See Them While You Can

• I’m always leery of directing readers to videos on YouTube, as offerings there tend to be yanked capriciously. But this is too good to miss. Someone employing the handle “Maljardin” has posted the full, 13-episode run of NBC-TV’s City of Angels, a Depression-era private eye drama starring Wayne Rogers. Although some episodes weren’t as well-plotted or as tightly edited as others, this 1976 midseason replacement series—created by Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell of Rockford Files fame—remains eminently watchable, a Chinatown-inspired program that delivers plenty of suspense, eccentric characters, and 1930s atmosphere. No less than Max Allan Collins has called City of Angels “the best private eye series ever.” If I didn’t already own bootlegged copies of these eps, I would be viewing them all today. Click here to find Maljardin’s full selection of videos.

• OK, since I am already going out on one shaky limb by recommending those YouTube features, why not another? Michael Hayes was a 1997-1998 CBS-TV series starring ex-NYPD Blue hotshot David Caruso as “an Irish Catholic ex-New York City police officer appointed acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.” It was developed by Paul Haggis, before he went off and scripted a couple of films starring some character named James Bond (Casino Royale and Quantum of Silence). YouTube user “Kevin МАРУСЕК” has posted the “prequel” installment of Michael Hayes, which was originally broadcast on September 15, 1997.

• Finally, if you have never seen the 1994 HBO-TV adaptation of Robert Harris’ what-if novel, Fatherland, starring Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson, then tune in here. Just don’t blame me if, between my writing this and your trying to find the video, it disappears without so much as a hint of explanation.