The Starlet

Webb takes on the Adult Film industry in this ridiculous segment, giving us yet another moralistic, utterly phony depiction. It holds some interest and nostalgia value, crucial to MeTV resurrecting such mediocre but old series for new audiences, thanks to the timing: 1968, when Adult movies were softcore sexploitation (as well as peep show shorts), incredibly tame by comparison with the hardcore porn so prevalent in recent decades.

A highly slanted lecture from an expert to Webb is pure propaganda, making the "smut" filmmakers out to be conniving lawbreakers taking advantage of constitutional freedoms, with the show stressing the need to crack down on them and pass stricter laws. The lines between prostitution and hardcore porn versus mail-order nudie movies are deliberately blurred in this script, typical of Webb's right-wing agenda, lumping lots of material under the "pornography" and "obscene" banners. Fifty-five years later censorship, DeSantis-style, has expanded its targeting in ways none of us could have imagined back in the '60s.

Los Angeles is the main destination for young women who hope to become starlets, whether they're legit or runaways. Gannon and Friday are assigned a case of a runaway from an uncaring home, and the leads to her whereabouts take more and more ominous turns.

A lady who should know where she is seems helpful, until they later find out she's a sometimes prostitute and more frequent performer in pornographic films.

And so the trail leads deeper into the seamy underside of Hollywood's smut ridden underworld, where the men who make the films don't care if they get caught and don't care who they use ... and use up.

This is a rather depressing episode. An aunt comes to L.A. in search of her missing niece. It seems that her parents really don't want to be bothered, but the Aunt is concerned and wants help from the police, as the girl is underage. Friday and Gannon's path takes them into the pornography business and the film decries the evils of porn. Since they are juvenile officers, they are especially concerned as this pretty young lady might be appearing in these pornographic films--films made by Lyle Talbot! Fans of old-time Hollywood will probably instantly recognize Talbot--a leading man mostly in the 1930s but who frequently appeared in a variety of good roles (such as the Governor on "Green Acres") and bad over the years ("Plan 9 From Outer Space"). It was rather surreal for me, as I've seen him in so many different roles that I was shocked to see him as the porno king--a man who makes cheap grind-house porn.

Unfortunately, this episode ends on a very low note--and it is definitely one of the more depressing ones from the series. Well done though a tad preachy--this one is a huge contrast to the previous one about "Officer Gideon C. Dengle".