REMINGTON STEELE: HEARTS OF STEELE (TV)
Summary
One in this detective series about private investigator Laura Holt, whose Remington Steele Detective Agency fails until she pairs up with a suave stranger claims to be the fictitious Remington Steele. In this episode, Laura and Remington pretend to be a quarreling married couple to get close to a divorce attorney, Malcolm Marcall, who believes that someone is trying to kill him. He explains that many different women are angry with him for his legal actions regarding their divorces, and admits that he dislikes his job. Remington and Laura stage a fight outside Malcolm’s law offices and Laura is approached by another lawyer, Janet, who hates Malcolm, and she takes Laura out with her similarly-minded friends. Laura comes back from her girls’ night out thoroughly drunk, which alarms Malcolm. The next day, Laura and Remington arrive at Malcolm’s home and are confronted by his vicious Dobermans, and Malcolm explains that he heard someone tampering with his car the previous night. Remington examines the car, despite the threat to his life, and is relieved to discover there is no bomb, but when he puts the car into reverse it zooms forward and off a cliff, although he manages to escape. They learn that someone familiar with cars tampered with it, and Laura suspects Megan, one of Janet’s friends, who used to know a racecar driver. When she goes out with the women again, though, no one admits to being car-savvy. When Laura arrives at Malcolm’s office, he informs her that someone attempted to burn down his house when his wife, Loretta, was home and fires her for her inept investigation. However, a colleague of Malcolm’s suddenly drops dead from drinking poisoned wine that had been delivered to Malcolm as a gift. Laura goes to visit Loretta in the hospital, and she reminisces about the better days in her own marriage. Laura and Murphy then continue discussing the case despite being fired, ignoring Remington’s suggestions to investigate the wine. When he leaves, Laura wonders if she was too hard on him, but Murphy is unconcerned. Remington then visits all of the suspects in turn, offering them wine from a bottle matching the poisoned one, but soon staggers back to the office, having drunk the entire thing himself when the women all refused. In his inebriated state, he admits enjoying being fake-married to Laura. Just then, Malcolm calls and says there is a sniper outside his home firing on him, and Laura throws Remington into the car and rushes over. Once there, Malcolm declares his intentions to move house and apologizes for firing Laura, admitting his fear, although he is disturbed when a drunken Remington appears, suspecting an agency-wide problem. The next day, a sobered-up Remington has a revelation: drawing a comparison to the film “Murder on the Orient Express,” he says he has solved the crime. He summons each of the suspects to Malcolm’s home in turn and says they all worked together, making various attempts on Malcolm’s life. However, Laura observes that none of the women could have gotten past Malcolm’s guard dogs; only Loretta can control them, implying that she is in fact the guilty one. She rants angrily at Malcolm about how she sacrificed and supported him throughout his early law school days and did not consult her when he decided to quit and admits that she has been trying to murder him. The case solved, Laura and Remington retire for a game of golf, still enjoying their marriage charade. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: January 28, 1983 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:50:00
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:67156
- GENRE: Drama, police/private detective
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, police/private detective
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 1982-1987
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Michael Gleason … Executive Producer, Created by
- Glenn Caron … Supervising Producer, Writer
- Gareth Davies … Producer
- Kevin Inch … Associate Producer
- Robert Butler … Created by, Director
- Charles Rosin … Writer
- Richard Lewis Warren … Music by
- Henry Mancini … Theme Music by
- Stephanie Zimbalist … Cast, Laura Holt
- Pierce Brosnan … Cast, Remington Steele
- James Read … Cast, Murphy Michaels
- Janet Demay … Cast, Bernice Foxe
- Mark Hutter … Cast, Malcolm Marcall
- Susan Kellerman … Cast, Janet Kimmell
- Linda Carlson … Cast, Angela
- Caren Kaye … Cast, Megan O'Toole
- Alexandra Borrie … Cast, Loretta Marcall
- Mary Joan Negro … Cast, Beth
- Guy Boyd … Cast, Simpson
- Blake Clark … Cast, Fred