President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon on this date. It also marked the final time The FBI ran on ABC, after almost nine years on the air.
As we know, it was a very fitting end to the series, since it had frequent villain Peter Mark Richman, and William Reynolds as Tom Colby. Mr. Reynolds had appeared in a precursor movie, FBI Code 98, which was filmed around late 1961 or in 1962, and had appeared in one capacity in all nine seasons of the show.
In an era in which this country is dealing with a pandemic and political unrest that is far worse than the Watergate turmoil that was just winding down as this episode aired. It had been a far cry from September 1965, when the show debuted, and there seemed to be relative peace in the United States itself.
It’s also a pity that this show isn’t airing on Amazon Prime or some other streaming channel. We’re lucky that all 241 episodes are available on disc, but it may be due to political sensitivities of these days that the series isn’t airing.
And that’s too bad.
The FBI was itself a groundbreaking show, in that it portrayed one of the foremost crime-fighting agencies in the world. The show itself ran nine years on ABC, and had both terrific production values and terrific acting from veterans such as Gene Tierney and Maurice Evans to up-and-coming performers such as Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton. Like the anthology series The Twilight Zone, The FBI had a vast array of guest performers, many of whom appeared in both shows.
While The FBI might have seemed like it was a little bit spent in terms of its energy 46 years ago tonight, it had a great run. Eleven days from now, we’ll get a chance to celebrate the 55th anniversary of its debut. We’ll have plenty to talk about then!