Starring Ed O'Neill and Ethan Embry
Sunday Nights at 10pm on ABC

We need stinkin' badges.

I'm a big fan of Dick Wolf's Law and Order series. It's something like the longest running drama on television. Like pizza and sex, there's no such thing as a terrible episode. If you add up all the re-runs on TNT and the expanded series, Criminal Intent and Special Victims Unit, there's plenty of Law and Order action to fill you up.

You can add one more to that mix, Dragnet. What's that you say? It's a remake of a television series and it's on a different network than the other shows? Sure, but fundamentally, it's another Law and Order show. Let me count the ways. The executive producer is the aforementioned Dick Wolf, there's a crime and a resolution. This time though, instead of those white on black title cards, we get the deadpan narrative of detective Joe Friday. And I must say, it works really well.

This is a remake of the original Dragnet only in spirit. Unlike Joe Friday and his grandfatherly partner, Frank Smith these cops are much less square. They get to the point and they act like quintessential LAPD detectives.

There's not a ton of pics. Sorry.

It's a great show that gives you even more of that Law and Order setup that we've grown to love. The crime is heinous, there's various twists, but eventually they get their man. Unlike the old episodes which saw writer/actor Jack Webb talking smack on hippies who took 'the weed', the new incarnation is much more serious. The first episode concerned a Hillside Strangler copycat serial killer - not exactly light stuff.

Although it's addressed early in the first show, Ethan Embry's Det. Frank Smith is a little young to be a detective. It's not so much so that it proves distracting though. Embry and the fantastic Ed O'Neill make a good pair. That they do have such good chemistry isn't a surprise: Embry and O'Neill costarred in Dutch (1991) , the first time in my life I had ever seen "Al Bundy" act serious. And I liked it. Here, he's not as bland as Webb, but he brings the same jaded sensibility to the role. He's a gruff old dog that's put in plenty of time on the streets.

The fact that it's 'another Law and Order clone' may turn people off. I can't get enough though. I'm just waiting for the day when there's an all Law and Order channel. So seek it out if you can't get enough crime drama.

TV Grade: A-

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