# The Outsider (1968 TV series)

The Outsider is an American detective drama created by Roy Huggins and starring Darren McGavin. A two hour pilot movie aired on November 21, 1967; about a year later, a regular series of 26 episodes aired on NBC for one season from September 18, 1968, until April 16, 1969.

## Premise

40-ish Los Angeles–based private eye David Ross (Darren McGavin) is a group-home raised orphan with no family, originally from Puyallup, Washington. (Notably, both series creator Roy Huggins and star Darren McGavin were also originally from Washington state, Huggins from Littell and McGavin from Spokane.) As a teen, Ross became a high-school dropout and a runaway from the group home. At the age of 19, while riding the rails, Ross got into an altercation with a railroad policeman and inadvertently ended up killing him while trying to defend himself. Convicted of murder, he spent six years in prison before receiving a governor's pardon.
Now working as a licensed private investigator, Ross is constantly harassed by police partly for his past crime, and partly due to his activities investigating cases. Ross lives alone in a small, shabby, sparsely furnished apartment in L.A., and is essentially an 'outsider' in society.
Most episodes of The Outsider begin near the story's climax, with Ross in some sort of imminent, life-threatening danger. After briefly setting up the situation via narration, Ross will then (also via narration) say some variation of "I suppose you're wondering how I got here..." The story is then presented in flashback, leading back to the climax, which is then resolved.
When investigating cases, Ross only resorts to violence when forced to, and his carry pistol is a tiny .25-caliber semi-automatic. Many of Ross' cases involve eccentric Hollywood or Southern California types, with whom he copes in a bemused fashion. Ross himself has some peculiarities and eccentricities; for instance, he routinely keeps his phone in his fridge.
There were no other regulars on the show aside from McGavin, although Ossie Davis played Ross' antagonistic police contact Lt. Wagner in the pilot, and James Edwards played the same character in two episodes of the series. Bill Quinn is seen in two late-running episodes as another (slightly friendlier) police contact, Lt. Kanter.

## Episodes
### Pilot TV Movie (1967)

| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date |
| TVM | "The Outsider" | Michael Ritchie | Roy Huggins | November 21, 1967 (1967-11-21) |
| David Ross is hired by a wealthy businessman to see if an employee is embezzling company funds -- but embezzlement only seems to be the tip of the iceberg in a complicated case. With Edmond O'Brien, Nancy Malone, Shirley Knight, Sean Garrison, Ossie Davis and Ann Sothern. |||||

### Series (1968-69)

| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date |
| 1 | "For Members Only" | Alexander Singer | Edward J. Lakso | September 18, 1968 (1968-09-18) |
| 2 | "What Flowers Daisies Are" | Gene Levitt | Benjamin Masselink | September 25, 1968 (1968-09-25) |
| 3 | "Along Came a Spider" | Alexander Singer | Joel Murcott | October 2, 1968 (1968-10-02) |
| 4 | "A Wide Place in the Road" | Sutton Roley | Brian McKay | October 9, 1968 (1968-10-09) |
| 5 | "As Cold as Ashes" | Charles S. Dubin | Jack Miller | October 16, 1968 (1968-10-16) |
| 6 | "A Time to Run" | Gene Levitt | Edward J. Lakso | October 30, 1968 (1968-10-30) |
| 7 | "Love Is Under 'L'" | Murray Golden | Bob and Esther Mitchell | November 6, 1968 (1968-11-06) |
| 8 | "The Twenty-Thousand Dollar Carrot" | Michael Ritchie | Robert Hamner | November 13, 1968 (1968-11-13) |
| 9 | "One Long Stemmed American Beauty" | Alexander Singer | Shirl Hendryx | November 20, 1968 (1968-11-20) |
| 10 | "I Can't Hear You Scream" | Alexander Singer | Edward J. Lakso | November 27, 1968 (1968-11-27) |
| 11 | "Tell It Like It Was...and You're Dead" | Alexander Singer | Bernard C. Schoenfeld | December 4, 1968 (1968-12-04) |
| 12 | "The Land of the Fox" | John Newland | Benjamin Masselink | December 18, 1968 (1968-12-18) |
| 13 | "There Was a Little Girl" | John Peyser | Kay Lenard & Jess Carneol | December 25, 1968 (1968-12-25) |
| 14 | "The Girl from Missouri" | Richard Benedict | Edward J. Lakso | January 8, 1969 (1969-01-08) |
| 15 | "The Secret of Mareno Bay" | John Llewellyn Moxey | Jerry Devine | January 15, 1969 (1969-01-15) |
| 16 | "The Old School Tie" | Phil Rawlins | Brian McKay | January 22, 1969 (1969-01-22) |
| 17 | "A Bowl of Cherries" | Michael Caffey | Bob and Esther Mitchell | January 29, 1969 (1969-01-29) |
| 18 | "Behind God's Back" | John Newland | Benjamin Masselink | February 5, 1969 (1969-02-05) |
| 19 | "Take the Key and Lock Him Up" | Vincent Sherman | Stanley Adams & George F. Slavin | February 12, 1969 (1969-02-12) |
| 20 | "The Flip Side" | Gene Levitt | Rita Lakin & Rick Edelstein | February 26, 1969 (1969-02-26) |
| 21 | "Handle with Care" | Michael Caffey | Herb Meadow | March 5, 1969 (1969-03-05) |
| 22 | "All the Social Graces" | Charles S. Dubin | Edward J. Lakso | March 12, 1969 (1969-03-12) |
| 23 | "A Lot of Muscle" | Alexander Singer | Stanley Adams & George F. Slavin | March 26, 1969 (1969-03-26) |
| 24 | "Periwinkle Blue" | Richard Benedict | S : Gene Levitt T : Edward J. Lakso | April 2, 1969 (1969-04-02) |
| 25 | "Service for One" | Gene Levitt | Don Carpenter | April 9, 1969 (1969-04-09) |
| 26 | "Through a Stained Glass Window" | Charles S. Dubin | Ben Masselink | April 16, 1969 (1969-04-16) |
One two-part program was edited together into a feature-length film and shown on U.S. television under the title The 24-hour Mile. A paperback spinoff novel, The Outsider, was written by prolific American genre writer Lou Cameron.