The BEST episodes written by Ross Thomas
#1 - Too Rich and Too Thin
Hardcastle and McCormick - Season 2 - Episode 13
A friend of Hardcastle's, a lawyer dies. At the funeral, he catches his young wife with another man. He talks to his friend's partner who was forced out of the practice by the wife and he tells Hardcastle the wife was only interested in his money. Hardcastle learns the man died while at some health spa for the elderly. So he goes there as a client and McCormick goes as a trainer who puts Hardcastle through the wringer.
#2 - Light Fingers
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 5 - Episode 11
Joan Stackpole wants a quiet life. Even talking to her husband Ralph is an ordeal she prefers to avoid. Meanwhile, Ralph has a big problem - someone is stealing the gloves from his glove factory, and the pilfering is throwing all his staff under suspicion, including Cotter, his designer. When Ralph can take no more, he hires a private eye, who forms an ingenious plan to catch the thief, and Ralph tells Joan about it over breakfast. Ralph swears he will get rid of the culprit - but then traces of the thief start turning up in unexpected places...
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#3 - Youth from Vienna
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 6 - Episode 13
Caroline Coates, a television station interviewer, is promoted to be anchorwoman of the station's main news programme - and there are two men who want to marry her. But Caroline worries that she won't keep her looks forever. Humphrey Baxter, one of her admirers, is a scientist working on a formula to stop the aging process. Unfortunately, though, some of the effects of the fountain of eternal youth are unforeseen...
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#4 - Bird of Prey
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 7 - Episode 10
This is the story of a parrot's egg - and a flirtatious wife and a jealous husband. Jack and Edna's pet parrot lays a huge egg - one much bigger than parrot-size - and promptly dies. Jack and Edna keep the egg warm, and it hatches into a menacing, black-feathered bird. Although it fails to talk, the new arrival soon begins keeping a close and disdainful eye on them... Jack befriends the bird, but Edna is unnerved by it - and she has good reason to be.
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#5 - Number Eight
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 7 - Episode 5
A smartly dressed driver on his own picks up a scruffy, wild-eyed hitch-hiker. As they drive off together, they hear warnings on the car radio of a dangerous serial killer on the run - the ""will-o-the-wisp"" murderer is said to be of slight build with fair hair... a description which clearly matches the hitch-hiker.
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#6 - The Turn of the Tide
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 6 - Episode 14
Slade is a criminal lawyer - and a perfect gentleman who plans to commit the perfect murder. He has his reasons for wanting to kill a friend, of course, and he knows he needs to destroy all the evidence. The pivotal moment is an early morning swim... but Slade has overlooked something.
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#7 - A Glowing Future
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 4 - Episode 15
Betsy's long term live-in lover, Jack, is planning to get married - but not to her. He has a new girlfriend half-way across the world, in Australia.Betsy is even more enraged when Jack starts to pack up their shared belongings for shipping to his new home. As the paintings come off the walls, Betsy decides to give the bride a present - she has just the thing in mind.
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#8 - Heir Presumptuous
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 6 - Episode 5
Rancher George Devon is found murdered. Devon was a rich man, and his nephews Donald and David (who are identical twins) stand to inherit his fortune. They become the prime suspects, as one of them was seen at the scene of the crime just before Devon's body was found. But Sheriff Milt Singleton faces the problem that no-one can tell the twins apart, and both of them seem to have water-tight alibis.