Standard-Examiner staff
PASADENA, Calif. -- ABC is serving up a pretty rare animal: "Charlie Grace." The Mark Harmon vehicle is unusual because private-eye dramas are long since out of favor. No more "Magnum, P.l." No more "Rockford Files." About the closest you come is "Murder, She Wrote" -- and it's not really playing in the same game.
"Charlie Grace," according to executive producer Robert Singer, is an homage to earlier private detectives -- the types hatched by the minds of authors Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.
"One thing we tried to do with this show," Singer said at the Summer Press Tour, "is just bring it into the ’90s, but give it an element of an earlier time. … And that's almost a mythic L.A. And it's something that (the character Charlie Grace) wishes L.A. could be. While he loves L.A., he realizes all the problems with it, and would like a simpler time."
For star Mark Harmon, who worked with Singer previously on the series "Reasonable Doubts" and the feature film "Let's Get Harry," "Charlie Grace" allows the actor to play a character not too far removed from his own experience: He lives in L.A., was born there and has consciously chosen to make the city his home. As such, he has more affection for the city, and views it more positively and less critically.
