The WORST episodes of Dragnet
Every episode of Dragnet ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Dragnet!
Dragnet 1967-1970 was the second run of the Dragnet series. It began in January of 1967, and ran to September of 1970. The lead character, Sgt. Joe Friday, was played by Jack Webb, who also directed and produced the series. The show's focus is on two detectives, Sgt. Joe Friday, and Officer Bill Gannon, played by Harry Morgan. The two track down criminals all throughout the city of Los Angeles, California. The original "Dragnet" was the grandfather of ALL of today's police drama shows. This was the first time a cancelled network TV series was successfully revived. In late 1965, Universal and NBC hired Webb to revive "Dragnet" as a made-for-TV movie. This was filmed in early 1966, but didn't air until January 1969. Titled "World Premiere: Dragnet," the well-made film has Friday and Gannon linking the slayings of photographer's models to the disappearance of a war widow, while Gannon prepares to retire.
#1 - Juvenile - DR-05
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/26/1968
Joe and Bill are working the night watch of Juvenile division. They handle a run away boy from New York, an underage marriage, an abandoned baby, a boy on drugs, and a girl accused of stealing money.
#2 - Frauds - DR-28
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/20/1969
Joe and Bill investigate someone who has fraudulently obtained disability checks. This person has been renting apartments and only using them as a mail drop. Joe and Bill meet with a group of apartment owners to ask for their help.
#3 - The Joy Riders
Season 3 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/13/1969
A 15-year-old car thief is given a tour of the jail in an attempt to impress him of the consequences for choosing crime. Unfortunately, it doesn't work - the young man later kills someone with a shotgun.
#4 - Administrative Vice - DR-29
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/6/1969
Joe has a new partner, Lt. Chris Drucker while Bill recovers from the flu. Joe and Chris are trying to catch bookies. Drucker is really working for the bookies and has been tipping them off when a raid is planned. Drucker tries to bribe Joe to help him.
#5 - B.O.D. - DR-27
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/23/1969
Joe and Bill are assigned to the Business Office Division. A priest is in the division to observe its operation. Joe and Bill work a series of problems from a potential tidal wave, a wino, protesters, a suicide, and a lost boy.
#6 - Homicide - DR-22
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/9/1969
Joe and Bill are called to an apartment where the manager has found a young woman bound and dead. The 91 year old manager of the apartment building is a suspect until joe find out that the old man was chief of detectives in Chicago. Finger prints lead Joe and Bill to a couple.
#7 - Narcotics - DR-16
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/5/1968
Someone is selling LSD to teens. Joe and Bill are asked to speak to a local High School group that want to form an anti drug club "Smart Teens". They plan to create posters and Joe gets a Disney artist to draw them. But will the kids follow through?
#8 - Public Affairs - DR-14
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/28/1968
Joe and Bill have been asked by a store owner to help him form a crime prevention group of neighborhood story owners. Most of the story owners are not convinced they need such a group until two robberies occur.
#9 - Training - DR-18
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/21/1968
Joe and Bill are instructors at the Police Academy. They are teaching a class of women cadets. Joe is asked to assist a woman reporter who is writing a story about women in the police force. On of the cadets is being pressured to resign by her boy friend and Joe must convince her to stay.
#10 - Robbery - DR-15
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/7/1968
Joe and Bill are working the robbery desk. They handle a variety of complaints about a truck hijacking, a bank robbery and a robbery of a neighborhood market. A woman complains about "thieving birds" and another thinks her wallet had been stolen, but misplaced it in her coat.
#11 - Police Commission - DR-13
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/17/1968
There is a police crackdown on dishonest tow truck operators. Joe and Bill are assigned to investigate 6 complaints against the same tow truck company.
#12 - Management Services - DR-11
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/10/1968
Joe and Bill are called back to work because of an emergency. It's April 4, 1968, and Dr Martin Luther King has been assassinated less than an hour ago. They are assigned to the police emergency control center to monitor potential unrest in the LA area
#13 - Community Relations - DR-10
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/3/1968
Joe and Bill attend a meeting of the East LA Graduates Union, attempting to recruit recent minority high school graduates into the police academy. A black patrol officer joins their efforts until his house in vandalized and he decides to resign from the force. Joe tries to change his mind.
#14 - Juvenile - DR-19
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/27/1969
Joe and Bill are asked to investigate allegation of child abuse by his mother. The story deals with the difficulty of having a child removed from an abusive home.
#15 - Public Affairs - DR-07
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/19/1968
Joe and Bill appear on the TV talk show "Speak Your Mind" debating the topic "The Police, Who Needs Them?" with a professor and a hippie (played by Howard Hessman, though listed in the credits as Don Sturdy).
#16 - The Big Problem
Season 2 - Episode 28 - Aired 3/28/1968
Community relations is the theme, as Friday and Gannon try to narrow the gap between the Department and the citizens it is sworn "to protect and to serve." The gap is especially wide between African-Americans and the primarily Caucasian LAPD, as demonstrated when a young - and slightly militant - black man barracades himself in his apartment rather than submit to a traffic warrant.
#17 - The Gambler
Season 2 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/21/1968
Over $100,000 has been embezzled from an industrial company. An investigation of the employees leads Friday and Gannon to a habitual gambler.
#18 - The Suicide Attempt
Season 2 - Episode 24 - Aired 2/29/1968
Friday and Gannon learn that a young man has called his mother from Hollywood "to say goodbye." With the help of the man's sister, the two detectives trace the impending suicide to a hotel with over 1,200 rooms.
#19 - The Squeeze
Season 2 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/22/1968
An ex-con accused of extortion is interrogated. He calmly and smugly insists that he is innocent, but Friday and Gannon have a surprise for him: taped conversations and a voice analysis device.
#20 - The Big Clan
Season 2 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/8/1968
Sgt. Friday is offered a bribe to assist a gypsy family trying to gain control of the gypsy community.
#21 - The Search
Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/4/1968
Two small girls, ages three and five, are missing. Their mother is certain that her ex-husband, an alcoholic, has kidnapped them. However, he is now in recovery and has no knowledge of the girls' whereabouts. The search seems hopeless until Friday and Gannon, acting on information from a former neighbor, follow a hunch.
#22 - The Phony Police Racket
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/7/1967
Friday and Gannon investigate a scam involving a phony LAPD newsletter, which comes with a card for subscribers entitling the bearer to preferential treatment from the police.
#23 - The Pyramid Swindle
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/30/1967
A female con-artist uses an evangelistic approach to lure buyers into her pyramid scheme. The Bunco division can't charge her with false advertising, so they prosecute her for operating a lottery.
#24 - The Big Frustration
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/19/1967
Sgt. Carl Maxwell, a frustrated fellow detective, goes AWOL; Friday and Gannon have three days to track him down before Maxwell loses his badge for good.
#25 - The Bank Jobs
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/5/1967
A nervy bank robber uses innocent women to help commit his crimes. Friday and Gannon are nearly sidetracked when one of the victims lies about her involvement and later proves to have a criminal record of her own.