I love police / detective series. When I was a kid, I watched "Adam-12", "Cannon", "Mannix", "The Rockford Files", "Hawaii Five-O", "Police Woman", "Ironside", "The Streets of San Francisco" etc.

One evening, way past my bed time, my father was watching TV and I joined him. He was watching a show called "Ellery Queen". I had no idea what it was about. I asked my dad and he said it was detective series.

So I watched. And I was hooked!

You can watch two trailers from IMDB here: trailer 1 and trailer 2.

This show is different to the other police / detective shows I've watched.

For one, you don't know who'd done it...till the end.

At the start of the show, you're shown a particular person is going to be killed. In fact, the narrator tells you that.

Then you were shown the suspects: is this the butler, the wife, the gardener, the maid, the lover and so on.

Then you watched the show as the main character, Ellery Queen, goes about investigating the murder.

You saw what he saw. The clues were all in the show.

Then when comes time to finish the show, he suddenly exclaimed "I've got it! I know who did it?"

He would then look at the camera (you) and asked "do you know who did it?"

Then we'd have all the suspects in one room while Ellery explains all the clues and the reasoning and finally the murderer is revealed.

I love that this show allowed me to think and guess (well, actually I'm supposed to deduce) who the murderer was, in addition to just watching some cat and mouse chase drama....except for "Police Woman" which I don't mind anything at all..I couldn't take my eyes off the screen!

This show had plenty of guest stars, some famous at the time, some became famous later.

John Hillerman, who played the annoying Simon Brimmer, would later become known to audiences around the world as "Higgins" in "Magnum, P.I." starring Tom Selleck.

Tom Bosley, was better known as "Howard Cunningham" in "Happy Days" and later, as Sheriff Tupper in "Murder, She Wrote".

David Boyle, aka "Bosley" in "Charlie's Angels".

Ray Milland, who starred in another favourite movie of mine, "Dial 'M' for Murder" directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

The show's star, Jim Hutton, starred in a war movie with the great John Wayne called "The Green Berets", which also starred David Janssen, who starred in another detective series in the '70s, "Harry O".

Sadly, Jim Hutton died in 1979, 3 years after "Ellery Queen Mysteries" was cancelled.

Visit for more information about this TV show and its stars.

Tags: David Boyle, David Wayne, Ellery Queen, John Hillerman, Ray Milland, Tim Hutton, Tom Bosley, Tom Reese