The Judge and Jake Wyler is a 1972 American TV movie directed by David Lowell Rich. The teleplay was written by Richard Levinson, William Link, and David Shaw. It was produced by Universal Television and broadcast by NBC on December 2, 1972.
The title characters are a hypochondriac former judge who owns a private detective agency and her parolee partner. The two are hired by Alicia Dodd to investigate the alleged suicide of her father, whom she suspects was really a murder victim.
Production notes
The film was a pilot for a proposed weekly series that failed to make the network's schedule. Earlier that year, Bette Davis had starred in Madame Sin, a pilot for ABC that also failed to sell.
In 1973, the character of Judge Meredith resurfaced in the form of Lee Grant in the TV movie Partners in Crime, scripted by Shaw and directed by Jack Smight. This, too, was a pilot that went no further than its initial airing.