Television series
McMillan & Wife
- Police procedural
- Dip in and out
One-third of NBC's Mystery Movie rotation (alongside Columbo and McCloud), this is 1970s comfort-crime at its breeziest: San Francisco's police commissioner and his sharp, wealthy wife trade quips over corpses. The mysteries are gentle, the banter is the real plot, and Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James make marriage look like the most entertaining detective partnership in town. Feature-length, low stakes, high charm.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like cozy 1970s whodunits where the solving happens in a warm domestic setting, with a sharp-witted wife doing the thinking and a leading man who is more amiable than heroic.
Skip it if you need taut, grim procedurals or a steady stream of gunfire; this one lets its jokes and domestic bickering slow the case down.
What it asks of you: Ninety-minute installments, a slow unspooling of cases, and patience for banter that can feel as central as the clues.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Columbo1968
McMillan's actual stablemate on the original NBC Mystery Movie wheel. Same feature-length format, same relaxed pace, but Falk's shabby genius gives the whodunit formula real teeth.
But Columbo already tells you the killer upfront, which some viewers find spoils the fun entirely.
Hart to Hart1979
Another glossy married couple who stumble into murder between martinis. If you liked the McMillans' domestic ease, Jonathan and Jennifer Hart are the '80s upgrade.
But Even glossier and shallower than McMillan; the mysteries are practically an afterthought to the lifestyle porn.
The Thin Man1934
The actual ancestor of every witty married-detective show since. Nick and Nora Charles invented boozy banter as a crime-solving method, decades before it was a genre.
But Black and white, stagey by modern standards, and the mystery plot is genuinely secondary to watching two people flirt.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from McMillan & Wife
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Gone Girl2014
Same structural premise — spouse as investigative partner, marriage as the engine of the plot — pushed from cozy comedy into genuine dread.
Takes the exact image at the center of McMillan & Wife — a marriage entangled with a crime investigation — and asks what happens when the trust curdles.
But Cold, bleak, and deliberately unpleasant where McMillan is warm; not a comfort watch by any measure.
More like this (7)
McCloud1970
McMillan's other wheel-mate: a cowboy cop loose in New York, same fish-out-of-water comic energy and unhurried 90-minute mysteries.
But The culture-clash jokes have aged less gracefully than McMillan's domestic ones.
Murder, She Wrote1984
If it's the cozy, low-menace puzzle-solving you're after, Jessica Fletcher delivers it weekly with more mysteries and none of the marital subplot.
But No romantic chemistry to lean on, and the formula repeats itself hard across twelve seasons.
Moonlighting1985
Takes the McMillan formula of chemistry-first, mystery-second and turns the volume way up. Willis and Shepherd's bickering is the real show.
But More screwball, more fourth-wall-breaking, less interested in the actual crimes than McMillan ever was.
Remington Steele1982
A detective agency built on charm and pretense rather than marriage, but the same light touch and will-they banter driving every case.
But The central romantic tension can feel stretched thin over five seasons of will-they-won't-they.
Monk2002
A gentler, quirkier detective comedy for anyone who wants the puzzle-box mysteries with more oddball character work and less romance.
But No spousal dynamic at all, and Monk's compulsions are played for pathos as much as comedy.
Banacek1972
A lesser-known NBC Mystery Movie cousin: a Boston insurance investigator solving impossible thefts with the same unhurried, stylish 70s confidence.
But No wife, no domestic comedy — this is a solo act, cooler and colder than McMillan.
Mr. and Mrs. North1942
Nearly the identical premise thirty years earlier — proof the married-sleuths formula was already fully formed before television ever touched it.
The real forgotten ancestor: a married couple stumbling into murder with screwball charm, decades before McMillan made it a TV formula.
But Dated dialogue, a plot that creaks, and a style of comedy that requires patience for its era's rhythms.
