Dragnet: Season 04 (1969)

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Though the final season of the new Dragnet (aka Dragnet: 1970) represented the revived series' fourth year on NBC, in actuality it was the property's 12th season, if one counts the previous, classic Dragnet of the 1950s. The stories you are about to hear are true, the city is Los Angeles, CA, and the protagonists are LAPD sergeants Joe Friday (played of course by the series' producer/director Jack Webb) and Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan). Rather surprisingly, the final season yields only three blatantly anti-drug episodes: "Narco -- Pill Maker," in which Joe and Frank bust an amphetamine lab catering to gullible youngsters; "Juvenile -- The Little Pusher," the tale of an innocent child who inadvertently overdoses on Seconal; Narco -- Missing Hype," wherein frequent Dragnet guest star Vic Perrin, usually cast as a slimy criminal, portrays a foolishly idealistic college professor. Other noteworthy season-four episodes include the opener, "Personnel -- The Shooting," featuring another Dragnet stalwart, Virginia Gregg, as the even-tempered wife of a wounded officer; "D.H.Q. -- Missing Person," the tale of 16-year-old girl who isn't quite what she seems; "D.H.Q. -- Night School," which finds Joe getting into hot water with a group of younger students while attending postgrad college classes; and "Burglary -- Mister," wherein Joe and Frank are confronted by the heel to end all heels, the redoubtable "Mr. Daniel Lumis" (John Hudson). Although Dragnet had earned a 32 ratings share, and had been announced by the trades as being a shoo-in for a fifth season on NBC, Jack Webb had already decided that 12 years of Joe Friday was enough, and voluntarily pulled the plug on the venerable property. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi