It concerned the life of private investigator Miles C. Banyon (Robert Forster), a tough-but-honest detective who would accept essentially any case for US$20/day.

Located in the same complex (the famed Bradbury Building) as Banyon's office was the secretarial school operated by Peggy Revere (Joan Blondell).

Besides Revere, the other ongoing female character was Banyon's girlfriend, Abby Graham (Julie Gregg), a nightclub singer who was constantly trying to encourage him to "settle down" and marry her, but to no avail during the brief run of this series.

Banyon was unable to find an adequate audience and lost in the Nielsen ratings to ABC's Love, American Style and movies on CBS and was canceled midseason.

Despite the show's short life, Quentin Tarantino liked Forster's performance as the title character so much that he hired him for the feature film Jackie Brown many years later.