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… More 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.
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… More 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.
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… More 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.
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… More 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.
The FBI is my favorite cop show of all times. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. does a great job playing the tireless, dedicated Inspector Lewis Erskine, an agent for J. Edgar Hoover's finest. hide show
A great classic cop show with the cooperation of legendary FBI director J.Edgar Hoover. The series ran from 1965 to 1974. This show covered a lot of ground dealing with federal offenses(Communist Spies, Sabotage, Crimes on Federal Reservations, Dwyer act Violations(Stolen cars), Labor Racketeering, Organized Crime, Bank Robberies, Extortion, etc). Efrem Zimbalist Jr. gives a great performance as Inspector Lew Erskine. A dedicated, hard working agent for J. Edgar Hoover's finest. I have not seen this show in re-runs in over twenty years. I do want to see this series out on DVD like all the other shows out there. A lot of great guest stars(i.e. Charles Bronson, James Caan, Stephanie Powers, Lee Meriweather, Bruce Dern, Martin Sheen, Jack Lord and others) made appearances on various episodes during the run of this series.
Another hit show from QM(Quinn Martin) Productions. With the agents and the guest stars driving Ford Motor Company Cars. A major sponsor of the series.
1960's cop show that stood above other cop shows at the time. The stories were based on true FBI cases that were really entertaining and really realistic. The acting in the show was great including a great cast of guest stars like Burt Reynolds and Harris hide show
This was a great tv cop show that aired in the mid 60's. All the leads of this show did very well. From what I know is that the cases from the show were real cases from the FBI. Another cool thing about this show were the guest stars that appeared on the show. There was James Farentino, Burt Reynolds, and my favorite actor, Harrison Ford that apeared in two episodes called "Caesar's Wife" and "Scapegoat". Seeing all of these soon to be stars on the show is just fun to watch. This was a great cop show that well deserves to be put on DVD.
The story of the cases pursued by Inspector Erskine of the FBI and the outcome. hide show
Most exce3llent show for its time. Efrem Zimblist Jr does a most excellent job portraying the hard working Inspector Erskine who, like the mounties, always gets his man (or woman as the case may be). William Reynolds does a great job as his sort of partner. He is an up and coming agent being mentored and tutored by Erskine but at the same time you get the hint that he's just as smart or smater but knows when to keep his mouth shut. All in all I find it a great show. It's like a pre-requisite to Hawaii Five O.
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