2/20/1989 Gideon Oliver on TV

February 20, 1989.  ABC's Mystery Movie series had some great shows: Columbo and Kojak, for example.  Gideon Oliver, which premiered on this day, was none of them.

It was based, loosely, on Aaron Elkins' series of books about a physical anthropologist, i.e. the skeleton detective.  But TV's Oliver (played by a wasted Lou Gossett, Jr.) was more of a general anthropologist, dealing with cults and tongs.  The result was not good.

Here is part of what reviewer Richard Meyers said in The Armchair Detective:

"I can imagine Aaron [Elkins] visiting Hollywood, nudging his lovely wife Charlotte, and going, 'Isn't that Gideon Oliver's femur over there?  Isn't that his sternum?'
"Gideon Oliver  is dead.  Long live Gideon Oliver."