''The Eddie Capra Mysteries'' is an American mystery

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

starring

Vincent Baggetta Vincent Baggetta (also billed as Vince Baggetta, Vincent Beggetta, or Vince Bagetta) (December 7, 1944 – May 2, 2017) was an American television actor. Baggetta was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He is best known for his starring role in ' ...

as a

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicit ...

who investigates murders and has a knack for solving them. Original episodes aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

from September 8, 1978, to January 12, 1979.McNeil, Alex, ''Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming From 1948 to the Present'', New York: Penguin Books, 1996, p. 250.Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh, ''The Complete Directory to Prime-Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present, Sixth Edition'', New York: Ballantine Books, 1995, , p. 306.

Cast

. . . Eddie Capra *

Wendy Phillips Wendy Phillips (born January 2, 1952) is an American actress, known for her roles on television series including ''Falcon Crest'', '' Homefront'' and ''Promised Land''. Life and career Phillips was born in Brooklyn, New York. She made her scree ...

. . . Lacey Brown *

Ken Swofford Kenneth Charles Swofford (July 25, 1933 – November 1, 2018) was an American film and television actor often cast as a villain or a police officer. Between 1962 and 1995, Swofford's film credits included '' Thelma & Louise'', '' Skyjacked ...

. . . J. J. Devlin * Michael Horton . . . Harvey Winchell * Seven Ann McDonald . . . Jennie Brown

Synopsis

Eddie Capra is an unconventional young lawyer who recently graduated from

New York University Law School New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it is the oldest law school in New York City and the oldest surviving law school in New ...

and works for Devlin, Linkman, and O'Brien, a conventional, snooty, and very prestigious

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, that specializes in criminal cases. Headstrong, rebellious, and quirky, shunning court appearances because he dislikes wearing a tie and usually ignoring established legal and police procedures, Eddie tends to rush off and play

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...

when one of the firm's clients is

indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...

, seeking evidence with which to exonerate the client – sometimes to the consternation of his colleagues – before the case ever reaches court. Lacey Brown is his secretary, personal friend, and sometime girlfriend, and Jennie is her precocious daughter. Harvey Winchell, an investigator for the firm, is Eddie's enthusiastic young assistant, and J. J. Devlin, an irascible senior partner in the firm, is Eddie's boss.Erickson, Hal, ''Encyclopedia of Television Law Shows: Factual and Fictional Series About Judges, Lawyers and the Courtroom, 1948–2008''
Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009, , p. 92. Each episode is constructed in the "classic style" of a detective show, opening with a graphic depiction of a puzzling murder and then following Eddie as he interviews witnesses and other people who might not be telling the truth and uncovers clues missed by the authorities one-by-one until they lead to the killer. In the episode's climax, Eddie usually gathers all the suspects in one room – often a courtroom – and uses

deductive reasoning Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be fal ...

to explain which one of them is guilty. The series employs a gimmick in which viewers – who receive no more or less information than Eddie – are challenged to identify the murderer before Eddie does.Jackson, Ronald, ''Classic Television Action, Crime & Adventure: A Pictorial History''
AuthorHouse, 2014, , p. 308.

Production

Peter S. Fischer created ''The Eddie Capra Mysteries''.IMDb: ''The Eddie Capra Mysteries'' Cast and Crew
/ref> Episode directors included

James Frawley James Joseph Frawley (September 29, 1936 – January 22, 2019) was an American director and actor. He was a member of the Actors Studio since around 1961. He was best known for directing ''The Muppet Movie'' (1979) and ''The Monkees'' television ...

, William Wiard,

Edward M. Abroms Edward M. Abroms (May 6, 1935 – February 13, 2018) was an American film editor and TV director. Abroms was born and raised in Hollywood, Los Angeles. He studied film at the University of Southern California before dropping out to go to work at ...

Jim Benson James William Benson (April 3, 1945 – October 10, 2008) was an American aerospace entrepreneur who founded SpaceDev, a commercial satellite and satellite component development company, and the Benson Space Company, a civilian spaceflight ventur ...

, Ivan Dixon, Sigmund Neufeld, Jr., Ron Satlof, and Nicholas Sgarro, and writers included Fischer, Robert C. Dennis,

Peter Allan Fields Peter Allan Fields (May 12, 1935 – June 19, 2019) was a writer and producer, who was best known for many episodes of ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' and '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. He also wrote for ''The Six Million Dollar Man'', includ ...

, Ted Leighton, and Michael Rhodes. Fischer, Stuart Cohen, and James Duff McAdams were among the show's producers.

John Cacavas John Harry Cacavas (August 13, 1930 – January 28, 2014) was an American composer and conductor probably best known for his television scores, such as ''Kojak'', and ''The Time Machine,'' for which he was the chief composer. He also composed '' ...

and

John Addison John Mervyn Addison (16 March 19207 December 1998) was a British composer best known for his film scores. Early life Addison was born in Chobham, Surrey to a father who was a colonel in the Royal Field Artillery, and this influenced the d ...

composed music for the show. Some scripts used in ''The Eddie Capra Mysteries'' were adapted from scripts intended for the canceled 1975–1976 NBC series ''

Ellery Queen Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve ...

''.

Broadcast history

Premiering on September 8, 1978 with a two-hour pilot episode, ''The Eddie Capra Mysteries'' aired on

on Fridays at 10:00 p.m. throughout the rest of its run. Its last original episode aired on January 12, 1979. During the summer of 1979, NBC broadcast reruns of the show in its 10:00 p.m. Friday time slot from June to September. Reruns of ''The Eddie Capra Mysteries'' returned to the air in prime time in the summer of 1990, when

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

broadcast episodes of the show at 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays from July 26 to August 30 as a temporary replacement for '' Wiseguy''. In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, the series aired on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

in 1980.

Episodes

References

External links

''The Eddie Capra Mysteries'' opening credits on YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eddie Capra Mysteries, The NBC original programming 1978 American television series debuts 1979 American television series endings 1970s American crime television series 1970s American legal television series 1970s American mystery television series American detective television series Television series by Universal Television Television shows set in Los Angeles English-language television shows Television series created by Peter S. Fischer