Ok y'all. I've been catching [as time allows] the reruns of this program. I do remember its original run and several years ago a local station did the rerun thing, but this marathon's the 1st time in years I've been able to see it.

So here's my question: right between the "cage" and the door to the squad room is a chalk board. It has the names of the detectives and a place for them to mark rather they're in or out. It's little used, but I've noticed that it has the names of several other unseen characters on it. Who are these people????

So here's my question: right between the "cage" and the door to the squad room is a chalk board. It has the names of the detectives and a place for them to mark rather they're in or out. It's little used, but I've noticed that it has the names of several other unseen characters on it. Who are these people????[/B][/QUOTE]

Some of them are former detectives at the 12th Precinct. On some of the later episodes I remember seeing Chano's name there. I've also seen the name of the guy downstairs, not Levitt, but a guy they referred to frequently. I think he actually appeared once. But good question. Who are those people?

The names on the board are most likely those of the OTHER detectives assigned to the 12th Precinct.

NYPD runs 3 shifts of detectives, covering 24 hours. The crew on Barney Miller was just one of them.

In at least 2 episodes, Barney etc. are working one of the other shifts. The one that I recall best is the "Fog" episode, where Barney comes in to start the shift and everyone exchanges "good evening." Looks like the episode was about one of the rotations that the squad took.