TVSquad

Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.

OK, so yesterday I gave my list of the Five Greatest Police Detectives, and several readers gave their lists. Today I thought I'd do the other end of the invesitgation spectrum, private eyes, amateur sleuths and other investigators. This list was even hard to do. So many great characters.

1. Spenser (Robert Urich): I picked this Boston-based private eye because he seemed to be a great mix of brain and brawn. The type of guy who could go to the ratty gym and knock around some boxer and then go off to a fancy Beacon Hill cafe and have coffee with his girlfriend and talk about politics or literature. He was smart, clever, caring, a wiseass, and ridiculously moral. What else do you want in a private eye?

You don't see as many made-for-TV movies today as you used to. Sure, Lifetime does some and you'll find some on cable and the odd one on CBS, but the networks don't really do them anymore (and if they do they stretch them to two or more nights and call them a mini-series). But you could see them all the time in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Here are five they hardly show anymore, if ever, but I remember them fondly.

(Part 1 of 5) It's the time of year when we talk about what happened over the past year, and that unfortunately includes the deaths of many notable personalities. After the jump is a list of the celebrities and other TV-related people we lost in 2006, in no particular order. (Note: it's not easy to compile a list like this and I'm sure I forgot someone. Let me know in the comments and I'll try to add them.)