Mystery to Me

Airing on September 22, 1979, "Night of the Wizard" is the inaugural episode of A Man Called Sloane starring Robert Conrad. Conrad is Sloane. A man called Sloane, that is. Along with his partner Torque, as portrayed by Ji-Tu Cumbuka, and The Director, played by Dan O'Herlihy, Sloane must take on mad men like Roddy McDowall's robot-loving Manfred Baranoff. Listen to Áine and Kevin engineer conversa...

"Sullied Be Thy Name" is the eleventh episode of Quincy M.E.'s second season, which first aired on May 6, 1977. Jack   Klugman stars as the hassled, always-yelling Dr. R. Quincy, M.E. Garry Walberg, Robert Ito, John S. Ragin, Val Bisoglio, and Joseph Campanella all appear as well. In this episode, Dr. Quincy must ... run interference to protect the reputation of a dead Catholic priest? A...

"The Long Journey Home" is the thirteenth episode and series finale of the first and only season of  Nancy Drew, a short-lived venture from Canadian studio Nelvana. This episdoe first aired on aired December 16, 1995. The show stars Tracy Ryan as Nancy Drew and Scott Speedman and Ned Nickerson, with Jonathan Zaccai guest starring as Christophe. In this episode, Nancy and Ned bicker across Fra...

You'd think that Jed Clampett plus mysteries would be more fun! "Fatal Flight" is the twelfth episode of the second season of Barnaby Jones . The episode first aired on December 9, 1973. The series starred Buddy Ebsen, the actor best known for starring in The Beverly Hillbillies. This episode also featured Lee Meriwether, Richard Anderson, Jerry Douglas, Murray Hamilton, and Pippa Scott. Ebsen's J...

Top Gun: Maverick is 2022 action film from director Joseph Kosinski. Starring Tom Cruise, the film also features Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer. In this summer hit, Cruise takes the controls once more as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell from the original 1985 Top Gun. Maverick must return to the TOPGUN program to fac...

The Pearl of Death is a 1944 Sherlock Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and directed by Roy William Neil. Dennis Hoey, Evelyn Ankers, Miles Mander, and Rondo Hatton also show up. Set during World War II, this film is at least slightly based on the 1904 short story "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But just barely. In this film, Sherlock Holmes makes...

Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome is a crime thriller film from 1947, based on the comic strip by Chester Gould. Starring Boris Karloff as Gruesome and Ralph Byrd as the titular detective, this cast also includes Anne Gwynne, Skelton Knaggs, Edward Ashley, and June Clayworth as other wackily-named characters. Basically, some bad guys have stolen a type of gas that freezes people where they stand. And Dick...

"I'm wide awake. Yeah, I was in the dark. I was falling hard, in a crashing car. " Awake is a police procedural — slash family drama slash psychic fantasy slash psychological thriller — that ran from March 1 to May 24, 2012. Kyle Killen created the show, which starred Jason Isaacs as homicide investigator Michael Britten. After Detective Britten's family gets into a car wreck, his reality diverges...

It's a double Dragnet deal! In this episode of Mystery to Me, we'll discuss two episodes of Dragnet 1967 . The first one, "The LSD Story" or "The Big LSD" aired on January 12, 1967. The second, "Burglary: DR-31" aired on March 6, 1969. In "The LSD Story," Joe Friday and his partner Bill Gannon must combat the scourge of acid, as personified by the maddening hippie drug dealer "Blue Boy." And in th...

24 is a hit television series that aired on Fox, starring Kiefer Sutherland as super spy Jack Bauer. Each season of the series takes place over 24 hours. The show's second season — also known as "Day 2" — began airing on October 29, 2002 and concluded with a finale on May 20, 2003. Along with Sutherland, the cast also features Sarah Wynter, Elisha Cuthbert, Xander Berkeley, Penny Johnson Jerald, C...

Cool presidents? Detente with Russia? Important faxes? Is this the most nineties movie ever? Air Force One  is a 1997 presidential-themed action thriller by director Wolfgang Petersen starring Harrison Ford as President Harrison Ford ... er, James Marshall. Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson, Liesel Matthews, Paul Guilfoyle, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell, Elya Baskin, and Xander Berkel...

In this episode, Quincy M.E. paraphrases the Dead Kennedys by demanding: " All punks, fuck off." Airing December 1, 1982, this is the eighth episode of the medical mystery show's eighth season. Jack Klugman stars as Dr. R. Quincy, M.E, or "Quince." This episode also features a young Melora Hardin, Anita Gillette, Barbara Cason, Robert Ito, John S. Ragin, Garry Walberg, and Val Bisoglio. "Next Stop...

Has the critical-darling, gone-too-soon, early-noughties television program Boomtown made its triumphant return? Did we just sit through Boomtown: The Motion Picture ? Ambulance  is a 2022 action thriller film from director Michael Bay starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza González, Garret Dillahunt, Keir O'Donnell, Jackson White, Moses Ingram, and Colin Woodell. Gyllenhaal an...

Beverly Hills Cop is a 1984 smash-hit buddy cop film starring Eddie Murphy, along with Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Lisa Eilbacher, Steven Berkoff, Paul Reiser, and Jonathan Banks. Murphy plays Detective Axel Foley, a brilliant Detroit cop who must travel to Beverly Hills in order to avenge his murdered friend. Listen to Áine and Kevin quip about fish-out-of-water stories, Elvis movies,...

Uncharted  is a 2022 adventure film starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, with Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, and Antonio Banderas. The story comes from the popular Uncharted video game franchise.  Holland plays bartender-slash-thief-slash-adventuer Nathan Drake, who confronts danger and mystery in a quest to find Ferdinand Magellan’s gold … and his long lost brother. Listen to Áine and Kevi...

"Snake Eyes" is the premier of the second season of  Quincy, M.E. , a medical crime procedural. Jack Klugman stars as Dr. R. Quincy, M.E. Rounding out the cast are Buddy Hackett, John S. Ragin, Garry Walberg, Val Bisoglio, Robert Ito, Frank Converse, and Val Avery. In this episode, Dr. Quincy ends up stuck tending to a burgeoning pandemic at the world's worst medical conference. But is o...

It's not hard, not far to reach, we can hitch a ride to the Copper Beeches.  "The Copper Beeches" is the premier of the second season of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , a televised adaptation of a short story from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It first aired on August 25, 1985, and stars Jeremy Brett as the famed detective, David Burke as his stalwart physician companion, as well as Joss Acklan...

Scampering serial killers, Batman! The Batman is a gritty superhero film that premiered on March 1, 2022. Directed by Matt Reeves, this movie stars Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell. Basically, Batman must team up with Catwoman to fight corruption in Gotham, as a Zodiac Killer-style Riddler murders victims with...

Talk about a wrong move. This was supposed to be Law & Order's triumphant return, but it's bad enough to earn a contempt of court charge. The first episode of Law & Order's twenty-first season, "The Right Thing" aired on February 24, 2022. The show stars a bunch of newcomers with some returning alumni, including Anthony Anderson, Jeffrey Donovan, Camryn Manheim, Hugh Dancy, Odelya Halevi,...

We're going into this review with just the clothes on our backs, and a toothbrush. Jack Reacher is a 2012 thriller film featuring Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Richard Jenkins, Jai Courtney, Werner Herzog, and Robert Duvall. Cruise stars as the titular Reacher, a male-fantasy-figure-slash-hobo, and the central character of Lee Child's wildly popular thriller series. In this film, the e...

You know it's a bad flick when even a mustache has a gritty backstory ... Death on the Nile is a 2022 film directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh based on the 1937 novel by Agatha Christie. Branagh plays the famed detective Hercule Poirot, who ends up on a deadly Egyptian cruise with mysterious passengers played by Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Tom Bateman,...

Ain't no sunshine when Mac's gone Soviet plotting every day Ain't no sunshine when Mac's gone. Like when he sat down on a bomb And got blown away Talk about an explosive season premiere! "Did You See the Sun Rise?" is a dramatic, intense episode of Magnum, P.I. that aired on September 30, 1982, kicking off the Hawaii-based detective show's third season. It stars Tom Selleck, Roger E. Mosley, Jeff...

Based on a (remarkably inconsistent) series of novels from Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, Ellery Queen was a fourth wall-breaking, fair play mystery show that allowed viewers to join in on the sleuthing. The NBC program revolved around the titular character, a mystery novelist and large adult son, and his irascible police inspector father. The Queens must team up to solve murders in N...

Gather round, yet bobbies and barristers. In this episode, we'll be reviewing an episode of Law & Order: UK. First airing on October 22, 2010, "Unsafe" is the fourth episode of the show's first season, and a rewrite of its trans-Atlantic sister show's 1993 episode "American Dream." The discovery of a skeleton on the banks of the Thames throws a spine in the works of justice, allowing a posh an...

It's the one-year anniversary of Mystery to Me! To honor our silly podcast's birthday — and its inaugural review of Satan Met a Lady (1936) — we're talking about the good version of this Dashiell Hammett story. The Maltese Falcon is the 1941 film noir marking John Huston's directorial debut. The movie features Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Gladys George, Torchy Blane's Barton MacL...