Murphy's Law (1988)

Philip Marlowe meets Moonlighting—with a passing nod to The Odd Couple—In this delightfully inventive new detective show.

It's a harmless, standard-issue - cheesy - detective (actually, insurance investigator) series in the vein of Rockford Files-like unwilling heroes. [2 Nov 1988]

Segal has a certain bombastic charm as he quaffs and quips his way through the part of Daedelus, the phoniest Irishman to hit the small screen since the last Irish Spring commercial. Han, who made her TV debut in the miniseries Space, is a good foil for Segal. She can act a little, which is all that's called for. [2 Nov 1988]

Segal's nasal, hard-bitten delivery is dreadful here, and his relationship with the beautiful Maggie Han is preposterous. [2 Nov 1988]

A strong candidate for worst new series of the season. [2 Nov 1988]

The opening story... is thin and uncompelling. ... This is one of those series in which plot is relatively unimportant, however. What is important is the Murphy/Fannuchi relationship, which is only partially platonic, but fully unbelievable. If the relationship doesn't work, the series doesn't work. The relationship doesn't work.

A series so monumentally meaningless, so pathetically puerile, so irredeemably ridiculous that, within my limited professional context, it prompts the Biggest Question of them all: Why is there television? [2 Nov 1988]