In the early days of television, few dramatic series were headlined by women. The first crime drama to be toplined by a female lead was the short-lived Decoy, whose star, Beverly Garland, would later shift into sitcoms, joining the cast of My Three Sons late in that series' run. Nearly a decade later, there would be another attempt to prove that the ladies could catch the bad guys just as efficiently as their male counterparts, with mixed results.
In 1965, ABC debuted Honey West, a spin-off, via back-door pilot, from Burke's Law, which made the unfortunate mistake of enduring a format change to Amos Burke, Secret Agent, that same year. Both shows were produced by the late Aaron Spelling for Four Star. West (Anne Francis, "Forbidden Planet") was a private eye who swapped out her glamorous wardrobe for midnight black "casual gear", if ya will, when she went out on a case with her partner, Sam (John Ericson).
The first time I knew or read of Honey West was when the character was name-checked in an issue of Plastic Man when his series was revived a second time by DC in the mid-70's. It wasn't until FX came along that I finally got to see the show. Me-TV currently holds the rights, but the bad news is that they've buried Honey, along with Burke's Law, in deep late night to accomodate the DVR crowd.
So what killed Honey after one season? You really can't say viewers weren't really ready for a female crime buster. NBC debuted Get Smart, which featured Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, partner and later wife to title hero Maxwell Smart (Don Adams), the same year. Between Honey & 99, the door was ultimately kicked open for more women to lead dramatic series. Spelling, for one, would build a modest cottage industry in the 70's with Charlie's Angels, and had a near-miss with Kim Basinger in Dog & Cat, coupled with Lou Antonio, which didn't even finish its one and only season, if memory serves. Ratings, or lack thereof, did Honey in.
Here's the open:
Rating: B.
4 comments:
Don't recall if Americans had seen The Avengers yet but Honor Blackman and especially Diana Rigg seem like role models for Francis. For the record, she was a more convincing brawler than either of the Brits and probably TVs toughest woman of the Sixties.
If the research I did on Avengers is correct, Sam, it didn't land here in the US until the Rigg era, and US viewers didn't see the Honor Blackman episodes until A & E had the series a few years back, and if my memory is correct, Rigg joined the Avengers either around the same time that Honey West was on, or a year later, when the series came to the US & ABC, which certainly blew it by cancelling West.
Of course, industry people may have seen Avengers earlier and certainly would have known of its success. Then again, while the original G.G. Fickling novels have come back into print, I haven't read any yet and don't know whether the print Honey was already as belligerent as we see on TV.
Good point, Sam. Looks like you & I are both hunting for those Honey West books.........
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