The FBI marked the first time QM Productions chronicled the exploits of an actual federal law enforcement body, and each episode was subject not only to general bureau approval but also the personal approval of Hoover himself. Despite this oversight, Mar­ tin reported to Newcomb and Alley that the bureau never gave him any difficulties regarding the stories produced for the show. The FBR's only quibbles had to do with depicting the proper procedure an agent would follow in any given situation.

     The FBI featured Inspector Lewis Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.). For the first two seasons, Agent Jim Rhodes (Stephen Brooks) was Erskine's associate and boyfriend to his daughter, Barbara (Lynn Loring). Agent Tom Colby (William Reynolds) was Erskine's sidekick for the remainder of the series. All the principals answered to Agent Arthur Ward (Philip Abbot). Erskine was a man of little humor and a near-obsessive devotion to his duties. Haunted by the memory of his wife, who had been killed in a job-related shoot-out, Erskine discouraged his daughter from becoming involved with an FBI agent, hoping to spare her the same pain. However, his capacity for compassion ended there. This lack of breadth and depth set Erskine apart from other protagonists in QM programs, but neither he nor his partners allowed themselves to become emotionally involved in their work, which focused on a range of crimes, from bank robbery to kidnapping to the occasional communist threat to overthrow the government.

    Martin's attempts, with his team of writer-producers, to develop a multidimensional Lewis Erskine were met with resistance from the audience. Through letters to QM and ABC, viewers expressed their desire to see a more stoic presence in Erskine-one incapable of questioning his motives or consequences from his job. Erskine, Ward, Rhodes, and Colby were asked to view themselves simply as the infantry in an endless battle against crime. The audience, apparently in need of heroes without flaws, called for and received assurance in the form of these men from the bureau. A female agent, Chris Daniels (Shelly Novack), appeared for the final season of the show.

     The series drew critical scorn but was very successful for ABC, slipping into and out of the top-20 shows for the nine years of its run, and rising to the tenth position for the 1970-71 season. Shortly after the series left the air, Martin produced two made-for-television films, The FBI versus Alvin Karpis (1974), and The FBI versus the Ku Klux Klan (1975).

     In spite of the critics' negative attitude toward the series, The FBI was Quinn Martin's most successful show. Media scholars point to the program as most emblematic of QM's approval and advocacy of strong law enforcement. The period from the late I 960s into the early 1970s was one of significant political and social turmoil. The FBI and other shows like it (Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible) proposed an answer to the call for stability and order from a video constituency confused and shaken by domestic and international events seemingly beyond its control.

     Despite this social context, however, the series differed from other QM productions in its steady avoidance of contemporary issues of social controversy. The FBI never dealt substantively with civil rights or domestic surveillance or the moral ambiguities of campus unrest related to the Vietnam War. One departure from this pattern was sometimes found in the standard device that concluded many shows: Zimbalist would present to the audience pictures of some of the most wanted criminals in the United States and request assistance in capturing them. One of the more prominent names from this segment was James Earl Ray, assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

     Within the dramatic narrative of The FBI, however, a resolute Erskine would pursue the counterfeiter or bank robber of the week bereft of any feelings or social analysis that might complicate the carrying out of his duties. For Martin, a weekly one-hour show was not the forum in which to address complex social issues. He did do so, however, in the made-for-television movies mentioned above.

     The FBI occupies a unique position in the QM oeu­vre. It is one of the most identifiable and recognizable of the QM productions. It is also representative of the genre of law-and-order television that may have assisted viewers in imposing some sense of order on a world that was often confusing and frightening.