PODCAST · arts

The Line Up - Single Episodes

by Old Time Radio

THE LINE UP With the smash success of Dragnet , many networks and producers began to play follow the leader. On NBC, Dragnet was followed up with Tales of the Texas Rangers which dramatized real life tales from the Texas Rangers. CBS countered with The Line Up , later 21st Precinct followed by Nightwatch . These shows followed the actions of policeman in the field and were as realistic as it got in a show that was pre-cursor to modern police reality dramas like Cops . The Line Up was a hard boiled drama of police action. Like Dragnet , it realistically showed police doing their jobs. Unlike Dragnet , it was not based on "cases taken from police files." Rather The Line Up made its fictional cases seem realistic, from kidnappings and murders to thefts and obscene phone calls. The Line Up radio show was not set in any particular city. However, when the series moved to television, it was set in San Francisco. The Line Up , as the title indicates, centered on a police line up. The show alwa