User Reviews

Once again--and for the last time--77 SUNSET STRIP goes back to college. But instead of Roger Smith and Edd Byrnes going undercover by posing as college students (and giving Warner Bros. the opportunity to showcase its bright new contracted actors like Chad Everett and Connie Stevens), "The Heartbeat Caper" sends Efrem Zimbalist Jr. to deliver a lecture on criminology to a campus where one of the school's most popular coeds "accidentally" fell off a trysting place called Lovers Leap quickly followed by the murder of her football-jock boyfriend. So whodunnit? Could it possibly be Andrew Duggan, the chairman of the Archeology Dept. and an old friend of Zimbalist's? That's what I thought, and I was wrong. I was also wrong in thinking that since the 5th season of this terrific series would be its last, it was high time the likeable Robert Logan (who replaced Kookie as the parking lot attendant at Dino's and was exactly the right age to be a college student) would finally play the lead in one of the series' few remaining episodes. Wrong again! As for the episode itself, despite a few mildly suspenseful moments, far too much time was devoted to Prof. Duggan showing off the wonders of a new invention called a lie-detector and the supporting cast of actors portraying the students and faculty members seemed as disinterested in the goings-on as Zimbalist himself. Gone was the light touch and dry sense of humor that had made "77 Sunset Strip" the finest of any TV private-eye series. And the brief cameos by Roger Smith and Edd Byrnes only served as a reminder of how a once-great series had succumbed to mediocrity not worthy of the wonderful actors who were responsible for its well-deserved popularity.