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50th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing
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Dragnet 1970
"D.H.Q. – Night School"
Originally aired March 19, 1970
Xfinity said:
Friday is nearly forced out of night school when he makes an on-campus arrest of a classmate.
Sgt. Joe Friday said:
This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I carry a badge.
Tuesday, April 2 (1968?): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Detective Headquarters, are busy with paperwork when quitting time strikes. Friday tells Gannon how he's taking a sensitivity course this semester, which involves group discussion in a circle. He mentions how the professor doesn't want the students sharing their occupations so they won't be judged by them, and that one of the students, Jerry, has a record for narcotics. In class, Jerry (J.C. Curtiss) talks about the benefits of acid trips, triggering a quick lecture from Friday. Jerry has some comebacks involving Vietnam, but he also has a bag of pot stashed in his binder, which Friday spots. A middle-aged student, Norm (Sidney Clute), is in the opposite extreme camp, having a very cynical worldview about what a dangerous world it is out there, which includes believing that war helps trim down the excess population. As soon as the bell rings, Friday bows out of coffee with one of his fellow students, a nurse named Barbara (Shannon Farnon), to pursue Jerry in the hall and bust him.
Before next week's class, Friday is asking Barbara about having that coffee after class when Prof. Grant (Leonard Stone) brings him into the classroom to chastise him privately for allegedly being a police spy infiltrating his class. We learn that Friday's working on a master's in criminology, but the professor threatens to undermine that by giving him less than a B. Friday won't drop out voluntarily, so the professor outs him as a "narc" in class and puts his continued attendance of the class to a vote. Friday explains his real reasons for being there, but gets voted out nine to six, with three abstentions. Barbara votes against him.
A week later, Friday's still clearly troubled by the incident, with Gannon encouraging him to see the captain about it, but Friday says that it's not his way. (I think this is the most personally emotional beat that he's played...ever.) Instead, Friday goes back to class and demands another vote. Grant agrees on the condition that Friday has to win 2/3 of the new vote to stay in class. Prepared to defend himself, Friday opens by saying straight out that he'd bust a fellow student again if he saw him carrying. Then he explains his perspective as a policeman, his duty as a cop to uphold the law, and their duty as citizens to obey the laws. At one point, he sort of gets in a bit of roundabout swearing...
Friday: Now I don't like being called a pig any more than some of you like being called a female dog's relative.
And he closes with this number, which clues us in that he's been watching
Mod Squad...
Friday: Now we've been rapping on and on about doing our own thing. Well that's my own thing--keeping the faith, baby, with the people of this city.
Eight vote to expel Friday, and eight to let him stay (including Barbara). Friday's prepared to leave under his agreement with the professor, but one of the students, Carl according to the credits (Harry Bartell)--a middle-aged man with an eyepatch who's remained quiet and abstained from voting during Friday's trials--wants to know why he's leaving on a tie. When he's told, Carl declares that he's a practicing attorney and that Friday will be staying in the class, or he'll be filing charges against the professor for violating Friday's constitutional rights.
The Announcer said:
On June 3rd, trial was held in Department 195, Superior Court of the State of California, for the County of Los Angeles....The suspect was found guilty of violating Section 11530.5, possession for sale of marijuana. This was his second conviction for the same offense, which is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for five to fifteen years.
The mugshot said:
JERRY MORGAN
Now serving his sentence at the Institution for Men, Chino, California.
One of the students, named Jack according to the credits, is Tim Donnelly.
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Dragnet 1970
"I.A.D. – The Receipt"
Originally aired March 26, 1970
Xfinity said:
Friday and Gannon investigate two fellow detectives accused of stealing $800 from a dead man.
Sgt. Joe Friday said:
This is the city: Los Angeles, California. With a population of three million people, there's always something happening. 1933, the automobile was coming into its own. The 294 men assigned to traffic control processed 11,000 accidents. To handle the problem, the department put together the largest motorcycle police contingent in the world. Today, the department is highly mobile. Los Angeles has less policemen per capita than any other major city in the country. That makes my job a little tougher. I carry a badge.
We get our first expositional monologue in weeks--and, as it turns out, the last one of the series--but it's a trimmed-down rerun of one they used last season (
Dragnet 1969, "Training (DR-18)," Nov. 21, 1968)...and as usual at this point, it has nothing to do with the episode. Out with a whimper...
Tuesday, January 9 (1968 again): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Internal Affairs Division, Investigative section, are assigned to investigate two fellow detectives, Sgt. Norman Bivins and Off. Earl Malone (Marshall Reed and Len Wayland), who've been accused of stealing $800.00 from the funeral money of a man whose death they investigated. Joe and Bill have known the other detectives for a long time and can't believe that they're dirty. First our detectives study up on the accused detectives' records. Then they interview the witness against Bivins and Malone, a pawn shop owner named Agnes Emerson (Virginia Gregg--and believe it or not, we're still not up to her last appearance on the show) who took care of the dead man, Elroy Brown's, financial affairs for him. She asked the detectives to deliver Elroy's possessions to the coroner on her behalf and vaguely recalls having signed a receipt for the money, but she says that she threw it away.
Then the accused detectives are brought in and informed of the situation, which includes Gannon reading their rights. They protest that Joe and Bill know better, but Friday and Gannon remain hard-nosed, reminding their fellow detectives that they have a job to do. Questioned separately, Bivens and Malone both recall Norm having written identical receipts in his notebook, signing the one he gave to Emerson, while Bivins kept the one that Emerson signed. But they can't produce their copy either, because the notebook came up missing shortly afterward. Emerson is brought in again and asked to submit to a polygraph. She agrees, but the results are inconclusive, because of her "one in a million" lack of emotional registry on the polygraph. The SID man speculates that she could be a pathological liar or completely emotionless, but he can't prove anything.
On a long-shot hunch, Friday goes down to the garage to search the detectives' unit for the notebook, even though they'd done so themselves thoroughly. He's unable to turn anything up in the usual places, but his attention is drawn to how his pencil rolls down the dash into the defroster. Fishing into the vent, he turns up the notebook. The officers' copy shows Emerson's signature for $200.00, and SID is able to raise the impressions from the second receipt that was written underneath. Presented with photos of the receipts and the fact that her signature matches one they just had her write, Emerson confesses to having taken the money, insisting that Elroy would have willed it to her if he'd had the opportunity.
The Announcer said:
On January 14th, the investigation report was forwarded to Captain Hugh Brown, Commander Robbery-Homicide Division, for his review and recommendation....The commander of Robbery-Homicide Division recommended to the Chief of Police that the allegation of theft be classified as unfounded.
The mugshot said:
SERGEANT NORMAN BIVINS
and
OFFICER EARL MALONE
Returned to duty with full pay and benefits.
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Minister / Love and the Geisha / Love and the Singles Apartment"
Originally aired March 27, 1970
Season 1 finale
In "Love and the Minister," Susan (Claudine Longet), wants her ex, Reverend Richard Atkins (Richard Long), to marry her...to her current boyfriend, car salesman Bill (Did somebody mention the Green Hornet? Van Williams)...even though Richard still wants Susan, and she admits to still having feelings for him, though she feels that Bill is the more practical life choice. At a full dress rehearsal just a couple of hours before the actual wedding, Richard makes a last-minute play at Susan while officiating, and ends up objecting to the marriage at the customary place in the ceremony, openly declaring his argument for Susan choosing him over Bill. Torn and confused, Susan calls off the wedding. When they're alone, Richard coaxes from her that she still loves him and doesn't love Bill, and she agrees to marry him.
It's hard to feel sorry for Bill here...he may have literally dodged a bullet.
"Love and the Geisha" is a first-run reuse of one of the segments from the November 10, 1969, episode.
In "Love and the Singles Apartment," married man Trevor (Mel Torme) is celebrating his birthday in the bachelor apartment that he's living in because of a recent promotion while his wife back home sells the house. What he's not telling his wife is that it's a swinging setup called the Pleasure Dome, with a bikini-clad waitress trying to give him off-the-books room service--though she's caught by the manager, Mrs. Kaplan (Kathleen Freeman)--and sometimes-nude activities.
As one would expect, Trevor's wife, Rona (Joyce Van Patten), pays him a surprise visit, and while he's at work meets the waitress, Debbie (Julie York). Rona plays along and doesn't let on that she's Trevor's wife. After Debbie leaves, Rona's privately losing her cool when a neighbor named Kurt (Mort Sahl) drops in and starts hitting on her. She agrees to accompany Kurt to Trevor's birthday party down in the club, for which she wears a disguise. "Mary" has a dance with Trevor and he hits on her, not knowing that she's Rona. Back with Debbie, he finds out that Rona's in town, and realizes that Mary is her.
Not letting on that he knows who she is, he takes her up to his apartment and starts making the moves on her. She starts aggressively making out with him, then he calls a halt to it and tells her that he's married and loves his wife. She starts breaking out of character, eventually removes her wig and Jackie O. sunglasses, and he acts surprised. She actually apologizes to Trevor for distrusting him, and prepares to give him his birthday present.
Debbie made this segment. She seemed like a very nice girl.
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That was a serious oversight.
I guess if she knew how it was done, she'd have made the duplicate herself. And try finding the spares in that cluttered jewelry/pawn/whatever shop!
Friday does the lecturing in this neck of the woods. See what I did there?
Only belatedly, but it's very early.
That's a pretty interesting character to use up in a half-hour show.
Friday should have put him to work for the LAPD. "Only YOU can prevent pot from leading to stronger stuff!"
They should have written it as Friday and Gannon on a fishing trip.
They'd have to arrest some poachers or something, because they can't do an otherwise format-breaking episode without having somebody get sentenced at the end.
Blame Suzanne Pleshette--she's an anti-stripper!
Where they'll be arrested by Five-0 for trying to defraud Jonathan Harris.
And in his testimony, he'd start making with the alliterative insults.
Noah Bane from It Takes A Thief (another show I'd love to see turn up on one of these channels).
I think most people in these parts associate him with a different role...
Maybe one's the stunt double.
But why would they need a...never mind.
Yeah, New York has noses like Boston has teeth.
It was case after case of "She's cute, but you don't normally see a schnozz like that on TV..."
Some factoids I neglected to drop regarding one of this week's chart entries...
Wiki said:
"I'll Be There" was The Jackson 5's fourth number-one hit in a row (after "I Want You Back" in 1969, "ABC" and "The Love You Save" earlier in 1970), making them the first group to have their first four singles reach number one and the first black Male group with four consecutive number-one pop hits. "I'll Be There" is also notable as the most successful single released by Motown during its "Detroit era" (1959–72).
The most successful single ever released by the Jackson 5, "I'll Be There" sold 4.2 million copies in the United States, and 6.1 million copies worldwide. It replaced Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" as the most successful single released on Motown in the U.S., a record it held until the release of Lionel Richie's duet with Diana Ross, "Endless Love" (1981).
But...
"I'll Be There" was the Jackson 5's final number-one Hot 100 hit as a group.
Regal claims that the items in his possession were lost by campers and he's going to return them when his lecture tour is over. It's found that one of the credit cards belongs to a man who reported his wallet missing after one of Regal's lectures the night before; and that a woman reported credit cards and a diamond ring missing after attending a conservation seminar that he talked at.
Phyllis explains the situation that Mary's coming out of to Rhoda...she was supporting her fiance during his internship, but when he was done, he put the marriage on hold.