.png){kind=logo}
Image via CBS
Shawn Van Horn is a Senior Author for Collider. He's watched way too many slasher movies over the decades, which makes him an aficionado on all things Halloween and Friday the 13th. Don't ask him to choose between Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees because he can't do it. He grew up in the 90s, when Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, and TGIF were his life, and still watches them religiously to this day. Larry David is his spirit animal. His love for entertainment spreads to the written word as well. He has written two novels and is neck deep in the querying trenches. He is also a short story maker upper and poet with a dozen publishing credits to his name. He lives in small town Ohio, where he likes to watch professional wrestling and movies.
Sign in to your Collider account
Dick Van Dyke is an acting legend known by all thanks to his iconic roles in both The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mary Poppins. His career goes all the way back to the 1940s, but the character he played the longest has been largely forgotten. From 1993-2001, with 179 episodes and five movies, Van Dyke played Dr. Mark Sloan on CBS' Diagnosis: Murder. Its light charm made Diagnosis Murder popular with its audience, and it even co-starred one of Van Dyke's kids. If you missed out on it the first time, don't worry, because every episode is now available to watch for free on Pluto TV.
'Diagnosis: Murder' Was a Spin-Off of 'Jake and the Fatman'
One of the more popular TV crime shows of the late '80s and early '90s was the CBS series Jake and the Fatman, starring the crime solving duo of Detective Jake Styles (Joe Penny) and D.A. J.L. "Fatman" McCabe (William Conrad). Dick Van Dyke appeared as Dr. Mark Sloan in a Season 4 episode before the famed actor got his own spin-off episode in the Jake and the Fatman series. Van Dyke was so popular as the quirky but intelligent doctor that there were three Diagnosis: Murder made-for-TV movies between 1992 and 1993 before it became its own regular series in the fall of 1993.
Mark Sloan is the central focus of Diagnosis: Murder as Los Angeles' Community General Hospital's chief of internal medicine. He's so good at his job that his son, Steve Sloan (played by Dick Van Dyke's real life son Barry Van Dyke), an L.A. detective, turns to him to help him solve murders and catch the killers before they can strike again.
'Diagnosis: Murder' Was Nearly Cancelled Early in Its Run
Image via CBSWith its light, folksy charm in a murder-of-the-week series that is more cozy than dark, Diagnosis: Murder worked for its CBS audience. It was also the perfect replacement for a very similar show on the same network. Murder, She Wrote, starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer who helps solve murders, had a similar setup, with an older star playing someone not in law enforcement who uses their expert knowledge to bring killers to justice. With Murder, She Wrote in its tenth season when Diagnosis: Murder debuted, Van Dyke's series should have been able to use the same established audience. However, it wasn't that easy.
In an interview with American Television, Van Dyke spoke about how some of his friends told him that Diagnosis: Murder wouldn't work because audiences wanted to see him do comedy. Dick didn't see it that way, saying, "I thought this character could have enough of an eccentricity in his personality that he would still be kind of interesting to watch."
Related
CBS wasn't so enthralled in the beginning. The network didn't promote it well and nearly cancelled it early in its run. Thankfully, although fans were used to seeing Van Dyke in comedy, they gave Diagnosis Murder a chance, saving it from the scrap heap. In the same interview, its lead spoke about why he thought the show's style worked:
"We've done something that no murder mystery's ever done. We have done a change up. We do shows that are essential comedy. We've done some very, very dark comedies... And then the next week we'll do something that's action."
Dick Van Dyke added that he saw Diagnosis: Murder almost as a variety show. Not only could the tone change, but so could the format. One episode could have a murder at the beginning where the audience sees the killer, while the episode after might keep the killer's identity a mystery until the end. It wasn't a one or two-man show either. Like so many murder-of-the-week mysteries, guest stars were often brought in, such as Mike Connors and Robert Culp, and in a two-parter, Andy Griffith showed up as his character from Matlock. As with Van Dyke, Griffith had gone from a sitcom star to an older TV mystery lead.
'Diagnosis: Murder' Thrived Thanks to Its Strong Supporting Cast
Image via CBSDiagnosis: Murder didn't depend on guest stars in heavyweight cameos, and it was so much more than the household name propping it up. Dick Van Dyke was the way into the series, but once a viewer started watching, they quickly found out that this was an ensemble cast where every piece mattered. There was Barry Van Dyke as the stoic detective, Victoria Rowell as Dr. Amanda Bentley, a pathologist who assists Dr. Sloan not only at work but on the homicide cases, and a young, charming Dr. Jesse Travis (Charlie Schlatter).
Diagnosis: Murder came to an end as a series in 2001 after 8 seasons, which was three more than The Dick Van Dyke Show lasted. It wasn't quite over for Dr. Mark Sloan though, as he and the cast returned for two more TV movies in 2002. In his American Television interview, Van Dyke admitted the series wasn't groundbreaking or on the cutting edge, but he found Diagnosis: Murder important for an older audience. And if you were a kid growing up in the '90s like this writer, it was important for a younger audience, too.
Diagnosis: Murder
Release Date 1993 - 2001-00-00
Directors Christian I. Nyby II, Christopher Hibler, Vincent McEveety, Frank Thackery, Victor Lobl, Ron Satlof, Anson Williams, Bernard L. Kowalski, Nancy Malone, Bruce Seth Green, Peter Ellis, Donald L. Gold, Alan Myerson, Sandy Smolan, Oz Scott, Neema Barnette, Michael Lange, Leo Penn, Tom Chehak, Lou Antonio, Farhad Mann, Barry Steinberg, James Nasella, Max Tash
English (US) ·