Word: dragnets
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...each episode; a pro-cop attitude; and little mushy stuff about characters' personal lives. For busy viewers, the label is a godsend: decisions, decisions...ah, hell, I'll just open a can of Jerry Orbach! But now Wolf is launching an ambitious new brand: a remake for ABC of Dragnet (Sundays, 10 p.m. E.T.), the 50-plus-year-old cop show that inspired L&O's "Just the facts, ma'am" sensibility...
...West Wing's Aaron Sorkin, he delegates heavily to his staff. And because his shows emphasize stories over character development, each actor is replaceable; L&O has run since 1990 without Friends-style salary increases or creative exhaustion. "Other shows eventually descend into a kind of soap opera," says Dragnet executive producer Walon Green. "Dick's shows are really cleverly disguised anthologies." As Dragnet star Ed O'Neill notes, this means Wolf's actors don't get Emmy-clip dramatic scenes. "That 'My kitten died' stuff," he says, "that's just not going to happen...
Wolf says this with a kind of amazement: Don't these people realize TV is a business? It would be too simple, though, to paint him as a bean counter who does nothing for the love of it. Dragnet is a venture of both business and nostalgia; Wolf reminisces about being a cop-smitten tot, getting his parents to let him stay up until 9 p.m. to watch the TV series' debut. But then he shifts gears. "From a business standpoint," he says, "it's hard to launch new names. Everybody knows what Dragnet is. It's a pre-emptive...
...good thing that Wolf's Dragnet is not a slavish copy of the original. However fondly Wolf remembers it, the 1950s version doesn't hold up well, with its establishmentarian stiffness embodied by star-producer Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday. (And that's not counting the camp classic late-'60s revival in which Friday chased hippies on acid.) Casting O'Neill (Married... with Children's Al Bundy) as the new Friday may have raised titters, but O'Neill nails the role, with a hard-bitten empathy that Webb could never touch. The show also makes better use of Friday...
...Indeed, Dragnet could use even less Dragnet. It was a mistake to keep the "dum-da-DUM-dum" theme, now irrevocably ironized, and the voice-over, while not so intrusive as Webb's, moralizes too much. There's no need to persuade us that a cop finds serial killers repellent. But as you settle into the show's rhythms and well-crafted plots, you forget these glitches. You could almost be watching Law & Order...