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The F.B.I. [8.8]

The F.B.I. Plot Summary

The fourth series from Quinn Martin Productions after "The New Breed", "The Fugitive", and "Twelve O´Clock High", "The F.B.I." was Quinn Martin´s longest running series. It was unique as its stories were apparently supervised by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover himself, no less. (Martin later allowed that Hoover was less concerned with the storylines but watched over the presentation of proper Bureau procedure with eagle eyes.)

In its first year, the show allowed occasional human moments. Inspector Lewis Erskine lost his wife in a job-related shoot-out. His daughter, Barbara, was engaged to Special Agent Jim Rhodes, a match not altogether approved of by Erskine.

Barbara was gone after the first year. Jim Rhodes lingered on for another season before being replaced by Special Agent Tom Colby who stayed on till 1973. Another agent, Chris Daniels was added in the ninth and final year of the show.

The father figure to Erskine - quite the paternal presence himself - was Assistant Director Arthur Ward who sent Erskine and Colby off to chase embezzlers, racketeers, murderers, fugitives, serial killers, extortioners, forgers, saboteurs and other assorted worthies. However, the show stayed clear from social or political issues except in the broadest of terms.

After the week´s entry, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. would step from behind the part of Inspector Erskine and directly address the audience, asking for help to catch criminals on the run.

"The F.B.I." - being a Quinn Martin show co-produced with Warner Brothers Television - meant that certain actors Martin liked to work with were often re-cast in different parts. Further, he had access to Warner's stable of contract players.

Recasting is quite the usual run of things in any given television series, but Martin often cast recurring parts with different actors, frequently within the same season. Since these changes concerned mostly the Bureau agents assisting Erskine, Rhodes and Colby with their cases, notes - the "FBI Carousel Bulletins" - have been added in order to keep track of the various actors and their often shared parts.

The show was sponsored by the Ford company which provided numerous vintage cars for chasing, crashing, and, occasionally, simple transportation. Special thanks go to Fred Farkel for his automobile notes.

After Watergate, the public´s perception of the American government and its institutions was changed forever. In 1974, "The F.B.I." was cancelled after 9 years and 240 episodes.

A later show, "Today's FBI", was met with lukewarm response and even more colder ratings. In "Mancuso, F.B.I.", Robert Loggia's interesting portrait of a "dinosaur" agent from the Hoover era working in the modern PC climate met with no greater success. It was only in the nineties that the F.B.I. rose to greater and somewhat more dubious prominence. The success of the movie, "The Silence of the Lambs", inspired Chris Carter for "The X-Files", a long-running show which combined F.B.I. crime-solving techniques with one agent's maverick research of the paranormal. This show portrayed the Bureau as an institution at odds with itself, running on bureaucratic steam and losing touch with its original purpose - certainly a far cry from the stern action series it was preceded by twenty years ago.



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