Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982)

Arriving the year after Raiders of the Lost Ark, Donald P. Bellisario's series is the closest TV came to that film's pulp fun: 1938, a South Pacific backwater, and Stephen Collins as Jake Cutter, an ex-Flying Tigers pilot flying a red and white Grumman Goose seaplane for whoever is paying. His sidekick is a one-eyed Jack Russell terrier named Jack. ABC ran it for one season only, so there is no decline, just a single run of spies, smugglers and island bars. Bellisario said he based it on the 1939 film Only Angels Have Wings. It is the least known show here and the one most likely to surprise someone who thinks they have seen everything the decade made.