They Only Come Out at Night (1975)

Warden (THE VERDICT) stars as real-life Los Angeles detective John St. John in this pilot for the JIGSAW JOHN series. St. John, who worked the Black Dahlia case, received his “Jigsaw” nickname because of his talent for solving clever crimes like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. JIGSAW JOHN lasted only 15 episodes as a midseason replacement on NBC in 1976, but the movie-length pilot aired the year before. Al Martinez, a newspaper columnist who penned the BRONK pilot in 1975, wrote THEY ONLY COME OUT AT NIGHT, which is capably steered by Emmy winner Duke (THE SENATOR). St. John is one of those cops who gets emotionally involved with the victims, although his empathy doesn’t extend to his Indian partner Tallchief (Ynfante), who seems like a capable young detective, or his sympathetic wife (Sherwood), who dutifully gets up at 4:00 a.m. to make him coffee before he heads out to see another corpse. His new prey is a pervert who strangles old ladies and puts lipstick on them. A lot of shoe leather is worn and a lot of coffee is drunk while St. John and Tallchief plod their way through the clues. The killer turns out to be a whimpering psycho pretty common to old television shows. JIGSAW JOHN aired mainly against RICH MAN POOR MAN and got clobbered in the Nielsens.