Burke's Law

Burke and crew investigate the case of a murdered man discovered in a shower.



The set-up for this tale is even more off-beat than usual for the program, the blonde who finds the body (Miss Brewer, who does "favors" for a living) is just macabre in her interest in eating the food in the hotel room rather than in any details of the homicide. As a matter of fact, it would be hard to find many TV episodes of any era that feature three more disinterested and ditzy female roles as Miss Brewer, the secretary, and the sculptor.



Gene Berry brings his usual panache to the character of the policeman in a Rolls with a car phone. The supporting characters just get weirder, as Burke runs across a shady car salesman, a strange ship builder with a fascination with the orient, a bizarre wine collector, and the weird father of the lady sculptor who raises giant meat-eating plants. It's all so tongue-in-cheek that it's hard to know when to pay attention to the story.



By the time the story winds its way around to the discovery of a high-stakes poker game played by the wealthy and the deceased's failed business, the viewer is a lot more wrapped-up in the performances than the plot. The clues are also really tenuous. It's typical for "Burke's Law" but odd in a memorable way.