I love finding shows by accident that I never knew existed. I discovered Harry O while digging through 1978 newspaper archives for my Fantasy Island guides. David Janssen (of The Fugitive fame) plays Harry Orwell, an ex-cop forced into retirement by a bullet permanently lodged in his spine. He’s now a private eye living in a shack by the ocean, taking the bus because his car is always in the shop, and accepting a case from the very man who shot him.
A 1973 listing in The Sunday Press described the show perfectly: “Janssen plays a sexy, tired private eye… he rides buses, picks up girls, and uses his exceptional memory to clean out a drug ring. This is a liberated Janssen.”
Liberated? Maybe. But as I discovered in the pilot movie, “Such Dust as Dreams Are Made On,” Harry is also a bit of a Dish Pig.
Let’s get into the nitty gritty.
Ticking Clocks and Vietnam Echoes
We open on Harry in his beach shack, his boat The Answer tied up outside. He’s awakened by a ticking clock and a gun pointed at his head by a very young Martin Sheen, playing Harlan Garrison. Turns out Harlan is the guy who put the bullet in Harry’s back four years earlier.
The clock keeps ticking throughout the scene, almost like a countdown on Harry’s life, but Harlan isn’t there to finish the job. He’s back from two years in Vietnam with $1,400 in “amends money” and a plea for help.
The scarred vet trying to make things right reminded me of the 2016 Cinemax series Quarry. The circumstances are different, but Harlan has come home from Vietnam having grown up fast and now wants to save a woman named Marilyn from Walter, his old accomplice in the robbery.
Harry doesn’t exactly believe in redemption, but he’s intrigued enough to take the case — and the bus — and start nosing around.
Grit vs. The River of Molasses
Harry O moves at a ’70s pace, but it isn’t slow. It has Technicolor Urgency. The interludes between scenes actually move the story forward. Unlike some modern shows where we watch people brush their teeth or apply deodorant in real-time (I’m looking at you, Scarpetta), this pilot has actual substance.
.
Harry O lets scenes breathe without getting stranded in the River of Molasses. Harry waits for buses. He talks to people. He wanders around Los Angeles. But those interludes take us somewhere.
Harry himself is an unlikeable charmer. He has a “gal pal” named Mildred who vacuums his shack and makes him breakfast, yet he makes faces at her cooking and asks her for bus fare. He flirts with a 19-year-old college clerk before deciding she’s a “little fish” he has to throw back.
He’s a tall, dark, handsome ass, who you can’t stop watching.
Margot Kidder, Heroin and the French Connection
The investigation eventually leads Harry to a bar where he meets a young Margot Kidder as Helen. He flirts his way into her car and doesn’t even pay her bar tab — or his own. Helen gets some payback by stopping at the grocery store and making him buy dinner on the way back to her place.
But once they get there, we’re back to business as usual. Helen makes dinner while Harry drinks beer and watches football. This f*cking guy.
Later, Harry visits a chemist because he wants to understand how heroin is made. Watching the sequence now is fascinating, especially considering the era’s real-world heroin trade. It immediately sent my brain to the French Connection scandal, where heroin seized by the NYPD was later stolen from evidence and replaced with flour and cornstarch. Lucchese associate Vincent Papa was convicted in connection with the theft and was later murdered.
The scene also tells us something important about Harry: he’s thorough. He doesn’t just want to know who is involved. He wants to understand how the entire operation works.
10 Minutes of Real Asphalt
The climax gives us a long motorcycle chase that eventually turns into a foot chase. Some modern viewers might get impatient, but I loved it.
This is real asphalt, real vehicles and real locations. No green screens. No digital environment trying to convince me somebody is moving when they’re actually sitting in front of a wall in Burbank. The chase has room to play out, and because it does, you actually feel Harry pursuing this guy through a physical place.
Eventually the bad guy is caught and Harry’s case is over. So naturally, he heads back to Helen’s place looking for some love.
And Now We Get to the Dish Pig
Helen, however, is about done with Harry’s bullshit. The next morning she leaves for work and tells him that next time he wants to come over, call first. Then she sends him off with a pointed “Have a nice day.”
Good for her.
Harry knows he blew it, but before leaving, he does something that tells us almost everything we need to know about this man.
Helen made breakfast. Harry gets up afterward and takes his dish to the sink, leaving hers sitting on the table. Then he rinses his plate with nothing but water and puts it in the strainer.
Sir. WTF is wrong with you? That’s not washing a dish. I wanted to reach through my TV and slap him, but now you understand the graphic.
He’s a Dish Pig in the literal and metaphorical sense. Harry isn’t ready for an independent woman who isn’t going to put up with his shit, and he ends the pilot where he belongs: waiting at the bus stop, a lonely man with a bullet in his back, a sharp memory and nobody else’s car to borrow.
The Verdict
Despite all that, I absolutely love, love, love Harry Orwell.
He’s competent, conflicted, smart, gruff and occasionally a complete jackass. There’s enough decency underneath the rough edges to keep him from becoming genuinely unlikeable, and enough wrong with him that I want to keep watching to see whether he ever gets his shit together.
There’s plenty of star spotting ahead, too. Cheryl Ladd has a small role in this pilot — one I still couldn’t find after scanning for her — and Farrah Fawcett appears later in the series before making the jump to Charlie’s Angels.
Unfortunately, Harry O is now hiding in the Black Hole of Lost TV when it should be sitting on Tubi, Pluto, Roku or another FAST service where people can stumble across it just like I did.
Somebody free Harry Orwell.
🔥 Final Verdict: WATCHABLE. Harry O is the perfect laid-back Saturday-night watch. Harry’s heart is usually in the right place, even if his manners — and dishwashing skills — belong in the trash.
- ➝ 📺 Watch If You Dare: Don’t just take my word for it. I’ve gathered this Harry O pilot movie and promos for the show into our Harry O Pilot and Promos Playlist.
- ➝ 📡 Keep Exploring: Looking for something else to watch? Head into the Free TV Frontier for the good, the bad, the forgotten, and the stuff hiding in streaming’s weirdest corners.
- ➝ 📇 The TV Rolodex: Looking for a specific legend or forgotten loser? Search our TV Rolodex: A–Z Archive to see every show we’ve embraced or chased.
- ➝ 💡 PTC Streaming Tip: Streaming availability changes constantly. Check our FAST TV Streaming Guide to see what’s currently hiding out there for free.
