Houston, I have no problem

We have reached the point of the COVID-19 situation when we can look back and see how this all has changed us, whether negatively, positively, or some messy blend of both.

Maybe you’ve discovered (or rediscovered) a love for the outdoors you didn’t know you had in you. Maybe you’ve embraced the idea of working at home and no longer feel the need to go back to the daily grind of office life. Maybe you’ve simply decided that all this time separated from people has crystallized something you always thought might be the case—namely, that people are overrated.

Or maybe you’ve now decided to begin every new year by watching an old private investigator show all the way through, one day and one episode at time.

It is possible that this situation may be unique to me.

The New Year, Old Private Investigator Project began in 2021 when, after many years of wanting to do so, I finally committed to watching the entirety of “The Rockford Files.” Why? Why not? Who really needs a reason to watch 100+ episodes of Jim Rockford, Rocky, Becker, Beth, and Angel? Especially when I was doing more sitting at home than I expected to be doing.

I guess the overarching reason I chose “The Rockford Files” is because my dad used to watch it, and many, many other private investigator, detective, and cop shows, when I was a kid. They were shows I dreaded, because they were an hour long, usually not particularly funny, and did not have any kids in them. I did not understand why a human being would invest any time in such shows.

Of course, it does have one of the best TV theme songs of all time. When I started watching, I assumed I’d think the show was OK but would appreciate hearing the theme song every day for the first three-and-a-half months of the year. And it was indeed nice to hear the song that many times (Peacock offers you the option of skipping the theme song, but I suggest that anyone who exercises that option be immediately put on a list and closely monitored for the rest of their miserable life), but I grew to genuinely love the show and saw why my dad was drawn to it. It’s formulaic enough to be comfortable, but the writing is so good that you don’t mind the formula.

My dad probably wouldn’t have put it that way, but he did pay a lot of money to buy me an education that would help me put together sentences like that.

But, truth be told, my dad wasn’t the only one in my family watching private investigator shows. My mom was not opposed to a little “Magnum P.I.” every now and then, but my grandmother (her mom) was also a frequent visitor to the world of TV private investigators. I can still remember her sitting in a motel room one afternoon near Atlantic City watching “Barnaby Jones” as if Buddy Ebsen’s Barnaby was a real human and the show was really a documentary. When Barnaby found himself in a perilous situation, She looked at the TV and said, “Oh, that poor, poor man.”

So I come from a long line of TV P.I. fans, which is why I pushed on in 2022 with the New Year, Old Private Investigator Project and decided that year would begin with three seasons’ worth of Dan Tanna in the Aaron Spelling-produced “Vega$,” which, while not nearly as good as “The Rockford Files,” was still plenty of fun, and genuinely dark in one episode where Dan is forcibly injected with heroin in the hopes of making him an out-of-control addict. There are also multiple appearances by Strother Martin throughout the series run, which is always a welcome development. Sure, its theme song is no “The Rockford Files” (I still never skipped it) and Dan Tanna is no Jim Rockford, but it’s all pleasant enough, and the Vegas location is an important extra character.

I debated ending the New Year, Old Private Investigator Project in 2023, mainly because I had set my sights on making this year a tribute to that poor, poor man himself, Barnaby Jones. That is, until I discovered that “Barnaby Jones” ran for an unfathomable 178 episodes! I was committed to this project, but devoting a half-year of my life to watching Buddy Ebsen seemed like something that maybe a 46-year-old man should be reluctant to pursue.

But then I remembered sitting in our upstate condo after my parents had passed and watching “Matt Houston” on what the Decades TV channel calls the Decades Weekend Binge, which involves a weekend-long binge of one particular TV show. And the particular show highlighted that weekend was “Matt Houston.” I immediately stopped what I was doing and watched as many episodes as I could before heading home. The show seemed fine, and it made me think of my dad, so I was into it.

And, so after bidding Barnaby bye-bye, it was all systems go on ”Matt Houston” for the 2023 version of the New Year, Old Private Investigator Project.

I can’t imagine any of you don’t know the premise of “Matt Houston,” but, fine, I’ll tell you that “Matt Houston” follows the daily life of Mattlock “Matt” Houston (played by Lee Horsley) is a rugged but rich cowboy in the oil business who eventually decides to be a full-time private investigator, as often happens. He is aided in his PI work by C.J. (played by Patricia Hensley). who is also a lawyer, occasional muscle Too Mean Malone (played by Rockne Tarkington); and, in the final season, Uncle Roy (played by Barnaby Jones himself, Buddy Ebsen). There is also an enormous computer named Baby that was Google before Google was Google. And a secretary named Chris who rarely says anything but is credited in every episode (she is played by Cis Rundle, who. I discovered through my non-Baby research was once married to Nils Lofgren).

Matt, it should be noted, really is a lightning tod for misery. Multiple friends are shot and/or killed. Women he loves meet bad ends. And even he takes a few shots every now and then. Luckily, these shots are almost always fired by people with terrible aim, for our Matt generally emerges unscathed. Though there is occasionally some scathing, physical and mental. Matt probably could havs used a psychiatrist.

This is also a good time to point out something I’ve learned from watching PI shows: Getting shot is a lot less fatal than I had suspected. People are shot at from what seems like a distance that would kill a human being. But, with a few exceptions, getting shot doesn’t seem to be much more than a minor inconvenience. Live and learn.

Just as Dan Tanna was no Jim Rockford, Matt Houston is no Dan Tanna, though the difference is not quite as wide as Tanna and Rockford. Aaron Spelling also has his hands in “Matt Houston,” so there are a lot of similarities to the two (and between the two theme songs, both written by Dominic Frontiere) and there is an opportunity in both for a very young Tori Spelling to get some work in. Matt becomes a little more generic as the series go on, as the cowboy side of his life is cast aside after the first season and he gradually moves away from the oil business to devote all of his time to private investigation. He also ditches his Rolls Royce, which was probably for the best, as it seems like a bit much for a PI.

The first season also has, by far, the best guest stars, including Ernest Borgnine, Dick Butkus, Sonny Bono, Zsa Zsa Gabor, George Chakiris, Sid Caesar, and Cesar Romero. And the power duo of Norman Fell and David Cassidy pop up in the genuinely bizarre “Joey’s Here” episode, where robots are programmed to kill in a live-action video game. (And a tip of the hat to YouTube user Unbeholden for uploading seemingly every episode of “Matt Houston,” which enabled me to keep my one-episode-a-day pace on days where I was traveling.)

But the award for Best “Matt Houston” Guest Star goes to Chuck Connors in a landslide for his maniacal portrayal of a man looking to settle a score with Houston in “Get Houston", a season 1 episode that might be the best “Matt Houston” episode (we could debate it for hours, couldn’t we?). Connors is insanely over the top but in a perfect way. I was hoping he’d somehow come back to stalk Houston again, but no such luck.

And while we’re giving out awards, the winner of Episode with the Dumbest Yet Kind of Greatest Way to Dispatch a Villain goes to Season 2’s “Needle in a Haystack,” in which Houston bends it like Beckham to thwart a crooked cop/rapist/murderer. This makes me laugh every time. A lot.

And we don’t have any money in the budget for more awards, so I’ll just point out that neither “The Rockford Files” nor “Vega$” came close to making me weep, but (and, again, this is a point where you should stop reading if you don’t want your own “Matt Houston” binge spoiled) “Matt Houston” sure did with the end of “Blood Ties,” in which Matt’s father passes away. I was, however, a little uncomfortable with the closing scene, in which a single gentleman with no children lingers around the ballfield to give tips to youngsters. I guess this was more acceptable in the 1980s.

As previously mentioned, Season 3 brings the introduction of Uncle Roy, Houston’s recently widowed uncle who becomes part of the Houston Investigations Team. Buddy Ebsen brings an occasionally weird but not entirely unwelcome energy to his portrayal, and perhaps nothing is weirder but not entirely unwelcome than a bizarre dance Uncle Roy does after a breakdancer finishes his routine. It should be noted that Uncle Roy’s boogie comes as he is trying to figure out how to rescue his son and nephew in Southeast Asia. So, maybe not the right time to dance, but Uncle Roy works in mysterious ways. And all you can do is applaud him.

The show, whose fate I assume was not known at the time of taping the last episode, ends in a lackluster way, as Matt and a woman who he’s spent maybe four hours with nearly get married after a Jack the Ripper copycat’s scheme is thwarted. That was an odd sentence to write. And an odd, unsatisfying way to complete the 2023 version of the New Year, Old Private Investigator Project.

So, the question on everyone’s lips: Where to now? Well, I don’t know. I’m pretty committed to a 2024 version of the New Year, Old Private Investigator Project, so I’ll look into some options. “Cannon”? “Mannix”? I’m open to suggestions.

But I do know that I enjoy the project, partly because the shows, though of slightly decreasing quality, are pretty enjoyable, but mostly because they bring back memories of long-gone afternoons and evenings sitting in living rooms and hotel rooms and studying the people I loved without knowing I was studying them at all. I was trying to see what made them tick while trying to figure out what made me tick, and it’s comforting to find out decades later that what makes me tick is what made my mom, my dad, and my grandma tick too. It helps me feel like they’re still around.

And I will never skip the theme songs.