After the first season of "Dragnet", the types of episodes slowly began to change. Bit by bit, more and more episodes dealt with jobs that the police did that you'd never see on TV. Episodes about community relations, internal affairs, the interview and selection of candidates for the police academy and the like. Here, Gannon and Friday are working the desk at the robbery division. They had already done similar duty in a previous episode but in the juvenile division ("Juvenile - DR-05"). In real life, detectives do not change jobs so often--the show is a dramatization of many different cops, but are always played by Friday and Gannon.
Here, the guys deal with a wide variety of cases, as they are in charge of running the desk--sort of a clearing house for the division. An armed robbery where the owner is assaulted, a robbery-murder, a kook who loves to talk about "the birds" and many other problems are dealt with and the job seems like a never-ending series of surprises.
Overall, not a great episode at all but also a good look at the wide range of things such a desk job could entail. Also, make sure to get a look at Gannon's tackle box--yet another example of how Bill was really a strange man! Great line of the episode (a "Joe-ism"): "Unless you're growin', sit down!!".
