.

A murder is committed in the opening scene, and someone is arrested that the cops believe they’ve got dead to rights. Tony takes the case after meeting with the accused and deciding that he or she is not guilty. He later shares his confidence with the district attorney, who will then casually mention evidence Tony did not know about (“Oh, your client didn’t tell you? We found his fingerprints all over the murder weapon”).

But just as the outlook seems dire, at some point during the trial Tony will say something like “With the court’s permission I’d like to take you back to the night of the murder, and present yet another version of what may have happened.” 

Inexplicably, the prosecution does not object, or ask the judge to tell opposing counsel to save any speeches for his closing statement. Tony's re-enactment that exposes the real guilty party is so convincing that the judge stops the trial without even giving the case to a jury.

The “Fighting Attorney” Phase

Between seasons one and two, somebody decided Petrocelli needed more action. Thus, in addition to defending his clients, Tony now had to defend himself while being chased by helicopters, having his camper run off the road, getting shot at and getting jumped in biker bars.

The “Oh, @&%$ it, let’s just make him Mannix” Phase

It must have been decided that the action scenes were working, because in the last few episodes Tony was so busy running for his life he sometimes never saw the inside of a courtroom.

Through all of these changes, the series could have relied on the relationship between Tony and Maggie to ground each episode, but sadly their scenes together are among the shows’ least compelling. 

You know that wonderful chemistry shared by Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers in Hart to Hart? That’s not here with Barry Newman and Susan Howard. It’s not Sonny-and-Cher-after-the-divorce bad; there’s just no heat.

Fortunately the series did have one consistent joy for Comfort TV fans, and that was an amazing collection of guest stars as defendants, witnesses and not-so-innocent bystanders.

“Edge of Evil” features William Shatner and Harrison Ford – where else can you see Captain Kirk and Han Solo in the same show? Star Wars fans will also enjoy spotting Mark Hamill in two episodes. 

There’s Rick Nelson in “Music to Die By,” performing one of the best songs from his country-rock phase (“One Night Stand”), playing a singer managed by gravelly-voiced David Doyle. And there’s Susan Dey, still looking Partridge-y, before she went blond and brittle on L.A. Law (“The Falling Star”). 

John Ritter was a client, as was Scatman Crothers, Mitch Vogel, Ned Beatty, Anne Francis, Denver Pyle and the aforementioned Stefanie Powers. Mark Goddard, Elinor Donahue, Cindy Williams, Barbara Luna, Joan Van Ark, Tim Matheson and Katherine Helmond are among the familiar faces that pop up in smaller roles.

As courtroom drama, Petrocelli is not up to the standard set by Perry Mason or The Defenders or even Judd for the Defense. As a whodunit, it mixes a few genuinely clever twists with mysteries so obvious you’ll have them solved in the first ten minutes. I still enjoyed most of my time with the show, but it falls just short of having that ‘re-watchability’ factor that is necessary for a permanent place in my collection. Of course, your mileage may vary.