FBI Portrayal in Media - Radio and Television

Radio and Television

One early portrayal of the G-Men image was a 1935 radio program produced in collaboration with J. Edgar Hoover titled G-Men. Hoover wished to depict the FBI's successes as the product of teamwork rather than the heroics of individual agents. His concept, however, did not translate well into mass entertainment. The show was soon re-conceptualized and renamed Gang Busters and was quite successful, with a 21 year run and spin-offs as a movie serial in the 1940s, a big little book, a DC comic book, and a television series in the 1950s.

Two other popular radio shows based on the activities of the Bureau were The FBI in Peace and War, and the Bureau-approved series This is Your FBI.

In 1965, Warner Bros. Television produced a long-running television series called The F.B.I., based in part on concepts from their 1959 film The FBI Story. The series, which ran until 1974, was taken from actual FBI cases, told through the eyes of fictitious agent Louis Erskine (played by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.). Epilogues to most episodes included Zimbalist stepping out of character to warn viewers of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives," years before the premiere of Fox's America's Most Wanted. After the show was cancelled, WB TV continued to produce TV movies based on the FBI. Recent disclosures of memos by the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the real FBI had casting control over the show. Both Bette Davis and Robert Blake were banned from appearing, citing "conflicting political" differences on crime in general. In 1981, the show was completely revived with entirely new cast and production crew as Today's F.B.I., with Mike Connors, but it only lasted one season. A remake of the original series, also called The F.B.I., was planned by Imagine Entertainment for airing on the Fox network for the Fall of 2008, but as of August 2009, it had not yet been produced.

The CBS television series Wiseguy, (1987-1990), featured agent Vinnie Terranova as an undercover operative infiltrating the mafia and other criminal organizations for a fictional "Organized Crime Bureau" of the FBI in a series of story arcs. The series focused on the mechanics of being undercover and the psychological impact of undercover work on the agent.

From February 3, 1989 to April 14, 1989 the television series Unsub featured an elite FBI forensic team that investigates serial murderers and other violent crimes.

From 1990 to 1991, the television series Twin Peaks featured the fictitious FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, beginning with the investigation of the murder of small-town homecoming queen Laura Palmer, and included repeated references to the FBI.

As described in "FBI on The Sopranos", a major plotline on the fictional HBO drama, The Sopranos, has been the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) ongoing pursuit of the Dimeo (New Jersey) and Lupertazzi (Brooklyn) crime families. The Bureau's investigations have met with varying degrees of success.

The Fox TV network has produced some of the longest television shows based on the FBI to date. From 1993 to 2002, the popular television series The X-Files, which concerned investigations into paranormal phenomena by five fictional characters known as Special Agents Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, John Doggett, Monica Reyes, and Assistant Director Walter Skinner. This also spawned two feature films; The X-Files: Fight The Future in 1998 and The X-Files: I Want to Believe in 2008.

Beginning in 2001, the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) agency in the TV drama 24 works with, and is patterned closely after, the FBI Counterterrorism Division. A canceled show, Standoff, had premiered about negotiators in the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG). As of August 2009, America's Most Wanted was still showing profiles of people on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Beginning in 2003, Lifetime Network showed its three year television show Missing. The show began as 1-800 Missing but starting Season 2, the "1-800" was taken off.

In 2005, Fox aired Bones, a forensics and police procedural drama that pairs FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth with forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan. Each episode focuses on an FBI case file, depicting both the analysis of the human remains at the fictional Jeffersonian Institute and the investigative role of the FBI.

In 2002, Pax TV aired Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye, based on the real life of and about the world's first deaf FBI agent of the show's title. The show ran until 2005, but only ended up producing 57 episodes.

CBS has aired a number of shows that portray the FBI. In 2002, Without a Trace, about the fictional FBI missing persons unit in New York City. In 2005, CBS launched two series: Numb3rs, about FBI agents who collaborate with a mathematics professor who is the brother of the Lead Special Agent in Los Angeles, and the other called Criminal Minds, about the agents of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). In 2006, CBS launched the short-lived drama Smith, where FBI agents were in pursuit of a group of professional thieves. CBS' show NCIS, which deals, and whose planned spin-off, NCIS: Los Angeles, is intended to deal, primarily with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, often features FBI collaboration and/or good natured jurisdictional arguments.

The 2007 Spike TV series The Kill Point featured the FBI in early episodes, one agent being fatally wounded in a shootout with the antagonists and another briefly taking over the role of primary negotiator in the ensuing hostage situation.

The FBI is prominent in the seventh season of 24.

New A&E Original Series The Beast (13 episodes, January - April, 2009) was about two FBI agents, a new rookie and a veteran officer, starring Patrick Swayze and Travis Fimmel.

In September 2008, Fox premiered Fringe, created by Lost producer J. J. Abrams. The series is a slight spin off of the X-Files, as Special Agent Olivia Dunham, along with Peter Bishop and his father Dr. Walter Bishop, investigate paranormal phenomena similar to its predecessor.

In 2009, the USA Network launched a new show called White Collar, which features con-artist Neal Caffrey working with a FBI white-collar crime unit, led by his old nemesis, Peter Burke.

In the 2011 movie called In Time, there is a futuristic version of the FBI, where their mission is to hunt down a poor young laborer, Will Silas, who they believed that he is the one who murdered an extremely wealthy old businessman, Henry Hamilton. In this film, the FBI are known as the Timekeepers instead of Agents.