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Punch & Judy. Despite the emphasis on violence, few crime shows are very frightening. The general ineptitude of the writing, acting and direction in such programs as Rocky King, Mark Saber, Big Town, Boston Blackie and Front Page Detective makes it impossible to take them with any more seriousness than so many Punch & Judy shows. Even those done on a slightly higher level of technical competence have peculiar quirks of their own: Treasury Men in Action suffers from a tendency to explain everything twice; Racket Squad aims at exposing the tricks of confidence men but has a hard time working up sympathy for its victims, since they are just as larcenous at heart as the swindlers who fleece them. Martin Kane has changed its leading man four times (William Gargan, Lloyd Nolan, Lee Tracy, Mark Stevens)—oftener than it has changed its plot. Two crime shows, China Smith and Du Mont's Colonel Humphrey Flack are played for laughs, while two others, Foreign Intrigue and Orient Express, gain some freshness of face and background by being filmed and largely cast in Europe.
TV crime seems to have reached a saturation point of about 20 network shows a week. Most abide by an unwritten rule not to go on the air before 9 in the evening, when impressionable moppets are supposedly in bed. But ABC's hour-long The Mask has broken the taboo by starting at 8 p.m. on Sunday nights. Only two future network shows are scheduled (a revival of Mr. & Mrs. North; and 21st Precinct, starring Paul Kelly) but they will probably do no more than replace other crime shows due to expire because of sponsor failure.