The Investigation

One of the purposes of the show "Dragnet" was to show the full range of types of jobs that police detectives do. That's why Friday and Gannon do something no real police would ever do--bounce from department to department within the L.A. Police Department. In other words, in one show they work homicide, in another they work community affairs and another they work juvenile. In addition, some of the shows seem pretty mundane--again, to show the real work police do--something you'll rarely see on other police shows, if at all. Some odd examples they talked about in various shows are working for Internal Affiars, doing an interrogation, undergoing an examination of a shooting board, attending lectures being given by pyramid scheme cons, the trial board and here, working with the police to interview and investigate the background on candidates for the police academy.

This show begins with Friday serving on a review board with two private citizens. Their job is to do interviews with the candidates and I was surprised how short they were. Perhaps this was just shortened for the sake of the show. Later, Friday and Gannon are given the assignment to go on a road trip to check out references on various candidates--one of which apparently has a lot to hide.

As I said above, this is pretty mundane but considering other shows ignore everything except murder investigations, kidnappings and the like, it's a nice departure from the stereotype of police work.

When Friday and Gannon visit Harry Lanham ex-wife Virna , the house seen on the outside which they call a old Victorian was also used in the Television show "The Munsters" which was at 1313 Mockingbird Lane. The house, built in the Second Empire Victorian architectural style, was constructed on Stage 12 at Universal Studios in 1946 for the filming of the turn-of-the-century period romantic film "So Goes My Love". Placed alongside another Victorian-style house built specifically for the production, the two-and-a-half story set was utilized on a sound stage for all shots in the film and future television shows.

The Investigation is a different episode from most police dramas but I like it. Gannon and Friday practice due diligence but are all police departments this thorough?