A real sensation in its day.

When watching the earliest episodes of Dragnet, or even listening to the early episodes that were on radio, it is easy to see why this show was such a hit at the time. I would compare the reaction it received in the early 50's to the way audiences reacted to NYPD Blue in 1993. The show represented a quantum leap in realism from the earlier, stylized sorts of cop shows that had been the norm prior to it.

With Jack Webb's obsession with realism (or at least realism as he saw it), audiences got an entirely different view of police work. For the first time, we as viewers got an insider's view of police work, and the results were quite interesting.

Today, it is just as much fun to watch these shows for the statement they make about the times in which they were produced. In fact, by our standards, the entire decade of the 1950's was highly stylized. I recently picked up a DVD collection of early Dragnet episodes, about 25 of them at Best Buy, for about $16. It is a great deal of fun to watch these, and it is easy to see why the LA police department came to think of Webb as one of their own. It's a real shame that Webb is largely unknown to younger viewers, because he was a true pioneer. Modern television owes much to this thoroughly interesting man.