Decoy (TV series)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beverly Garland as Officer Casey Jones in a 1958 episode of Decoy.

Decoy (also titled Decoy Police Woman on some DVD releases) was a groundbreaking American police procedural television series which was created for syndication and initially broadcast from October 14, 1957 to July 7, 1958, lasting for 39 30-minute black and white episode. The series starred Beverly Garland as Casey Jones, a female police officer who is often assigned to work undercover (hence becoming the "decoy" of the title). The cast changed each week with Garland the only main continuing character, although there were several recurring characters, mostly her commanding officer and immediate colleagues.

The series was inspired by Jack Webb's Dragnet and used a similar format to that series, with Jones being portrayed as a serious, by-the-book, yet sympathetic cop with no personal life outside of her job. In the episode "The Sound of Tears", she reveals that the man she loved was a police officer who was shot and killed by the man he was sent to bring in.

Decoy is of historical significance as it was the first American television series to focus on the work of a female police officer. The series also featured early performances by actors such as Larry Hagman, Peter Falk, Al Lewis and Martin Balsam. Each episode was dedicated to the Bureau of Policewomen of the New York Police Department.

Many episodes focused on females being victims of crime and most episodes ended with Garland breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience about the case just solved. Now in the public domain in the United States, about a dozen episodes of the series have so far seen limited release on DVD issues by several different companies.