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Dragnet
1967 - Season 1 (1967)
"This is
the city--Los Angeles, California." "I carry a
badge." "My name's Friday." And who could forget
"Just the facts, ma'am"? These lines, delivered in
classic deadpan style by actor-director Jack Webb's
Sgt. Joe Friday, are among the hallmarks of Dragnet,
one of television's earliest and most influential
police dramas. And the appearance on DVD of all 17
episodes from the show's first season (1967),
covering two discs (plus a third with a radio
broadcast from 1954) and running more than seven
hours, is a treat. Decades after the fact, when
vivid, often graphically violent cop shows like the
C.S.I.
and Law & Order
franchises (all of them
clearly owing a debt to Webb's show) dominate the
airwaves, Dragnet seems tame, even quaint. Violence
and gunplay are kept to a minimum. Special effects
are non-existent, and many scenes are talky and
static; "The Big Interrogation" takes place almost
entirely in a single room in the police station, and
includes a four-minute speech by Friday about the
plight of a police officer ("You're a cop, a
flatfoot, a bull, a dick, John Law… they call you
everything, but never a policeman"). The stories are
uncomplicated, the criminals are usually
dunderheads, and "square" barely begins to describe
the overall tone (witness "The Big LSD," a risible
depiction of a "hippie" on a psychedelic sojourn).
Still, one gets the feeling that we're laughing not
at but with Webb, the writers, and the rest of the
cast (including Harry Morgan, later of M*A*S*H*, as
sidekick Bill Gannon). By about halfway through the
season, with episodes like "The Big Candy Story" and
"The Big Fur Burglary" (an almost whimsical tale
wherein Gannon pretends to be an expert furrier), it
appears that Webb and company are enjoying
themselves just as much as the viewers are; at the
same time, the characters' personal lives are
explored in a bit more detail, which adds some
welcome texture. Sure, it's dated--everybody smokes,
everyone's white, and character descriptions like
"strange-behaving juvenile" are more common than
not. But in the end, the Dragnet approach, stilted
though it may sometimes be, is a refreshing antidote
to the oh-so-hip cop melodramas that have come along
since. Best, and simplest, of all, Dragnet 1967 -
Season 1 is downright entertaining. --Sam Graham
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