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One beef on Dragnet and Jack Webb is that the bad cop is never portrayed. Webb responded to this in a 1972 interview with TV Guide:
We’ve admitted many times that the police make mistakes, both on Dragnet and Adam-12. People tend to forget that; nobody can possibly see or remember all the shows we’ve made.
Regarding not being able to see all the shows, Webb hadn’t met me. 🙂 However, one show that contained the baddest cop in the history of Dragnet is this Season 3 episode, “Administrative Vice: DR29” where Friday finds himself partner to a seasoned vice cop gone bad by the name of Drucker, perhaps the worst cop gone bad in all of Dragnet history. Friday really has to walk a careful line and do everything just right to protect his own career and integrity. This is a sensational highlight of the lackluster Season 3 as Lt. Drucker proves a worthy opponent for Sgt. Friday.
The episode also illustrates Webb’s view of how bad cops should be portrayed:
If I do a story of a crooked or a disturbed policeman, either he’ll be eliminated from the department or he’ll be straightened out and remain on. But I won’t just leave it raw. I think it’s improper reporting not to tell the other side of the story. Of course, you sacrifice something in the area of sensationalism when you do that. Dragnet and Adam-12 aren’t as exciting as the Wambaugh books or “Dirty Harry” in that respect; we don’t have the heavies inside the department itself. We’re not doing stories about the guys we know will eventually be weeded out. We’re doing stories about everyday working policemen.
Webb understood the power of television. He chose to tell it the way it usually happened, rather than finding an aberration and emphasizing it as many TV and movie producers have done in the search for higher ratings. Webb, however held the firm moral high ground in portraying honest police department that rooted out the bad apples.