The Pyramid Swindle

Friday and Gannon are on to a woman bilking money from her customers by holding revival-like meetings. The woman in question was played by Virginia Gregg who made quite a few appearances on this show over the years. She's quite a character in this one, isn't she? And it's quite intriguing when she ends up in trial. What happens to her? Well, I definitely suggest you watch to find out. As always, this was another entertaining ep of "Dragnet 1968" with the usual staccato dialogue presented by director and star Jack Webb and Harry Morgan ably standing by as his sidekick, as it were. I've really been enjoying watching these eps so far!

To expose these pyramid scams, which was quite the topic for awhile, is fine but the writers here used their blatant bias against religion by equating these business frauds to revival meetings. There was no need for that except to promote their atheist agenda. These pyramid money-making schemes were/are strictly business, a way to fleece people out of their cash.

"Bonnie Bates," the head of the scam was a woman who yelled loudly like some evangelist ministers do, shook her tambourine and called everyone "brothers" and "sisters." The analogies weren't even subtle and had no place in this story. People who con others with "pyramid" do not use these kind of religious come-ons. This was ludicrous.

It's too bad because the episode, as usual, was funny and entertaining. Veteran TV actress Virginia Gregg played the crook who made the big sales pitches to a crowd that was made to look like total baboons.

Yes, there are a lot of gullible people out there and greedy ones looking to get rich quick (ask Bernie Madoff) but this whole episode, as another reviewer points out here, is a caricature rather than a comment about these con artists, who are despicable people.