Remington Steele

"Try this for a deep, dark secret: the great detective, Remington Steele? He doesn't exist. I invented him. Follow. I always loved excitement, so I studied, and apprenticed, and put my name on an office. But absolutely nobody knocked down my door. A female private investigator seemed so...feminine. So I invented a superior. A decidedly masculine superior. Suddenly there were cases around the block. It was working like a charm...until the day he walked in, with his blue eyes and mysterious past. And before I knew it, he assumed Remington Steele's identity. Now I do the work, and he takes the bows. It's a dangerous way to live, but as long as people buy it, I can get the job done. We never mix business with pleasure. Well, almost never. I don't even know his real name!"

1982-1987 NBC series about private investigator Laura Holt and the handsome, nameless conman with a fascination for Film Noir who strolled into her life and very publicly took over the identity of her fictional "employer". To the surprise of both Laura and her partners Murphy Michaels and Bernice Fox, the conman with five passports (all in the names of Humphrey Bogart roles) turns out to be not too bad at detective work, although the degree to which he relies on the plots of old movies as his inspiration infuriates just about everyone.

Murphy and Bernice were written out of the series after the first season to allow more stories to focus on the growing chemistry and hesitant romance between Laura and "Steele", and eventually Steele became a considerable investigator in his own right, relying less on his knowledge of movies and more on the experience he'd gained with Laura.

Remington Steele made a lasting star of Pierce Brosnan and won him the role of James Bond. (Not without some controversy, though. Brosnan was cast in The Living Daylights after Steele had been canceled, but as soon as the announcement had been made, NBC uncanceled the show, using contractual obligation to force Brosnan to give up the role and return to TV. Timothy Dalton ended up playing Bond in that film, and Brosnan had to wait for almost ten years to play Bond in 1995's Goldeneye.) It made a lesser star of Stephanie Zimbalist (daughter of Efram Zimbalist, Jr.) for the duration of the show's run.

Originally written as a Dramedy, with Steele intended to be a comic-relief figurehead while the focus was on Laura, but Brosnan's charisma and the chemistry between him and Zimbalist took over the plots.

One of the show's more prominent quirks was the fact that it always used the word "Steele" as part of every episode title. At first these were clever and/or amusing puns often related to the plot -- "Steele Crazy After All These Years", "You're Steele The One For Me" -- but as time went on the number of good "steele" puns ran out, and the writers took to just inserting the word into titles, seemingly at random ("Small Town Steele").

The trope The Real Remington Steele, while not occurring in the show, takes its name from it.

The first three seasons, minus a handful of episodes in the third, are currently available on Hulu.

"Laura: Why are they shooting at us?
 * Actor Allusion: Pierce Brosnan's late wife Cassandra Harris made four appearances on the show playing two different former lovers.
 * Stephanie Zimbalist's father Efrem Zimbalist Jr would appear almost every season as Daniel Chalmers, Steele's surrogate father and.
 * Awesome McCoolname: In-Universe, since the name is made-up. Remington is, among many other things, the name of a firearms manufacturer.
 * A bit of Real Life Writes the Plot as the creators reportedly first came up with the name, and then built the show around it.
 * Becoming the Mask: The Mole impersonates the fictitious Steele as a place to hide, but eventually settles into the role.
 * The Boxing Episode: In one episode a baby is found in a boxer's locker and he asks the Steele agency for help. Hijinx ensue as the boxer readies for a match and Remington is revealed to be a very competent boxer.
 * Character Name Alias: Steele, a movie buff, has multiple passports, each bearing the name of a character Humphrey Bogart played in the movies. In a later episode, Laura catches him in a lie because a woman calling him uses the alias of an Ingrid Bergman character.
 * Combat Stilettos: Laura Holt. In the episode "Steele in the Chips," a guest star played by Geena Davis asks how Laura can run in high heels, to which she replies, "Practice."
 * Delayed Wire: The episode "Sting of Steele", inspired by the movie The Sting, plays this trick with betting on overseas sports results.
 * Detective Drama
 * Dramedy
 * Early Installment Weirdness: For some reason, Steele fails to recognize the name George Kaplan in the second episode.
 * Edited for Syndication: One episode actually used this practice as a major plot point: The killer du jour had used a co-worker as an alibi, noting that the two had watched a classic TV show together at the time of the murder (unbeknownst to the co-worker, the culprit had ; but it turned out that.
 * Engineered Public Confession: In the pilot, the heroes move a body from one room to another in a hotel. When the villain exclaims, "We left him in his room!" a door is opened to reveal a roomful of cops next door.
 * Epunymous Title: See Idiosyncratic Episode Naming below.
 * Eureka Moment: Used regularly, with Steele being reminded of a plot point from a movie at a critical point in the case. Sometimes used as a Red Herring when Steele's movie references end up providing a plausible but entirely incorrect solution.
 * Executive Meddling: The series started out with each episode being a genuine Fair Play Whodunnit, but they got renewed for a second season on the condition that they dumbed down the plots, so after that, they pretty much just cut to the chase.
 * Expy: Moonlighting (Created by an Ex-Remington Steele writer).
 * Fake Ultimate Hero
 * Finger-Licking Poison: In one episode, the poison was in the glue on some envelopes Steele and Laura were expected to lick.
 * Gangsterland: Seems to invoke this trope in having Steele obsessed with hard-boiled detective stories. He seemingly believed that they presented as accurate a picture of contemporary America and its slang as they did in the 1920s-1940s, when most of them were written.
 * Gentleman Thief: Steele was this kind of character before assuming his role as private investigator.
 * His Name Is: In the series finale, Steele discovers that  See The Un-Reveal.
 * Hypercompetent Sidekick: The apparent "boss" (Steele) is explicitly a figurehead for PR purposes and Laura is the one who is, in fact, in charge.
 * Played for humour when Mildred is introduced, as she initially didn't know that Steele was a figurehead and thus treats him like the real boss.
 * Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode title has "Steele" somewhere in it, usually as a pun for "steal," "steel," or "still."
 * Nicely played with in "You're Steele the One for Me," where the expectation of a punny title (and the broken English in which the phrase is said in the episode) make the audience believe it's a pun for "you're still the one for me," but it's actually meant literally, as in, "you're Remington Steele, the person I'm trying to reach."
 * Interpol Special Agent: One episode guest-starred Tom Baker (of Doctor Who fame) as a Former Interpol agent whose investigations intersected Remington Steele's Case of the Week.
 * Interrupted Suicide: In the episode "Steele in Circulation", Steele starts the episode pulling a guy down off a bridge... and then has to spend most of the rest of it averting his attempts to walk into traffic and fling himself off roofs, until an attempt on the man's life gets him indignant enough to stop.
 * Invented Individual: One episode finds the detectives searching for a video game exec named George Kaplan (see North by Northwest example in Film.) They find that Kaplan does not exist, and was part of the company's scheme to avoid a takeover.
 * Remington Steele himself, until the role is filled.
 * Line-of-Sight Name: Laura Holt combined a Remington typewriter and the Pittsburgh Steelers to name her "fictitious" boss Remington Steele.
 * Logo Joke: The MTM kitten sports a pipe and deerstalker cap a la Sherlock Holmes.
 * Loveable Rogue: Steele.
 * Luke, I Am Your Father: Steele finds out in the last episode that is actually his long-lost father.
 * Married At Sea: The producers royally pissed off many Shippers when they had Remington attempting to enter into a Citizenship Marriage with a random hooker, then had him and Laura wed at the end of the episode by a sea captain in a surly ceremony that wasn't anything near the consummation that many fans of the show were hoping for. This trend carried on to the ending, with the result being that Pierce Brosnan publicly stated that the ending of the series in many ways was a disservice to the fans and the characters.
 * Mistaken for Gay: Steele is searching a missing man's hotel room when the man's ex-girlfriend happens to come in. Since the boyfriend had mentioned he was dating someone new, she assumes he meant Steele, and laments, "Why is it always the good-looking ones?"
 * Moment Killer: According to Steele, the entire universe was involved in a vast conspiracy to prevent him from getting chummy with Laura Holt.

Steele: Because we were kissing. Somebody always shoots at us when we're kissing!"

"Remington Steele: I guarantee your exoneration on all charges, Buddy, or my name isn't Remington Steele.
 * The Movie Buff: Steele is one, and the cases frequently remind him of movie references.
 * My Name Is Not Durwood: Type B with elements of Type C. In the first season, Steele invariably referred to Laura Holt's secretary Bernice Foxe as "Miss Wolf". It wasn't actually malicious, it seemed Steele couldn't genuinely remember her last name, even though she told him it a million times. He seemed to have no problem remembering her first name though.
 * Mysterious Past: Steele.
 * No One Sees the Boss: Miss Holt named the eponymous agency because she didn't think she'd be hired if people didn't believe there was a man at the helm, sending her on her assignments. This trope starts out being placed perfectly straight, but then a man actually did show up to take on the role and name.
 * Odd Couple
 * Opening Narration: In Season 1, Laura explained how her fake detective came to be played by a real person.
 * Opening Shout-Out: The first episode repeats the entire Opening Narration describing the premise of the show. There's something of a reprise in the Fourth Season premiere.
 * Or My Name Isn't: In "Steele Belted":

Laura Holt: Your name isn't Remington Steele.

Remington: A mere technicality."


 * Post Script Season: The Season 4 finale married off Laura and Steele, as the show's cancellation looked certain and Pierce Brosnan had been offered the role of James Bond. However, because Brosnan got the Bond role, NBC decided to renew the show, bringing it back for a very lame half-season which lacked all of the charm of the preceding seasons and effectively scuttling Brosnan's big movie break. Brosnan didn't end up playing Bond for over a decade.
 * Reality Subtext: In "The Steele That Wouldn't Die" -- the first episode after the series was Uncanceled -- a number of references are made to James Bond, the role Brosnan was forced to give up. Brosnan's performance was also considerably less involved than in previous seasons, due to his anger at NBC screwing him over as well as a general desire to move onto better things.
 * Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan reportedly did not like each other. They both deny this, ostensibly to protect loyal fans and viewers, but the subtext of dislike or distrust is prevalent in Steele and Laura's relationship.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: Steele was originally meant to be played by an American and some early episodes seem to reflect this, in one he makes an analogy about Babe Ruth and George Washington which seems out of place. The pilot itself was the second episode to be shot and presumably the last episode of the first bunch to be written, the pilot reflects that Steele is a foreigner. From the episode "Steele Trap," Steele is specifically stated to be Irish, like Brosnan.
 * Relative Error: Steele once saw Laura talking with her brother-in-law and thought she was having an affair. It didn't really help that the brother-in-law kept kissing her on the cheek...
 * Replaced the Theme Tune: The first season featured the tune "Laura's Theme" as Stephanie Zimbalist explained the series premise. The second season introduced a theme based on a small bit of incidental music that played as Remington would say something like "God I'm good!" after Laura explained how the case was solved. They had a more upbeat variant for the third season opening and an even more upbeat version for the fourth, but the latter didn't take. "Laura's Theme" played during the final credits through all the seasons.
 * Incidentally, both themes were composed by Henry Mancini.
 * Retool
 * Sesquipedalian Smith: Remington Steele
 * Screwed by the Network: NBC cancelled the show in its Fourth Season, which left Brosnan free to do The Living Daylights. Because of the fan publicity Brosnan was getting from being announced as the new Bond, NBC renewed the show for a fifth season, for which Brosnan was contractually obligated to do. The fifth season is deemed by fans to be the worst. As a result, the show was cancelled for good. As a side-effect Stephanie Zimbalist had to turn down RoboCop, and her career never recovered, even though Brosnan did eventually get to be Bond.
 * Sharp-Dressed Man: Steele. The producers felt nothing less than fine suits would be good enough for Pierce Brosnan and referred to him as a clothes horse. Evidently the Bond producers felt the same way.
 * Significant Reference Date: The date on the headstones in "Elegy in Steele", was the original broadcast date.
 * Suspect Existence Failure: Used in an And Then There Were None reference plot.
 * Sweetie Graffiti: Laura escapes police observation by hiding near a wall with a large graffiti heart and the initials MK and LH. As she emerges, she comments, "You may not have been much of a kisser, Marty Klopman, but you sure knew where to do it."
 * Take That: Near the show, there was an episode with an elderly British spy who said "We in MI5 thought James Bond was a sissy." Pierce Brosnan was in the running to play James Bond when Roger Moore left the role, but had to back out due to commitments to Remington Steele. It all worked out in the end...
 * Tall, Dark and Handsome: Steele again.
 * Ten Little Murder Victims: Had at least one of these, with Steele of course referencing And Then There Were None and its signature plot twist:.
 * Themed Aliases: Remington does this in the pilot; all of his fake passports bear the name of a Humphrey Bogart character.
 * Town with a Dark Secret: Used this trope in "Small Town Steele," which cited the 1955 movie Bad Day at Black Rock.
 * Uncanceled: See Screwed by the Network above.
 * Undead Tax Exemption: The eponymous character is actually a made up persona taken over by a con man. He had no problems the first season, but the second season starts out with a visit from the IRS, curious about the lack of about twenty odd years of income tax filings.
 * Unique Pilot Title Sequence: The first episode has Laura tell a slightly different story to since at this point she hasn't met the man who would take over Remington Steele's persona.
 * The Un-Reveal: Steele asks his father what his real name is... only to find that his father has just died.
 * Given the circumstances surrounding Steele's birth as told to him by his father, his mother died in labour and he was in jail at the time, it's quite possible that Steele doesn't actually have a name, or that his name is Harry because that's what his dad called him.
 * Will They or Won't They?: Laura and Steele's relationship is this, even when they get married.
 * Would Hit a Girl: Steele, amazingly, at least once. Although he did say "Forgive me" before doing so.
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: Steele is a classic movie buff, and every case he and Laura Holt solve together reminds him of a classic movie. Often the wrong one...