Barnaby Jones

From Mental Block

Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen as a formerly retired investigator and Lee Meriwether as his widowed daughter-in-law, who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles, California. The show was originally introduced as a midseason replacement on the CBS network and ran from 1973 to 1980. Halfway through the series' run, Mark Shera was added to the cast as a much younger cousin of Ebsen's character, who eventually joined the firm.

Barnaby Jones was produced by QM Productions (with Woodruff Productions in the final two seasons). It had the second-longest QM series run (seven and a half seasons), following the nine years of The FBI. The series followed the characteristic Quinn Martin episode format with commercial breaks dividing each episode into four "acts," concluding with an epilogue. The opening credits were narrated by Hank Simms.

The first episode of the show, "Requiem for a Son", featured a crossover with another QM program, Cannon, with William Conrad guest-starring as detective Frank Cannon. There was another crossover between the two programs in the 1975 two-part episode "The Deadly Conspiracy".















Plot[edit | edit source]

After Barnaby Jones (Buddy Ebsen) had worked as a private eye for many years, he decided to retire and left the business to his son Hal. When Hal was murdered while working on a case, Barnaby came out of retirement to find the killer. After this case, his widowed daughter-in-law, Betty Jones (Lee Meriwether), went to work for him at the detective agency. Jones was unusual, ordering milk in restaurants and bars, counter to the stereotypical hard-drinking detective.

Memory of a Nightmare (Season 7, Episode 10)[edit | edit source]

Betty goes under hypnosis so she can remember the events that led up to a car accident that killed her friend and caused her to lose her memory-and realizes it was no accident.