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The first season of The Streets of San Francisco was nominated for an Emmy for Best Drama Series and its stars, Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. But as this inaugural season unfolded, the veteran cop/rookie cop dynamic that charged the first 14 episodes matured into a more paternal mentor/student relationship (Malden's Mike Stone refers to Douglas's Steve Keller, throughout as "the boy" and "buddy-boy"). These episodes are particularly engrossing, and provide Malden with some of his finest primetime hours. In "Trail of the Serpent," a street gang bent on freeing their captured leader takes Stone hostage. Stone plays it cool, appealing to the humanity of one of the more sensitive gang members, while the more hotheaded Keller almost jeopardises his rescue. In "Legion of the Lost," Stone goes undercover on skid row to investigate the murders of three homeless men. In two episodes, Stone does not allow personal relationships to compromise his sense of duty. In "Deadline," a newspaper editor tries to cover up the murder of his mistress, and in the process, unwittingly implicates his own son, who was also the victim's lover. In "Shattered Image," a woman from Stone's old neighborhood is now the socialite wife of a murdered senatorial candidate. "Beyond Vengeance" echoes Cape Fear as a vengeful sociopath, freed on parole, seems to be stalking Stone's daughter.

Malden and Douglas are a terrific team, and they are aided and abetted by literate scripts ("Room with a View" alludes to Hemingway's story "The Killers"), with clever twists. In "The Albatross," a killer is freed when it turns out he wasn't wearing his hearing aid and did not hear Keller when he read him his rights. In the Emmy-nominated "The House on Hyde Street," an elderly recluse becomes the prime neighborhood suspect in the death of a young boy. Guest stars in these episodes read like a Hollywood's Most Wanted List, with veteran character actors (Joseph Cotten, Jack Albertson, Leslie Nielsen, Barbara Rush) and future TV Land favourites (Victor French from Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, a pre-Cheers Nicholas "Coach" Colasanto, Jamie Farr, and Clint Howard). Of course, the real star is San Francisco, an intriguing backdrop with its roller coaster hills and funky neighbourhoods. --Donald Liebenson