April 22, 2001. On this date A&E premiered Nero Wolfe, arguably the best media version of Rex Stout's classic private eye tales. Tim Hutton is a great fan of the books and he organized the series and played Archie Goodwin. Murray Chaykin played the big man. In two seasons they faithfully reproduced about one-quarter of the novels and novellas.
Two odd things about the show: they had an ensemble cast, so an actor playing a suspect in one episode might be a victim in the next. Second, they generally set the show in whatever decade the book was written, so stories bounced between the forties, fifties, and sixties.
I love this series. While I disagree with the casting of Fritz, I think the rest are WONDERFUL, especially Tim Hutton as Archie.
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