Golden Spiders and Black Orchids A 'Satisfactory' Look into the Life and Mysteries of Rex Stout

Television

The Nero Wolfe mysteries were brought to American television several times. The first series, in 1959, starred Kurt Kazsnar as Wolfe and William Shatner as Archie, but the few episodes filmed were never aired. Paramount Studios aired 14 episodes of a Nero Wolfe television program in the 1980s, but encountered backlash from fans for updating the setting to modern New York and diverging from the source book plotlines. A&E also produced A Nero Wolfe Mystery, featuring Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin, in 2001-2002. This series stayed truer to the source, but was canceled after 20 episodes due to low viewership, despite being generally well-received by fans of the books and nominated for many awards. Several countries outside the U.S. also created television shows based on Stout’s mysteries including Italy, Russia, and Germany.