I was one of no doubt a few people who watched this update of a TV/Radio Classic created by Jack Webb. Ed O'Neil (Married with Children's Al Bundy) starred in this series as the season LAPD detective, Joe Friday. I honestly believe the first season of episodes were great. They were what I had expected he had a partner Frank Smith like he did in the original series.
Unfortunately the series was cancelled five episodes into the second season with Det. Smith written out of the series. The new Dragnet was produced by Dick Wolf who decided to make this more of an ensemble cast and call this show LA Dragnet. This probably didn't help the show gain any traction. While I continued to watch this show I really didn't like the change in format.
Of course Dick Wolf had other failures since then. I didn't know it yet but he had a show this past TV season called Conviction starring Stephanie March who left the series Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (she was ADA Alexandra Cabot and returned to Conviction in that role) a few years earlier. And then there was Law & Order: Trial by Jury a year before that which was to have starred Jerry Orbach (who played Det. Lennie Briscoe in that series and on Law and Order) but died after filming two episodes.
Either way I wouldn't mind it if they could revive the series one more time. This video is courtesy of YouTube. It made me really want to watch some episodes of the new series again and even some old episodes with Jack Webb.
Perhaps I'll show a few other Dragnet clips that I've found later on.
Labels: video
