The Interrogation

Kent McCord is excellent in this episode and proves he can really act. He played a similar role in the "Adam 12" episode, "Log 33: It All Happened So Fast," in which Officer Jim Reed goes through the same kind of questioning after he kills a man in self-defense.

I wish Jack Webb had allowed McCord more opportunities to actually act in "Adam 12." If not for these two episodes I would have gone on thinking McCord's acting range was no better than Martin Milner's, who had no personality. Milner always played the same type of character and could not act in my opinion.

I don't know what became of McCord after "Adam 12."

This is an Internal Affairs story as a young cop, just on the force 114 days and working undercover narcotics, has to relate to Joe and Bill what he did all night. It seems a liquor store was robbed, and the policeman is a prime suspect. He expects favored treatment but you straight-shooters like Friday and Gannon are not going to give it to him. They just want the truth.

The most noteworthy aspect of this episode might be the fact that Kent McCord plays the young officer "Paul Culver." McCord went on to be the star in his own police show, "Adam -12." which ran from 1968-1975. He showed here that he can act. He's a fine career since then, too. Read his biography here on IMDb; it's interesting, filled with facts such as the fact that McCord was good friends with Ricky Nelson and appeared on over 40 episodes of "The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet" as a fraternity brother of Ricky's.

Anyway, is McCord innocent or guilty? It's hard to tell until the end the last few minutes of this episode.

A sign this may be a different type of "Dragnet" ep is that the theme song is only played with a percussion drum. Then the only characters appearing is Friday, Gannon, and a rookie cop played by Kent McCord. McCord is in the interrogation room with Joe and Bill because he's been ID'd as the suspect of a liquor store robbery. Kent keeps denying he was the one who did it but the constant questions of especially Friday wear him down. Then he gets questioned about his off-duty life and that has Joe doing a speech about how unglamorous being a cop is but despite that, he's very proud to be one, that's for sure! I'll just now say this was a most excellent ep of this revived version of this classic cop show. And yes, this was the same Kent McCord who went on to star in Jack Webb's later series as producer, "Adam-12".

I'm knocking one star off because, by Dragnet standards, this sucks. Where's the colors? Where's the women? Where's the outside? Where's the cars? Where's the chases? Where's the bad guys?? This is no true Dragnet. At the very least they should have shown what happened pre-interrogation. Or spliced in flashbacks and made it a full hour. But darn if this episode doesn't suck after all. That performance by Kent McCord. Wow! Just when I thought he was just the pretty face in Adam-12... WOW! The guy could act! (Past tense, I don't think he still does.) But damn! What did he do besides 12? HE should have been a huge star! Did I say "wow!"?? I meant "WOW!!!!" Someone called him a "god" in a previous review. Come on, man! Let's not get carried away now: he is God's boss. The end.

This episode is interesting in that it starts with a different introduction--without the usual "Dragnet" theme music and a kettle drum instead. You also will soon notice that the guest star for the episode is Kent McCord--who later became famous on Jack Webb's show "Adam-12". Webb tended to re-use actors and McCord plays a cop but not the same guy from "Adam-12"--confusing but typical for this show. In other words, Jack Webb often used a stock group of actors and they played multiple characters on the show--good guys, bad guys and regular citizens.

This episode finds McCord playing an officer who is being held on the suspicion that he might have committed an armed robbery while on a stakeout! While this seems like a remote possibility, the facts keep stacking up against the young officer and it looks bad for him. As the Internal Affairs process proceeds (with Gannon and Friday playing IAD officers), the officer being investigated begins to crack under the strain and feels sorry for himself. Ultimately, this leads to one of the single best moments of the series, as Friday delivers an amazing monologue about how tough it is to be a cop. Surprisingly, it showed Jack Webb was an amazing actor. Perhaps it wasn't done in one take (though it appeared to be) it was a fine piece of acting and must be seen by fans of the series.

Overall, an average episode despite the great speech. Worth seeing but not among the very best of the shows.