The BEST episodes written by Robert Van Scoyk
#1 - The Adventure of the Disappearing Dagger
Ellery Queen - Season 1 - Episode 22
In the series' finale, Ellery probes the murder of a retired detective who was killed while investigating a five year old unsolved murder case.
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#2 - Five Days in the Death of Sergeant Brown (2)
Ironside - Season 6 - Episode 2
While in Los Angeles to testify for a trial against gangster Frank Harmon, Ed is shot and falls off the balcony of his hotel room. He is then taken to the Craig Institute where he undergoes emergency surgery. Although the bullet wounds were non-life threatening, Ed suffers a broken back in the fall and some damage to his spine. The scarring leaves him paralyzed and only an experimental surgical procedure is the only option to regaining his mobility. Also, even though all the evidence points to Harmon, Ironside has doubts that he was the person responsible for the attempted hit. Also, the chief begins having flashbacks to the night he was shot and paralyzed. Written by Brian Washington
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#3 - No Stone Unturned
Banacek - Season 2 - Episode 1
Banacek must locate a 3-ton, 3-meter-tall statue that inexplicably disappears before its unveiling.
#4 - Rocket to Oblivion
Banacek - Season 2 - Episode 6
An experimental rocket engine disappears from a trade show display.
#5 - The Three Million Dollar Piracy
Banacek - Season 2 - Episode 3
A precious jewel-encrusted coach is stolen from a sealed container as it's loaded onto a cargo ship.
#7 - Three Minus Two
Magnum, P.I. - Season 2 - Episode 22
A beautiful leading fashion designer hires Thomas to protect her when one of her two partners in their designer clothing company is murdered, and she suspects that the other partner may have been behind it. But the assignment proves tricky as several people had a strong enough motive for the murder, and someone is planning a revenge killing...
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#8 - If Max is So Smart, Why Doesn't He Tell Us Where He Is?
Banacek - Season 2 - Episode 2
A highly prized medical computer disappears from a lab fortified with electric fences and sensitive alarms.
#9 - Murder Under Glass
Columbo - Season 7 - Episode 2
A famous food critic is threatened by a restaurant owner, and so the critic leaves. Soon after, the cook dies. Columbo's involvement is welcomed by all the other chefs in the area, but Columbo wonders why the dead restaurant owner slammed the drawers before he died. And how could the poison that killed him enter an unopened bottle without the killer even being in the room? Could it have been suicide? But then there's the cheques to a mysterious society, and the victim's calender. Can Columbo's cooking skills really match the food critic's taste?
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#10 - Light at the End of the Journey
Ironside - Season 1 - Episode 10
A recently blinded woman is witness to a murder, and not knowing that she couldn't see him the murderer attempts to silence her. Ironside is on hand to protect her, and also to help her to come to terms with her new way of life.
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#11 - A Lady in the Lake
Murder, She Wrote - Season 2 - Episode 7
While spending time at a lake, Jessica sees what appears to be a struggle and a woman falling from a boat into the lake.
#12 - Obituary for a Dead Anchor
Murder, She Wrote - Season 3 - Episode 9
Jessica reluctantly agrees to do an interview for an old friend, Paula Roman, but is surprised when Kevin Keats, a journalist who had been doing a series of stories on an art dealer who was really a drug dealer, shows up to do the interview, complete with cameras and crew. After Kevin is presumed dead when a boat Amos chartered for him explodes, Cabot Cove explodes with press and paparazzi, and the citizens blame Jessica for all the problems it causes, demanding that she solve the mystery. Unfortunately, once Keats is revealed to be alive and well, the real question is who the true target was.
#13 - Benedict Arnold Slipped Here
Murder, She Wrote - Season 4 - Episode 18
Someone wants the old historic house enough to kill for it and its supposed hidden treasure AND Jessica is executor of the late owner's will.
#14 - Five Days in the Death of Sergeant Brown (1)
Ironside - Season 6 - Episode 1
The star witness to a major case, Ed is shot and seriously injured by a mystery assailant. Threatened with paralysis he conducts his own struggle from within his hospital bed, whilst the Chief tries to find out who is still trying to kill his prize pupil. Meanwhile Ed's best chance of recovery is an untested experimental operation performed by a surgeon whose integrity is very likely about to be put to the test.
Watch Now:Amazon#15 - The Good-Hearted Badman
The Virginian - Season 6 - Episode 20
Elizabeth finds the outlaw Jim Dewey shot and about to die from blood loss. Her and Clay bring him back to Shiloh where everyone is gone except them and Holly due to a cattle drive. While they nurse Dewey back to health, the bounty hunter Ben Hicks arrives revealing the outlaw's identity and wanting to take him in preferably dead but they stop him. Elizabeth is persuaded by Jim he really has a good side and she torn on whether to help him as members of his gang arrive at Shiloh and Hicks hires help.
#16 - The Land Dreamer
The Virginian - Season 7 - Episode 20
A dispute ends with one man dead, the Sheriff unconscious, and the shooter on the run. The Virginian, Trampas, and David catch the shooter with his family. The softhearted David wants to let the shooter go but The Virginian won't go along.
#17 - Crime Wave at Buffalo Springs
The Virginian - Season 7 - Episode 17
After a fight with Trampas, David leaves. He finds himself not only robbed of his clothes and horse by bank robbers but arrested for the robbery himself. Trampas who followed to get him to return, finds himself in the same jail cell.
#18 - Priest-Killer
Ironside - Season 5 - Episode 1
A police chief who is confined to a wheelchair and a former cop who is now a priest team up to discover who has been committing a series of murders of local priests. (Note: This was a crossover episode for the short lived series "Sarge" starring George Kennedy)
#19 - The Girl in the Shadows
The Virginian - Season 7 - Episode 24
Claire Garson and her manager Nathaniel E. 'Doc' Watson who are entertainers are hired to have Claire assume the identity of the lost niece of Charles Grainger, Clay's dead brother. Charles was killed in a mine disaster in California and Clay has no knowledge of him other than his death since Charles left Texas. Claire's "entertainment" abilities and honesty, however, interfere with her ability to assume the role.
#20 - Gun Quest
The Virginian - Season 9 - Episode 6
The Virginian is taken by a posse, brought into a saloon in a small town, tried before an incompetent drunken judge, convicted of murder, and taken out to be hanged, all in a span of a couple hours. The only evidence allowed is the accusation of the dead man's son, who claims The Virginian is a notorious hired killer known as Boss Cooper, and that he saw him kill his father. The Virginian escapes from the lynch mob and determines to clear his name by finding the real Boss Cooper, though the dead man's sons are trailing him.
#21 - The Angus Killer
The Virginian - Season 9 - Episode 18
The Virginian arrives at Laura Duff's ranch to buy her Angus cattle, only to find that she has lost her head steer due to someone cutting her fence. While she suspects a hostile rancher who wants her land, her son insists that a friendly neighbor is responsible, not only for the cattle but also for the death of his father several months earlier.
#22 - The Saddle Warmer
The Virginian - Season 7 - Episode 1
David Sutton takes a job at Shiloh to make up for the work Trampas can't do after being involved in Trampas breaking his leg. He has a hard time fitting in with the other hands while a girl he met earlier tracks him down to help her.
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#23 - The Power Seekers
The Virginian - Season 8 - Episode 4
The territorial representative resigns so Clay is drafted to run against a local man. Once in the race Clay learns the dirty side of politics including being lied to about who drafted him. He runs an honest contest but will the other side.
#24 - Holocaust
The Virginian - Season 8 - Episode 17
The Shiloh ranch is burned down after Clay joins with his fellow ranchers to oppose an Eastern combine trying for a land-grab. This leaves Clay with only has one chance for survival of the ranch, get a herd to Denver in record time.
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#25 - Train of Darkness
The Virginian - Season 8 - Episode 18
On a train to Cheyenne, Clay, Elizabeth and Jim become involved in a fellow traveler's efforts to escape a vengeful family.
#26 - The Gift
The Virginian - Season 8 - Episode 24
A saloon singer finds herself the target of killer after his partner dies in her room.