Just discovered this great show!

lol i remember these. very successful ad campaign. basically created a general hysteria about being robbed while traveling. my mum for years always made sure I carried some with me when I traveled. like, well into the digital credit card age.

I remember the teacher in the first economics class I ever took talking about how American Express made easy money on travelers checks. It wasn’t on the fee you pay when you get the check, it was that they had your cash interest free which they could invest elsewhere. That’s why in one of the Malden commercials he said that after your trip ends keep the remaining checks in a drawer for a rainy day.

I remember watching it in the UK back in the 70s. Loved looking at the location, the city the cars.

I got to spend a week there on hols about 5 years back , really enjoyed it.

But...such episodic TV shows that ran for years, maybe 5 plus seasons...it was very standard formulaic cops and robbers TV. Once you got used to the gimmick (here the city was the gimmick, with Starsky and Hutch it was the two young cops in a cool car), the plots were very formulaic, and were generally used for most TV shows of the era.

I have always said that though we often remember such shows with affection , when people buy box sets of whole seasons, anything between 5 or 15 seasons...it can be a chore to get through all seasons once you realise how formulaic ans repetitive the plots are.

I did it with Miami Vice. I watched a few episodes on first run. Bought the whole series o DVD, but could not get past the first season. The repetitive formula and variations kicked in.

Hill Street Blues. Loved it when I first saw it. I loved that it was not afraid to kill off what appeared to be regular characters. But...I also found that it became formulaic and struggled to finish the series..