This newsmagazine series investigates intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all aspects of the human experience. Over its long run, the show has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, driven the reopening — and resolution — of cold cases, and changed numerous lives. CBS News correspondents offer an in-depth look into each story, with the emphasis on solving the mystery at its heart.
Matlock is an American television legal drama, starring Andy Griffith in the title role of criminal defense attorney Ben Matlock. The show, produced by The Fred Silverman Company, Dean Hargrove Productions, Viacom Productions and Paramount Television originally aired from September 23, 1986 to May 8, 1992 on NBC; and from November 5, 1992 until May 7, 1995 on ABC.
The show's format is similar to that of CBS's Perry Mason, with Matlock identifying the perpetrators and then confronting them in dramatic courtroom scenes. One difference, however, was that whereas Mason usually exculpated his clients at a pretrial hearing, Matlock usually secured an acquittal at trial, from the jury.
He's everyone's favorite action hero... but he's a hero with a difference. Angus MacGyver is a secret agent whose wits are his deadliest weapon. Armed with only a knapsack filled with everyday items he picks up along the way, he improvises his way out of every peril the bad guys throw at him.
Making a bomb out of chewing gum? Fixing a speeding car's breaks... while he's riding in it? Using soda pop to cook up tear gas? That's all in a day's adventures for MacGyver. He's part Boy Scout, part genius. And all hero.
Mission: Impossible is an American television series that was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicles the missions of a team of secret government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force. In the first season, the team is led by Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill; Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, takes charge for the remaining seasons. A hallmark of the series shows Briggs or Phelps receiving his instructions on a recording that then self-destructs, followed by the theme music composed by Lalo Schifrin.
The series aired on the CBS network from September 1966 to March 1973, then returned to television for two seasons on ABC, from 1988 to 1990, retaining only Graves in the cast. It later inspired a popular series of theatrical motion pictures starring Tom Cruise, beginning in 1996.