Sergent Anderson

This definitely was the first cop show to feature a female in the lead. Angie Dickinson was quite convincing as the tough no nonsense Pepper Anderson and Earl Holliman was great as her fellow officer Bill Crowley. Within a few years, however, this show would later be upstaged by the more light-hearted "Charlie's Angels" and would later inspire that other female cop show "Cagney and Lacey". Too bad they don't show this on television anymore. It is definitely a lost classic.

Here's another example of a higher plane of quality 70's crime drama. Police Woman has much more believable scenarios, and better actors, say to other shows around that time, or T.J Hooker, if you want another example. The casting was something I really liked with this show. What actually pi..es me off here, is that of the measly screen time of the great Charles Dierkop, the older moustached guy of the undercover squad. He was the killer/cop in that good sleazy exploitation pic, Roots Of Evil. Again, here was a show where you saw a lot of 'before they were famous' actors, one being T.J Hooker, himself. Of course, the foxy AD as the female cop heroine, one lady cop you'd really like to save you, probably the best female acting cop performance to other ones around that time. The t.v. show's music score, is something I probably remember most, about this great cop show, as I was only a nipper. Another 70's cop show, gone, but not forgotten.

While not the first show to depict a female police officer on tv, Police Woman was the first to show how she does it in an hour. The show, which ran for four seasons and has seen popularity in reruns and on dvd and streaming, stars Angie Dicksinson, once married to Burt Bacharach and whose daughter commited suicide at the age of 40, who is still alive and kicking at 88. The music is memorable and is one of the first TV shows to be distributed by Columbia Pictures Television, as Screen Gems in its previous form released the TV movie, which was a hit a year before. David Gerber produced the show, which did good in its first season but ratings fell due to changes in politics, speaking of which Gerald Ford loved this show but ABC cancelled it a year after Charlie's Angels became popular.

Okay,so I read two comments made about Angie Dickinson's classic 70's show Policewoman. The year this show came on in 1974,I was about nine years old.The year it when off the air I was 13 years old in 1978. I was fascinated by what I saw in the first two seasons of the show since Dickinson's character was always going undercover or in some of the episodes bounded and gagged,drugged or even at times kidnapped and it was always her male counterparts who were cops themselves,one of them played by Earl Holliman to save her but there were times that she mostly caught the bad guy(or in some instances they got away)who was running after them in high heels and those big ass shoes they had back then. The show premiered the same time as James Garner's Rockford Files and another cop show Police Story who were on the same network.This show had a lot going for it since the first two seasons of the show were compelling,but by the time the shows final two seasons came,it lost interest with its audience,and it was taken off the air by the executives at NBC-TV(which ran the series),and almost sent Angie Dickinson into a unknown abyss for more than 20 years after the original broadcast. The last time this show was seen was on New York's WOR-TV back in the 80's,and lost in space ever since.

I am a huge Angie Dickinson fan. I was very young when Police Woman aired on NBC but I remember bits and pieces of it. I always thought Pepper was just tops. She had FAR more ability than the Angels did...IMO the Angels got made too easily...

I have season one on DVD and I love every episode. I know that the quality of the show went down after s1...thanks to politics and idiotic big bosses...BUT...I've seen some eps of the later seasons and EVEN THOUGH Pepper was tamer than in season one...there are still scenes in these eps where Pepper shines...in fact it seems that the most important dialogue in said eps come from Pepper....so let's not dismiss the other seasons because the quality is not as good as the first season.

Like someone else said...Police Woman covered MANY topics that were deemed risqué' or just weren't covered at that time in television. In the episode Bloody Nose, the subject is the battered husband...something we didn't hear about back then...and is REALLY just now getting news. And then I had forgotten the one with the battered wife that moves into Pepper's apartment complex.

And I like the observation someone else wrote about the little things like Pepper's condo and I would add her wardrobe...both something you'd see someone with her salary living in and wearing.

It really is a shame that this show doesn't get the props it deserves. Yes, it was flawed in the later seasons...but it doesn't take away from the fact that it was a good show with good topics...and it didn't have to get all sleazy like TV has become today.

I hope SONY gets the point and releases the rest of the seasons on dvdsets.