The Vine: August 9, 2013
I’m looking for a specific episode of a syndicated TV show (of the low-budget Canadian-produced variety) in the supernatural detective genre.
The lead detective character had dark hair (in the Michael Easton/Dave Annable mold) and I think was an established genre actor. I only saw like 20 minutes of it, but it involved a detective dealing with the spirit of a dead male musician, or at least getting psychic impressions of him. The detective would walk around an apartment when a recording of the dead musician singing a cover of Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time” would start up and ghostly handprints would appear in the room. The conclusion of the mystery was that either the musician or his girlfriend or both were killed because he was going to reboot his career with the new cover (or something in that vein).
I don’t know if the apartment was the detective’s or the musician’s. There was also a bar involved somehow. It was maybe a hangout joint or the place where one of the victims worked or maybe the apartment was above the bar.
I’m an insomniac, and this is the sort of show I would probably have watched at either 3 AM on network TV or on random Saturday afternoons when I’m eating brunch. I probably saw this show somewhere between 2005-2008 but given it was a syndicated show, it could have been produced a few years earlier. I had cable with premium channels so I might have seen it on a cable station, but I tend to surf broadcast stuff when I can’t sleep.
My Google skills are failing me, probably because supernatural investigations is a badly crowded field. It’d be great if I can figure out the episode but I’d be happy just knowing the TV show and trolling on my own from there.
Thanks for any help you or your readers can provide!
M
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
I am no help at all, but I totally want to watch this because it sounds AWESOME.
Something about this question rang a faint bell with me, and I think the show the mysterious M is looking for must be Haunted, with Matthew Fox. Fox played a private investigator, formerly a police officer, who could communicate with the dead following a near-death experience. I wonder how Foxy would feel about being mistaken for Hey-It’s-That-Genre-Guy Michael Easton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_(TV_series)
It ran between September and November 2002, and was filmed in Vancouver – which I had forgotten, I think, until I looked it up just now. Apparently the episode “Grievous Angels” features Ronstadt’s version of “Long, Long Time.” I remember liking the coolly creepy atmosphere, although I guess the ratings were poor. Maybe M saw the Halloween marathon in 2010?
I was going to suggest it might have been The Sentinel, but it sounds like Sandman pinpointed it.
I wish more of these syndicated shows would turn up on Netflix already.
Thank you so much Sandman! That must be it. Agh, that question had been driving me nuts forever, now I’m going to move on to being driven nuts tracking down a copy of the show.
Also, Matt Fox! Yikes, my memory is cruddy.
Hey, M, you’re most welcome! You gave me a lot to go on, which is good, because my memory is also cruddy, except for details of weird genre shows that roughly half a dozen people saw. See also: The Others, Miracles.
Sandman,
I think it was all the more frustrating because I had so many details and still couldn’t google-fu the right answer. Thank goodness for the Nation’s gathering of arcane and obscure pop culture fans. I’m already lining up more questions.
I actually wonder if half a dozen viewers is too generous an estimate for The Haunted. Over the mark by 4 people even. It might be just you and me in that boat.
@M: Heh. You, me, and Foxy’s mom. And I’m not sure about that last one.