The show Tales of the Texas Rangers was a Dragnet-type show but done with one Texas Ranger (Jace Pearson) running the show. For those who don't know, the Texas Rangers have a history of being very relentless and are pretty much equivalent to the FBI as far as crime fighting.
In this series, Jace Pearson (played by Joel McCrea) seems to have all the answers. No crime is unsolvable. Of course you know he's going to solve every crime - this is 1950's radio.
Is it fun? Yeah it is. Even though a lot of the stories seem similar, there's a Western flair in the stories that you don't get from the other real-crime shows on OTR. This at least makes the show different than Dragnet, yet the similarities remain. We get to "see" some of the behind-the-scenes crime fighting, such as lab work. The cases are based on real cases that happened in Texas, most seem to be from the 1920's or 1930's.
The one drawback - and it's a major one - is how bad the sound can be throughout the whole series. Very few of the files I have heard are easy to listen to. Whoever transferred them over from tape did a horrible job at it. The bass is booming and well, it just sounds bad most of the time.
It's really too bad because I like the series a lot. I've actually tried to fix the files but it's no use... I'll give the show 4.5 stars but since the files are all horrible sounding, it gets marked down to a 2.5. It can be a trying experience listening to the show.
©Jimbo 2010/2011
Pretty much agree with you on this one. It is a show that I really look forward to listening to. I like Joel McCrea in this one. The shows usually are not complicated and easy to follow. Yet interesting enough to keep you interested. It is a good show.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment BB.
ReplyDeleteIf I had a wish for one show to have great-sounding files - I think I would fix this show.