Dragnet

What began as an outstanding updated version of the classic cop/detective show was picked and hacked at by TV executive dolts until it finally bore little or no resemblance to the original, and did away with a central character.

TV executives are absolutely clueless. The show did not instantly get top rating, and therefore Mr. Moneybags or Mr. Big Cigar or whoever over at the network called up and said, "Change it so we get more sponsorship and I can afford to put another wing on my chalet in the south of France. Oh, and my wife wants a solid gold Maserati for her birthday."

If they had left the show alone, it would have gained steam and become a very successful series. Instead, they ruined it and then threw it away.

Ed O'Neil was excellent as Joe Friday.

No, this is not the 1967 version.

And this is not 1967 anymore.

This show has been rebooted in a very effective manner. I think this is not only the best show in ABC's lineup, but it is one of the best shows on network television. This show is a textbook example of how you update an old television show into the 21st century. Furthermore, the casting and acting is very effective. Ed O'Neill and Ethan Embry play their roles very well. I hope this show remains on the air for some time. It is well worth it.

One must really wonder why Hollywood execs are so damn stupid. Okay, Dragnet wasn't a powerhouse, runaway hit. But it was a solid show. So which is better: a show that develops a loyal following who watch it regularly, or a show that is tinkered with to get people interested, but so similar to everything else on the market that it dies a quick death?

Apparently ABC thinks the latter. Which is why we now have numerous tight-shirt-clad model-quality women wandering around the station house, pretending to be cops. Including the always annoying Rosalyn Sanchez, who is neither as attractive nor as good of an actress as she or her handlers seem to think. There's nothing wrong with having female cops on a show, but why are they always so stereotypically "attractive", and always wearing tight rayon shirts to show off their bulging silicone? Sure, breasts are fun. But is it necessary to dump sugar on our every meal? Do these catalog women really belong on a purportedly serious cop show with rumpled old Ed O'Neill?

Dragnet is an ancient franchise, one that was supposedly built on the strength of the stories. Ed O'Neill is a very good actor (and I wish the posters would stop with the lame "Married With Children" jokes, they're not funny). It is possible to have a good show that doesn't rely upon the tired formula of scantily-clad women pretending to be professionals in a professional environment. Look at the X-Files, which although flawed towards its end, started out as the tale of a rather mousy-looking guy and a kind of dumpy girl solving weirdo crimes. It gained acclaim from its stories. Even "ER" started with a lot of less-than-Fabios on its staff. Same goes for "NYPD Blue", which used to have "real" New Yorkers on its stage. Notice a pattern? After each of these shows started to add more and more models to the set, the show quality disintegrated. Sure, one of them is still a powerhouse, and one lasted for a while. But that's because they were spending good will they had built up with the audience. Dragnet wasn't left on its own long enough to build up good will; so now we have a cookie-cutter show that is trying to earn a place. And now it is sure to fail.

Please, for the love of god, stop tinkering with these shows to meet the teenage demographic! There are enough damn shows out there for small-minded, short-attention-span teenage boys. Give us some stories and something to figure out - you know, the things television crime shows used to be about.

I've only seen a couple episodes of this new Dragnet, but so far it looks like the show does have promise. I'm particularly impressed with the job Ed O'Neil is doing as Joe Friday. The Friday character is the exact opposite of the Al Bundy character that O'Neil previously played on Married..,With Children, but he manages to give an convincing performance as Friday. It takes a real good actor to play an idiot, then turn around and give a serious performance. This is especially true given the fact that O'Neil has Jack Webb's shoes to fill.

It may seem unimaginable that an iconic television series such as Jack Webb's Dragnet could be updated and still do justice to the original's charm and quality, but Dick Wolf and others behind the gripping Law & Order television series apply the strengths of their previous efforts into a superb updating of Webb's immortal series on the most famous working detective in the annuls of the LAPD.

Ed O'Neill is still most famous for his role of Al Bundy in Married.....With Children, but few remembered how he tackled the role of Popeye Doyle in the eponymous 1986 TV film sequel to The French Connection, and though not as gripping as Gene Hackman he nonetheless did a commendable job in a very difficult role. O'Neill really flexes dramatic muscle as Detective Joe Friday, in a much-faster-paced version of the classic series that at times reads like a real documentary, a goal Webb strove to achieve throughout the original run of Dragnet but which Dick Wolf and company have the resources to pull off.

While this new version of Dragnet is more keyed toward crime-solving and has a much greater intensity as a result, it nonetheless leaves some room for levity, such as in the recently-aired Bel Air kidnapping episode where the perp makes a deal with the LAPD to rat out his boss, but is arrested anyway because the FBI wants him. "We're local, they're federal," deadpans Ed O'Neill's Joe Friday, a line more fit for Ben Alexander's Frank Smith or Harry Morgan's Bill Gannon than Joe himself.

Ed O'Neill has thus succeeded in keeping an iconic character in TV history "alive and working," and TV land's LAPD knows that its most famous working detective is still on the job in the 21st century.