Adam-12 - Season One

Dragnet creator-star Jack Webb's imprimatur is all over this first full season (1968) of Adam-12, a consistently entertaining look at the on-the-job lives of a couple of Los Angeles patrol officers. No surprise there: Webb co-created and produced Adam-12 as well (he also directed the first episode) and his sensibility--square, old-fashioned, low on frills-- imbues the 26 episodes included in this set.

Martin Milner stars as Pete Malloy, a veteran cop whose new partner (following the death of the previous one) is Jim Reed (Kent McCord), a rookie who's more than a little wet behind the ears. The show follows them as they make the rounds in their police black & white, dealing with all manner of circumstances, from the mundane (traffic violations, petty domestic disputes, noise complaints) to the monstrous (murder, drugs, child abuse, suicide). Each about 25 minutes long, the episodes chronicle the quotidian vicissitudes of these men in uniform, as opposed to the detectives, forensic experts, lawyers, and such who populate today's cop shows. Whatever the storyline, the tone is fairly tame, with none of the graphic violence common to later cop shows. And while the '65 Watts riots had already taken place, Rodney King, the Rampart scandal, and numerous other ugly events were far in the future. Thus Adam-12 evinces little or none of the now-vast divide (most of it racially based) that exists between the LAPD and much of the community; on this show, the cops are the good guys, without much nuance (which helps explain its popularity with real police officers). That's certainly not all bad; Adam-12's realism (for its time) and lack of pretension are refreshing, and the show is looser and not nearly as humorless as Dragnet. The packaging is as basic as the show itself--there are no extras whatsoever, with two double-sided discs containing all 26 episodes. --Sam Graham

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