CASTING 'DRAGNET' REVAMPED DETECTIVE SERIES SHAKES UP THE ORIGINAL FORMULA WITH ED O'NEILL AND ETHAN EMBRY AS PARTNERS IN CRIME-FIGHTING.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

Don't hold your breath waiting for Ed O'Neill's Joe Friday to utter such a trite phrase as ``Just the facts, ma'am.''

On the other hand, it's highly unlikely that in the 1950s you would have heard the dialogue or even seen a story line concerning a sexual assault that's featured in the first episode of Dick Wolf's updated ``Dragnet.''

The title is there, the characters' names have been maintained to protect the familiarity, and that easily recognized ``dum-dah-dum-dum'' is the core of the techno-jazz theme music.

But ABC's new incarnation of the Los Angeles Police Department detective drama, premiering at 10 p.m. Sunday, is a grittier, more realistic version of the show that began as a 1949 radio program and became one of the most-watched cop series for NBC in the '50s and late '60s.

O'Neill, a versatile actor who will long be burdened or blessed with the legacy of Al Bundy on ``Married ... With Children,'' is an analytical Detective Friday, as was series creator and star Jack Webb. But O'Neill carries his No. 714 badge on his belt instead in a wallet, and he delivers his lines with a natural ease that is the antithesis of Webb's deliberate monotone.

He's the rookie

His partner is no longer a seasoned peer in the department, as was Ben Alexander's Frank Smith or Harry Morgan's Bill Gannon. At 27, Ethan Embry (``Sweet Home Alabama'') already has taken some flak for his youth; the Entertainment Weekly review called him ``Doogie Howser, LAPD,'' a crack that made him laugh and offended him at the same time.

But Bill Stoner, the retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department detective who serves as the show's technical adviser, said the mentor-student dynamic in the Friday-Smith partnership happens often in real police departments. Smith is written as being fresh out of the vice squad and still somewhat unaccustomed to the squeamish sights of homicide work.

There's plenty here to be squeamish about. While the original series had Joe Friday solving what may surely be the most bloodless homicides ever committed, the new one depicts the gory details of, say, a three-days-dead corpse with evidence compromised by ``animal and insect activity.''

Friday's narration has been broadened here from a dry who-what-when-where accounting to an insight into how Friday himself sees Los Angeles and the people he encounters in a day's work.

Crime drama DOES pay

Robert Nathan, a co-executive producer and writer, said there were two main reasons to resurrect the ``Dragnet'' brand. ``One of them is an immediately identifiable name, and then there are the narrative qualities of the show that are the paradigm for procedural shows.''

With ``CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' topping the ratings, spinoff ``CSI: Miami'' leading all freshman series and three versions of Wolf's ``Law & Order'' still going strong, there appears to be enough viewer appetite for another.

``It's fascinating to me what people like about cop shows,'' O'Neill said last week in Sherman Oaks, where a crime scene segment was being filmed. ``They go on and on forever - and people love them. And I was asking Bill Stoner, and he said it's life and death. And it's things that people want to experience and not do.

``So they can watch a show and get in that morgue and get in that autopsy. God forbid they'd actually have to do it, but they can kind of see what happens.''

O'Neill has played more than a few detectives - in the feature film ``The Bone Collector,'' TV's ``Popeye Doyle'' and the short-lived 2001 David Milch drama ``The Big Apple.'' He looks at home with the nondescript blue suit, the brush cut and the sensible shoes.

``Ed is a natural,'' Stoner said at the shoot. ``Ed could walk into any homicide bureau in the United States and be accepted without question.''

The real thing

For O'Neill, the professional swagger and utterance of terms of the trade are just an actor doing his job. He said that notion was impressed upon him by a couple of retired New York cops he got to know.

``There's nothing else in life that they would rather have done than be detectives in the New York City Police Department,'' he said, shifting to an East Coast accent. ``'Whoever you are, whatever you do - you're an actor. It's nice, you make a lot of money, fine - but you don't do what I do, pal.' ''

Embry said no one, nine episodes into filming, has yet said, ``Just the facts, ma'am.'' Yet keeping that line in the back of his mind has helped him understand his character better. ``He does this every day, it's nothing to him, it's 'just the facts.' ''

Embry handled the real revolver on his hip, the leather holster he had to break in, the steel-shanked belt that holds them with the badge and handcuffs. He said he was in full wardrobe when he took a walk during a break on a recent night shoot downtown.

``People look at cops differently,'' he observed. ``You don't get the same reaction as people with the badge on.

``I got a free coffee out of it,'' he added with a laugh. ``But I just put the money in the tip jar because I thought it was too funny.''

Stoner, who spent 14 years as a detective in the sheriff's department, offers his input on everything from plot points and dialogue to body language. He said he appreciates the producers' attention to accuracy, which extends to using some real firefighters and uniformed LAPD officers in backgrounds.

``That makes it easier for me,'' Stoner said. ``Sometimes you get an extra who walks around holding a gun, looking down the barrel, and you go, 'Whoa, wait a minute.' ''

He believes ``Dragnet'' could be good for the troubled police department, whether its employees are loyal viewers or not.

``I think they'll be very proud of this show,'' he said. ``I think it'll do the same that the original show did, which is give them back some national pride.''

DRAGNET

What: ``Law & Order'' creator Dick Wolf takes up where Jack Webb left off with detective Joe Friday's Los Angeles-based crime stories.

Where: ABC (Channel 7).

When: 10 p.m. Sunday.

It's a desk job

Ethan Embry, playing Detective Frank Smith in the new ``Dragnet,'' has spent some time at Parker Center while researching his role, and he already has a soft spot for the place and its inhabitants.

``It's a big club, you know,'' he said of the department. ``I never did have a treehouse. I feel like I have one now. It's called Parker Center, Mom.''

It's too soon to say what would happen on the series if the real Parker Center, home base for Smith and partner Joe Friday, were to be torn down for a new building.

But Embry has a suggestion about how to handle financing the construction - those heavy-duty gray metal desks used on the set and still in use by the hundreds at Parker Center.

``Those things are expensive now if you buy them off Beverly Boulevard,'' he said. ``They probably wouldn't have to (worry about the money) if they just got new desks. They could have a sale on Beverly Boulevard and then go down to IKEA.

``Hold on - let me call (Chief) Bratton,'' he added with a smile.

- Valerie Kuklenski

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color -- cover) Just the facts ma'am

Ed O'Neill and Ethan Embry bring L.A.'s classic TV cops into the modern world with ABC's new `Dragnet'

(2) Ed O'Neill, left, and Ethan Embry star in ``Dragnet.''

(3) no caption (Ethan Embry)

Box:

It's a desk job (see text)