Remington Steele is an American detective fiction television series co-created by Robert Butler and Michael Gleason. The series, starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan, was produced by MTM Enterprises and first broadcast on NBC from October 1, 1982, to February 17, 1987. The series blended the genres of romantic comedy, drama, detective procedural and (towards the end of the series) international political intrigue and espionage.

Remington Steele's premise is that Laura Holt, a licensed private investigator (Stephanie Zimbalist), opened a detective agency under her own name but found potential clients refused to hire a woman, no matter how qualified. To solve the problem, Laura invents a fictitious male superior she names Remington Steele. Through a series of events in the first episode, "License to Steele", Pierce Brosnan's character, a former thief and con man (whose real name even he proves not to know and is never revealed), assumes the identity of Remington Steele. Behind the scenes, a power struggle ensues between Laura and Steele as to who is really in charge, while the two carry on a casual romantic relationship.

Try this for a deep, dark secret: the great detective, Remington Steele? He doesn't exist. I invented him. Follow. I always loved excitement, so I studied, and apprenticed, and put my name on an office. But absolutely nobody knocked down my door. A female private investigator seemed so... "feminine". So I invented a superior, a decidedly "masculine" superior. Suddenly, there were cases around the block. It was working like a charm...until the day "HE" walked in, with his blue eyes and mysterious past. And before I knew it, he assumed Remington Steele's identity. Now I do the work and he takes the bows. It's a dangerous way to live, but as long as people buy it, I can get the job done. We never mixed business with pleasure. Well, almost never. I don't even know his real name!

Remington Steele is best known for having launched the career of Pierce Brosnan and for serving as a forerunner of the similar, edgier series Moonlighting, and was also an influential part of television history in its own right. Recent evaluations, in the wake of the show's full release on DVD, conclude that Steele was solidly crafted, well acted and groundbreaking in its own way. Other recent evaluations have also noted that series has aged better than some other series of its time and genre.

Remington Steele referred to film noir in the mystery storylines. It subverted 1970s detective show conventions by telling its stories from the point of view of an independent, professional woman. At a time when hour-long series were serious and half-hour series were humorous, Steele incorporated multiple styles of comedy into the standard detective format. It pioneered the slowly evolving "will they or won't they" relationship arc that is now common to television drama of all genres.

In an interview recorded in 2005 for a DVD special feature, Remington Steele co-creator Michael Gleason and star Stephanie Zimbalist discuss the large number of women who have approached them over the years to express their appreciation for the character of Laura Holt. Speaking of the women she meets, Zimbalist said: "They are extraordinary women.... They are interesting. They do interesting things. They are smart. They're independent. They're sort of, what my character was – and I meet them all the time".

Also in 2005, Robin Rauzi published an article in the Los Angeles Times saying that Laura Holt was her hero. In a subsequent interview Rauzi elaborated, saying that Laura "was one of the only examples of an unmarried modern career woman on TV that I could identify with at that time" and that Laura "didn’t seem that far away from who I was and who I could be". Rauzi concludes: "I’ve decided to stop being embarrassed to say Remington Steele changed my life. It did and for the better".

Remington Steele’s initial premise was conceived in 1969 by long-time television director Robert Butler as a series featuring a solo female private investigator. Butler pitched the idea to Grant Tinker before he was head of MTM, but Tinker felt the series was ahead of its time. In January 1980, following the success of several sitcoms featuring working women, including the groundbreaking The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Butler and Tinker, now head of MTM, revived the concept. MTM Vice President of Programming Stu Erwin felt Butler's concept was only "half a show" and suggested that Butler work with veteran writer Michael Gleason to expand the premise. Imagining Holt's fictional boss, Gleason proposed to Butler: "Wouldn’t it be great if he showed up and made her crazy?" In 1981, Gleason, Butler, Erwin and Tinker pitched the series to NBC and were initially rejected by executives who failed to "get" the premise. Shortly thereafter, Tinker left MTM to become chairman of NBC, then the number-three network, and subsequently a pilot was ordered.