alexanderdavies-99382 It beggars belief that a dull show like "McMillan and Wife" lasted as long as it did. It is a poorly made series on all fronts and it is incredibly tedious. Rock Hudson was never an actor of any ability and he shows that in this series. His leading lady is as about as irritating and tiresome as it gets! Her rather quirky character traits quickly got on my nerves. I struggled with watching the first season after a feature length pilot episode that seemed interminable! I got rid of my DVDs of this series after seeing five episodes, I couldn't tolerate it any longer. "McMillan and Wife" ought to be relegated to television obscurity and allow the dust to settle!

jc-osms Ahh, memories of watching this series aged about 11 and having a crush on Susan St James, her pushing Judy Carne to one side in the process. Of course the early 70's was a great time for classic US 'tec series, Kojak, Columbo (to quote Harry Nilsson) and many others, but this show doesn't appear to have gone into the permanent re-run rotation like so many of its contemporaries. There could be any number of reasons for this, some clear (it has dated quite a lot) and some perhaps not so clear, although its template has been reused since, most notably in "Hart To Hart".Naturally it's not as good as the child in me remembers, the story, at least of this early episode being somewhat formulaic and the direction very flat and reactionary. That said, I liked Hudson in the part and he doesn't appear to be coasting as much as his history might have entitled him to, while St James still has that quirky charm going for her, even if she does scream a lot. There's a nice frisson between them, loved-up as we say here in the UK, whch added some spice to proceedings. Nancy Walker, later Rhoda's mum, is watchable as ever as their feisty house-maid and moon-faced John Schuck is Hudson's runabout foot-soldier.The Frisco locations are fine, the humour is gentle and while I guess there's not a lot of dramatic tension on show, it still reminds me fondly of Sunday afternoons as a kid in from the rain, with nothing better to do.

blanche-2 Though its co-rotators, Columbo and McCloud (while others came and went), seem like better shows, I have a soft spot in my heart for McMillan and Wife. Susan St. James and Rock Hudson made a wonderful couple, and the show did sport one of my all-time favorite episodes, "The Easy Sunday Murder Case," in which June Havoc's dog is kidnapped. Havoc describes her precious purebred Pekinese - Mac doesn't think there's anything distinguishing about the dog, so Havoc offers a photo of her husband. "Why would I want that?" he asks her. "Oh," Havoc says, "they took him too." A great episode with a stellar cameo by Wally Cox.Hudson himself was surprised when the show was expanded to two hours, commenting at the time, "It doesn't hold up for 90 minutes." But for its many fans, it really did, in part because of the great cast. Nancy Walker as Mildred nearly stole the show every time she was on, and John Shuck was the lovable Charlie. Mildred Natwick made several appearances as Mac's mother, and Martha Scott played Susan St. James' mom.I agree that the disappearing baby was very confusing - Mac and Sally were very involved with one another and the producers didn't want to spoil that, but on the other hand, when were they going to have kids, and if not, why not? They should have been left childless, since the baby was only mentioned in passing.When Susan St. James and Nancy Walker left, the show was never the same and it was a downer to have Sally and that mysterious baby killed in a plane crash.I was surprised that posters mentioned Hudson's homosexuality as somehow influencing perception of this show in hindsight. Hudson was gay; Mac wasn't. If straight men can play gay characters, why can't the reverse be true? Why must someone's private life interfere with a role?

budikavlan This, along with "Columbo" and "McCloud" plus several lesser-known and short lived also-rans made up the NBC Mystery Movie franchise during most of the Seventies. Three or four rotating characters took turns headlining a 90-minute telefilm each week. Of the three most famous elements of the series, "McMillan" was the least unusual. "Mac" McMillan was the Police Chief of San Francisco whose wife Sally "helped" him solve various murders. Sally and the McMillan's housekeeper Mildred (Nancy Walker) were responsible for most of the unique elements of the show. The films were well-made and adequately complex to sustain interest over the longer-than-average running time of the series. Like everything Rock Hudson did during his career, this has new layers of interest since the revelations about his sexuality shortly before his death; the relationship between Mac and Sally seems sexless in hindsight, though that may be a product of the differences between the 1970s and today as much as Rock Hudson's homosexuality. One unusual episode in which Mac is called to Naval Reserve duty as defense counsel in a murder trial plays like a 20-years too early pilot for "JAG," but most of this series was solid if unexceptional police procedural with the wife thrown in for color.