"This is the city—Los Angeles, California."
Dragnet 1968 has a still-viable topic for its opening episode: a young terrorist lashing out at those his own age who have considered him an outcast. A troubled male teenager pours sulfuric acid on the shoulder of a high school letterman (a buff Jan-Michael Vincent!), ruining his jacket, resulting in a bad burn that could have been much worse. This is only the precursor to a more dangerous situation: Gerald Paulson (Mickey Sholder), still seething with pent-up aggression, lashes out at his parents who were scolding him for a minor arrest for the use of a caustic chemical as a weapon, packs a live grenade, and seems like he will detonate it at a party full of kids who didn't like him! The finale is as intense as you will see on the Dragnet series, Sgt Joe Friday and his partner Bill Gannon (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan) will have to somehow stop Gerald (his finger ready to pull the pin, a party of teenagers scared for their lives, a volatile, disturbed mind that could go off and commit a massacre) from detonating the grenade! This episode has a strong conversation sequence, topical and thought-provoking because it touches on universal themes regarding parenthood and the inability to control the worsening juvenile crime rate (not to mention, teenage behavior as the economy allows more money to enter the households of suburbia), between Friday and Gannon about the why's and how's that determine the criminality of youth (Are they born "sour"? Are the parents to blame?). Good way to open the second season of the 60s reprisal of Dragnet. Advertised at the theater where the acid incident took place was "Dr. Zhivago" for celluloid buffs. That is a young Heather Menzies (Logan's Run: The Series; Piranha) as the girlfriend of Vincent in the theater! It is neat to discover familiar faces so young on television shows like Dragnet 1968.
Dragnet 1968 has a still-viable topic for its opening episode: a young terrorist lashing out at those his own age who have considered him an outcast. A troubled male teenager pours sulfuric acid on the shoulder of a high school letterman (a buff Jan-Michael Vincent!), ruining his jacket, resulting in a bad burn that could have been much worse. This is only the precursor to a more dangerous situation: Gerald Paulson (Mickey Sholder), still seething with pent-up aggression, lashes out at his parents who were scolding him for a minor arrest for the use of a caustic chemical as a weapon, packs a live grenade, and seems like he will detonate it at a party full of kids who didn't like him! The finale is as intense as you will see on the Dragnet series, Sgt Joe Friday and his partner Bill Gannon (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan) will have to somehow stop Gerald (his finger ready to pull the pin, a party of teenagers scared for their lives, a volatile, disturbed mind that could go off and commit a massacre) from detonating the grenade! This episode has a strong conversation sequence, topical and thought-provoking because it touches on universal themes regarding parenthood and the inability to control the worsening juvenile crime rate (not to mention, teenage behavior as the economy allows more money to enter the households of suburbia), between Friday and Gannon about the why's and how's that determine the criminality of youth (Are they born "sour"? Are the parents to blame?). Good way to open the second season of the 60s reprisal of Dragnet. Advertised at the theater where the acid incident took place was "Dr. Zhivago" for celluloid buffs. That is a young Heather Menzies (Logan's Run: The Series; Piranha) as the girlfriend of Vincent in the theater! It is neat to discover familiar faces so young on television shows like Dragnet 1968.