4/13/1980 Sergeant Cribb meets PBS

April 13, 1980.  This day saw the premiere of Cribb on Mystery on PBS.  The British series was based on Peter Lovesey's brilliant novels about a Victorian copper.  Alan Dobie played the shrewd detective who could never get promoted because he came from the wrong social class.

 I saw them a year later and it used to drive me crazy because at the same time I could watch NBC's disastrous attempt to bring Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe to the screen in the person of William Conrad.  Why could the British do so well what Hollywood couldn't do at all?

The only bad thing about the series was that Peter Lovesey used up all his ideas for future Victorian stories on episodes of the show.  He never wrote another Cribb novel.