ONTVLand: McMillan & Wife (An ONTD original)
Click to viewStuart “Mac” McMillan (Rock Hudson) is a 40-something former criminal defence attorney who becomes police commissioner of San Francisco. Joined by his 20-something wife Sally (Susan Saint James) he investigates robberies & murders in between attending fashionable parties and charity benefits. McMillan is assisted on the job by his aide Sgt. Charles Enright (John Schuck) and at home by the couples’ maid Mildred (Nancy Walker). The series was part of the NBC Mystery Movie (along with Columbo & McCloud) and ran from 1971 to 1977.
Sally is pregnant at the end of season 1, but this was apparently retconned & is never mentioned again. She’s pregnant again in season 4, giving birth to a boy in the last episode of that season, but the child is never seen or mentioned in season 5. The series was retooled in season 6 & called McMillan. Saint James left because of a contract dispute, so Sally & their unseen son were killed in a plane crash. Mildred moves to the East coast to open a diner & is replaced by her sister Agatha (Martha Raye) who had been seen in a few earlier episodes. Sgt. Enright is promoted to Lt. & named Deputy Chief of the San Francisco Police and is rarely seen. Replacing him as McMillan’s aide is Sgt. Steve DiMaggio (Richard Gilliland), who always introduces himself with “no relation” in reference to baseball player Joe DiMaggio.
The name John Schuck might be familiar to Star Trek fans as he was the Klingon Ambassador in Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home & The Undiscovered Country. He was also in a few episodes of the TV series.
Having Mildred move away to open a diner is an in-joke referencing the fact that at the time Nancy Walker was in a long-running series of commercials for Bounty paper towels as Rosie the diner waitress.
The series was inspired by The Thin Man movies where a well-off, sophisticated couple (William Powell & Mirna Loy) solve crimes.
Rock Hudson didn’t want to do TV, but had not been getting any good film offers. Initially he did not like the show, but having seen a rerun after the series ended decided it was better than he thought & wished he had put more into it.
Where can you watch it?
Currently McMillan & Wife is only streaming on the IMDB TV Amazon channel. All six seasons are available on Region 1 & 4 DVD. Networks like MeTV or RTN & the like may have the series, these can be picked up with an antenna for over-the-air signals. Some cable line-ups may have one or two of these channels. Some episodes are on YouTube. Pluto TV may have them.
Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB 1, 2 Just Watch YouTube 1, 2, 3