Pulaski: The TV Detective (1987)

ITV had Dempsey and Makepeace and BBC2 were getting fine ratings with the Bruce Willis/Cybill Shepherd comedy-drama Moonlighting.

Now if only the two can be combined and you enter the world of Pulaski. A show within a show that mixes comedy with gun toting action.

David Andrews plays drunk actor Larry Summers an American detective based in England. Aided by the actress playing his sidekick, he somehow ends up taking real life cases as people come to him asking for help.

The public liked it but the critics were far from impressed finding the humour forced and laboured. If the series had continued, maybe the kinks would had been ironed out.

It might have been better if Roy Clarke did not write all the episodes, a writer who likes to be formulaic as fans of The Last of the Summer Wine can testify to.