A bullet lodged near his spine has
forced former police officer Harry
Orwell to seek new employment as a
private detective to supplement his
disability pension. As he is
frequently in pain, it also limits
his ability to engage in
hand-to-hand combat with bad guys.
And since his car is in the shop,
waiting until he can afford a new
transmission, he is also forced to
pursue his investigations by bus or
taxi, or even on foot. Thus Harry is
unusual among private eyes in not
engaging in fisticuffs or car
chases.
Harry O is one of TV's more bohemian
private eyes, a loner living in a
beachfront cottage near San Diego,
spending his time re-building a boat
in his yard. Harry's sometime
nemesis, sometime ally, is Lt. Manny
Quinlan of the San Diego Police
Department. When Manny is killed off
in February 1975, Harry moves his
base of operations to Santa Monica.
There he inherits a new nemesis, Lt.
Trench, plus occasional unsolicited
help with his cases from amateur
criminologists Lester Hodges and Dr.
Fong.
He has an ex-wife but no steady
relationships until the move to
Santa Monica with episode 17, after
which he has a fair number of
flight attendants as
neighbors, including Farrah Fawcett
and Loni Anderson.
