Dragnet 1967: Season 1

Jack Webb's venerable police procedural debuted on radio in 1949 and had its first television run in 1952-1959. This release, however, is of the first season (really half-season) of the second series, Dragnet 1967, that began in January 1967 and ran through 1970, with Webb continuing as “just the facts” Joe Friday but Harry Morgan (later Col. Potter on MASH) replacing Ben Alexander as his equally imperturbable partner. The stiff performances and no-nonsense attitude of the program, coupled with long tracking shots of the investigators' car coasting through the streets of L.A. while Webb monotonously delivers exposition, now come across as near camp, especially in episodes that deal stridently with the “hot” issues of the day (the very first show, about the dangers of LSD, features a hysterically overwrought turn by former child star Michael Burns as an addict, while another, concerning a neo-Nazi who tries to blow up a newly-integrated school, is equally shrill). But the programs dealing with more conventional crimes are less dated, and the show's historical influence on TV police dramas is undeniable. It's also amusing to see Kent McCord, whom Webb would cast in his new series Adam-12 the following year, popping up twice--once in a brief turn and again as an undercover cop accused of a robbery. The 17 first-season episodes are contained on two discs (14 on one double-sided disc and only three on the other). The set also includes a bonus CD with a Dragnet radio show from 1954--a true nostalgia trip, especially since the commercials for Chesterfield cigarettes (one spoken by Webb himself) have been retained. Recommended. (F. Swietek)