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Lock-Up (TV series)

television series

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ6665194 ↗
Source-derived summary

Lock-Up is an American crime drama series that premiered in syndication in September 1959 and concluded in June 1961. The half-hour episodes had little time for character development or subplots. It instead presented a compact story without embellishment.

Series overview

The program stars Macdonald Carey as real-life Philadelphia corporate attorney Herbert L. Maris (1880–1960) and John Doucette as police detective Lieutenant Jim Weston. Maris died during the program's initial run.

Each episode began with the following introduction: "These stories are based on the files and case histories of Herbert L. Maris, prominent attorney, who has devoted his life to saving the innocent."

The foundation of each episode is the cornerstone of English and American jurisprudence: a person charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The series featured stories of persons who were unjustly accused, usually due to circumstantial evidence. The program's primary theme is that when individuals are charged with a crime, not all is as it first appears and a thorough investigation is duly warranted in order to uncover vital facts pertinent to the case.

Herbert L. Maris had an uncanny sense about the honest, innocent persons who had been falsely accused. With his lucrative private practice of corporate law, he also had the time and resources to help these people.

Editorial summary

“Lock-Up (TV series)” enters the record as television series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lock-Up, series and television can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1959, 1961, 1880, 1960—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Lock-Up, series and television.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Lock-Up (TV series)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lock-Up, series and television provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6665194. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1959, 1961, 1880 and 1960.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lock-Up (TV series)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lock-Up (TV series) primary sources, Lock-Up (TV series) archive and Lock-Up research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lock-Up (TV series)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Lock-Up (TV series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.