"T.J. Hooker is the name. But you don't have to lose any sleep over what T.J. stands for. As far as you're concerned, my first name is sergeant." - T.J. Hooker (William Shatner) to a class of police recruits
T.J. Hooker: The Complete First and Second Seasons DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
The L.C.P.D. is desperate. Criminals seem to be taking over the city's streets, and new police recruits can't be trained quickly enough to make a dent in the skyrocketing crime rate. They find a solution with the help of T.J. Hooker (Star Trek's William Shatner), a former plainclothes cop who insisted on returning to uniform when his partner was killed by a street thug. Hooker himself received several gunshot wounds during that same gunfight, and he's obsessed with cleaning up the streets. He longs for the old days when doctors made house calls, baseball players hustled, and cops could blow perps away first and ask questions later. He's the kind of guy who walks around with a gun in the waistband of his jeans while babysitting his kids. (He and his wife, played by Lee Bryant, were divorced several years ago. They still love each other, but being the wife of a cop is just too stressful.) Now Hooker is in charge of a special program that accelerates the training process. Rookies are given a minimum of physical and mental training before being paired with a senior officer for on-the-job training. It's risky - some of the recruits just won't be ready - but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Sounds like an intriguing premise, but as T.J. Hooker: The Complete First and Second Seasons proves, the series went through no less than four premise tweaks during its first two seasons. In "The Protectors," the series' double-length pilot, Hooker trains a gaggle of new recruits, including those played by Richard Lawson (All My Children), Brian Patrick Clarke (The Bold and the Beautiful), Kelly Harmon (The Bay City Blues), and Adrian Zmed (Dance Fever). Hal Williams (227) plays a senior officer, and Richard Herd (V) makes a brief appearance as Captain Dennis Sheridan, Hooker's tough but understanding superior.
For the series' first regular episode, T.J. Hooker shifts to a traditional oddball buddy cop show as Hooker is partnered with Vince Romano (Zmed). The other recruits are forgotten (as is the idea of other cops being paired with rookies). Dispatcher Vicki Taylor (April Clough) keeps the officers informed while fending off Romano's advances. By episode six (the start of season two), Vicki is gone and Captain Sheridan's daughter Stacey (Heather Locklear, Dynasty) has taken her place. In the final two episodes of the season, James Darren (The Time Tunnel) joins the cast as Jim Corrigan, a misogynist cop who is partnered with Stacey. Darren also appears in an earlier episode as Devil Dan, an old pal of Hooker's who is falsely accused of a string of robberies.
Hooker and Romano are the oddest odd couple since Oscar and Felix. Romano wears shorts that would make Daisy Duke blush and spray-on "California is for Lovers" t-shirts. Hooker covers his middle-aged body with as many layers as possible. Romano often shows off his best Dance Fever moves. Hooker lurches like a mannequin that has been magically brought to life. And yet - once again earning William Shatner's place as TV's unlikeliest sex symbol - Hooker always gets the girl. In many of the episodes included here, Hooker and Romano come across a hot woman in danger, Captain Sheridan says the department can't afford to assign someone to protect her, and Hooker volunteers to do it while off duty. Cut to Hooker and the woman snuggling on her sofa as the bad guy lurks outside. And Romano? He's stuck extolling the virtues of papaya oil, wearing an acupuncture needle in his ear to help with leg pain, and trying to convince his friends to take part in a variety of harebrained schemes.
Hooker and Romano also seem to solve a number of cases by simply bumping into the criminals. Literally. When a local seafood joint is targeted by vandals, Hooker finds the street urchin responsible for the crimes when the kid skateboards into his table at an outdoor café (where, incidentally, Hooker is lunching with a hot woman in danger).
Many of the episodes included here are too formulaic, but the addition of James Darren at the end of the season does bode well for upcoming episodes. After all, no matter how exciting the occasional CHiPS-style car chases are, it often seems as if Hooker and Romano are the only cops on the L.C.P.D. No wonder the city is overwhelmed by crime! By pairing Stacey with Corrigan, the show's credibility is upped a notch, elevating it from a bland Starsky & Hutch knockoff to a potentially interesting show about cops working together to solve crimes.
Star Trek fans will want to check out "Vengeance is Mine," a stand-out episode guest starring Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy plays Hooker's colleague, a lieutenant who threatens to derail an investigation into the rape of his daughter.
Other familiar faces include Helen Martin (227), Karen Carlson (Here Come the Brides), Gary Frank (Family), George Murdock (Barney Miller), B-movie vet Sid Haig, Vic Tayback (Alice), Richard Moll (Night Court), Lisa Hartman (Tabitha), Jonathan Banks (Wiseguy), Robert Davi (Profiler), Gary Graham (Alien Nation), Jeanette Nolan (The Virginian), Herbert Jefferson Jr. (Battlestar Galactica), Melody Anderson (Manimal), Chris Mulkey (Any Day Now), Philip Baker Hall (Boogie Nights), Rafael Campos (Rhoda), Henry Darrow (The High Chaparral), Rosemary Forsyth (Days of Our Lives), Thom Christopher (One Life to Live), Theresa Saldana (The Commish), Sydney Penny (All My Children), Randolph Powell (Logan's Run), Clarence Williams III (The Mod Squad), David Caruso (CSI Miami), great ball of fire Jerry Lee Lewis, and Lance LeGault (The A-Team). The Beach Boys also make an appearance in "Blind Justice," an episode in which Hooker and Romano foil a box office robbery at the band's concert. This episode is so indifferently edited that Hooker and Romano chase down the crooks in what is obviously an indoor arena before watching the concert.in an outdoor amphitheater.
The twenty-seven episodes that make up the first and second seasons are divided onto six discs. The discs are housed in three slim, clear keepcases. Each disc and case is decorated with a portrait of one of the cast members - William Shatner on discs one and two, Heather Locklear on discs three and four, and James Darren on discs five and six. Yes, James Darren is featured on the discs and the packaging even though he didn't join the series full-time until season three. As for Adrian Zmed, maybe he'll have better luck on the packaging for Dance Fever should it ever be released. The back covers include episode titles and plot synopses. The double-sided coversheets show through to the insides of the cases. The interiors feature the same shot of a generic cityscape. The three keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which showcases photos of the cast. Again, James Darren is given prominent space on the sleeve while poor Adrian Zmed is practically cast aside.
James Darren's appearance isn't the only packaging inconsistency. Either the number of episodes on each disc was changed after the artwork was finalized or someone just goofed because the listings printed on the keepcases and the discs do not match what is actually on the discs. For the record, here is a breakdown of which episodes are on which disc:
Disc One
Season One
1. Pilot: "The Protectors"
2. "The Streets"
3. "God Bless the Child"
4. "Hooker's War"
5. "The Witness"
Disc Two
Season Two
6. "Second Chance"
7. "King of the Hill"
8. "The Empty Gun"
9. "Blind Justice"
10. "Big Foot"
11. "Terror at the Academy"
Disc Three
12. "The Survival Syndrome"
13. "Deadly Ambition"
14. "A Cry for Help"
15. "Thieves' Highway"
16. "The Connection"
Disc Four
17. "The Fast Lane"
18. "Too Late for Love"
19. "The Decoy"
20. "The Mumbler"
21. "Vengeance is Mine"
Disc Five
22. "Sweet Sixteen.and Dead"
23. "Raw Deal"
24. "Requiem for a Cop"
25. "The Hostages"
26. "Payday Pirates"
Disc Six
27. "Lady in Blue"
Extras
The static menus are simple to navigate. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose an individual one. There are no scene selection menus, but the episodes are divided into chapters.
