TV Noir: The Twentieth Century

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Ray Starman Surveys 20th Century Noir-style TV Series and Programmes

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Shadowy, mysterious figures skulking in dark city streets plotting or running from some unknown threat. In movies, tough but weary anti-heroes like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, and Lauren Bacall played fast and loose with corruption and evil, trying to right wrongs and keep their own doubts in check at the same time. “Film Noir” explores our post World War II anxieties about everything–relationships, society, and good and evil.

With shows such as “Dragnet,” “The Untouchables,” and “Peter Gunn,” TV began to embrace the same dark characteristics creating “TV Noir,” a tradition that continued with “The Fugitive,” “NYPD,” “Miami Vice,” and even “The X-Files.”

TV Noir analyzes over 50 years of classic TV shows in all their venues from uncompromising guys like Jack Webb and Robert Stack to sympathetic victims like David Janssen and Patrick McGoohan to maverick on-the-edge types like Don Johnson and David Duchovney.

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