It's weird how influential Dragnet was in the 1950's. Even TV westerns tried to be Dragnet-like. One such show was Trackdown starring Robert Culp as a Texas Ranger. The title and theme music were vaguely Dragnet-like. There was also a show called 26 Men based on real cases of the Arizona Rangers.
The trouble was that Dragnet was a police procedural and people in the Old West didn't have any procedures to follow. It would be like a medical drama set in the Old West. They didn't know enough for it to be of any interest.
Westerns are about ignorant people with guns who follow a simplistic moral code that they still can't understand or explain.
I watched an episode of Trackdown over the weekend. Robert Culp tries to arrest a guy who appears to be trying to break into a hotel room. The guy tries to flee. He's clearly unarmed and is trying to climb out a window, so Robert Culp shoots him. And apparently this wouldn't be a problem except it turns out to be young teenager he just killed.
The town turns against him. The narrator explains that the townspeople forgot all the times Robert Culp killed people who WEREN'T high school kids.
It doesn't really make sense, but he is somehow proven right when it turns out that the kid's father had been the criminal robbing people and the young fellow was trying to get his loot, maybe to return it, I guess. The boy's mother kills his father because she blames him for her son being killed, which also doesn't make complete sense.
In the end, the woman who runs the town newspaper (Ellen Corby) assures Robert Culp that, in a week or two, the town will forget all about him shooting a helpless unarmed teenager in the back.
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