On TV these days, charm is hard to find. It was, as we recall, first mugged by a psycho killer on a detective show; then it all but expired on the operating table during a doctor show. Do not despair, however, for there is at least one new series that combines a charming, offbeat detective with old-fashioned whodunits.

Whodunit? Why, the Messrs. Richard Levinson and William Link, the producing team that brought you such Emmy-winners as Columbo, "That Certain Summer" and "The Execution of Private Slovik." Howdunit? They dug down into the dear dead days of the '40s to resurrect the old Ellery Queen mysteries, venerable sagas of detection that ran, in book form, from 1929 all the way to 1971.

To find an actor to play Ellery, they also dug. They came up with Jim Hutton, a young man you may remember as being pretty good in some pretty awful movies ("Where the Boys Are," "Bachelor in Paradise," "The Horizontal Lieutenant"), and they gave him a part that suits him to a cup of old-fashioned tea. Equally inspired casting was David Wayne. His earnest professionalism as Ellery's father, Inspector Queen, makes him the perfect foil for his son's apparently aimless amateurism. Tom Reese is the third member of the team. He's Sergeant Velie, and plays him big and tough — which, with softies like our father and son heroes, we need. These original characters are augmented by a brand-new one

created by Levinson and Link — a pompous radio-show detective named Simon Brimmer. John Hillerman plays him — and our advice is to watch him. He means the Queens no good.

It would be a fine show with just these characters and a few bad guys. But it's a lot more than that. In episode after episode, there have been truly outstanding performances by guest stars. In "Miss Aggie's Farewell Performance," there were two: Eve Arden as a soap-opera star, and Beatrice Colen as the soap's organist, who was so shy she couldn't talk to a stranger unless she had her hands on the keyboard. In "The Comic Book Crusader," there were four — by Tom Bosley, Donald O'Connor, Ken Swofford and Lynda Day George. (Miss George had a terrific alibi: "He made a pass at me and I said no, and I felt so proud of myself for being a good girl that I decided I deserved a reward — so I went shopping.")

That episode also had an excellent plot. A cartoonist capitalizes on Ellery's fame by making him the star of a violent, Superman-type comic book. Ellery is so furious, he winds up (a) as the suspect and (b) in jail. From the opening moment, when Ellery tries to find the cartoonist responsible (he has to go from the man who letters the dialogue balloons to the shading man to the background artist), to the very end (when we learn there were not one but three murderers), it was Wham! Pow! Zap! all the way.