The F.B.I.
Target of Interest
TV Flash files “Target of Interest” as a desk essential hour — The F.B.I. (1965–1974) on ABC, season 5, episode 1, aired 1969-09-14, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E01: listed hour 115 of 241 in the The F.B.I. guide, first listed hour of season 5. It aired 1969-09-14 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Moment of Truth” (S04E26). Next is “Nightmare Road” (S05E02).
Essential hour: “Target of Interest”. Target of Interest is a mid-run season door: Hoover's shadow in the lore, the badge still the whole frame.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
An espionage case opens the series' fifth season. Inspector Erskine poses as an American diplomat in love with a lady spy. He plans to provide fresh bait for a foreign embassy suspected of having already blackmailed one career diplomat to suicide.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Target of Interest sit in the The F.B.I. guide?
S05E01 is listed hour 115 of 241 — first listed hour of season 5, season 5 episode 1.
When did The F.B.I. S05E01 air?
Target of Interest aired 1969-09-14 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Zimbalist's Erskine on a federal manhunt hour is the polish: Quinn Martin case-file cool, Bureau-inspired plotting. Weekly Most Wanted energy, not a serialized mole hunt you must enter at episode one.
In the series
Why this series still plays
The F.B.I. is Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Inspector Erskine, case-file cool with the Bureau's cooperation — and J. Edgar Hoover's shadow in the production lore. Quinn Martin packaged Most Wanted energy as weekly procedural myth. Mid-sixties crime TV as official branding: federal polish, nationwide manhunts, and a series that treated the badge as drama engine and public-relations campaign.
The silhouette is a badge with a handshake. *Federal polish, Most Wanted energy, case-file cool as official branding.* The F.B.I. is Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Inspector Lewis Erskine — Quinn Martin's ABC drama (1965–1974; nine seasons, 241 episodes) packaged with the Bureau's cooperation, and J. Edgar Hoover's shadow in the production lore. Philip Abbott's Arthur Ward and William Reynolds's Tom Colby in the orbit. Dramatized cases inspired by Bureau files, spies to bank robbers. **This was not a private-eye bruise;…
Filed against
- Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Inspector Lewis Erskine
Efrem Zimbalist Jr.’s Stuart Bailey made 77 Sunset Strip Hollywood-PI cool — jazz theme, parking-lot slang, 1960s catalog detective factory with Kookie in the margins. The F.B.I. and Batman: The Animated Series stretched the same…
- Philip Abbott as Arthur Ward
Philip Abbott played Arthur Ward on The F.B.I., 1960s case-file cool with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Inspector Erskine — Bureau cooperation, J. Edgar Hoover’s shadow in the production lore, Quinn Martin packaging Most Wanted energy as weekly…
- William Reynolds as Special Agent Tom Colby
William Reynolds’s Special Agent Tom Colby backed The F.B.I. as case-file cool beside Efrem Zimbalist Jr.’s Inspector Erskine — Quinn Martin packaging Most Wanted energy as weekly procedural myth, Bureau cooperation, J. Edgar Hoover’s…