My Favorite 1960s Dragnet #5: Juvenile: DR 19
Dragnet’s focus on child abuse comes into full focus in this gut-wrenching episode, as Friday tries to help a boy who is being abused by his mother.
The show shines a light on child abuse and the problems faced by the police force in trying to protect children. It’s a moving and heart-renching story.
It’s also pretty illustrative of how Webb could invoke emotion without needing to be graphic. We don’t actually see the results of abuse, but we see the actors’ reactions which are just as real.
Jack Webb had it down pat! The answer is for all normal adults to love every child as they do their own.
This isn’t talking about simply ‘spanking’ a child. This is a terrible epidemic of true abuse that is STILL going on today. Thanks, Adam. Good choice!
Oh, and that punishment…NOT NEAR enough!
This definitely was a gut wrenching episode. You could tell how this case affected Friday and how he was involved in this one. In my opinion, the only parent(s) more despicable than the mother in “Juvenile DR 19” were the self-centered couple in the season 2 episode “The Little Victim”. I wonder if both of these cases were investigated and tried in 2010 rather than 1967 and 1968, would the outcomes been different?
I’m not sure. The courts are so messed up now…who knows.
[…] 10) DR-19 […]