T.J. Hooker

T.J. Hooker was the best cop show in my opinion for many reasons.

Firstly, the storylines and action scenes were very good. But the thing I liked most was seeing the superb William Shatner playing Hooker.

Hooker was human. He was divorced from his wife because of his dedication to the job. He was a great mentor to rookie officers and he always cared about the victims of crime. And he was persistent when it came to chasing the villains. In Hookers eyes, no crime was minor and every victim of crime was a human being with feelings.

It would be so hard to recommend certain episodes because they were all good. The 3rd episode of season 1 was good-Hooker was on the trail of two drug dealers who had killed a young girl. His dedication was second to none as he pursued the bad guys.

A great show. Hooker is the type of police officer I hope exists in real life.

Of all the cheesy 80's cop shows, 'T.J. Hooker' is my new favorite! I love movies and shows that are so bad they're funny, and this a perfect example of that.

William Shatner plays the titlular character, a mediocre cop who gets hailed as one slick guy. Shatner has that same quality as others like Alec Baldwin and Steven Seagal: the ability to be comical without even trying. His facial expressions and acting gild the lily. The other stars of the series (Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear) aren't much better.

The show has plenty of corny, lovable quirks, including but not limited to: tubular 80's action soundtrack, sloppy stunts, HUGE explosions, awful dialogue, orangutans, break dancing, and did I mention 80's music?

In the episode, 'A Child Is Missing', Hooker heads to solve a case in Mexico along with a guy named Gomez. Those are traits used in Shatner's book Tek-War, which was actually written by a ghostwriter. It seems William has few ideas of his own!

If you are looking for something truly interesting, don't mess with T.J.. But if you like cheesy 80's fun, I recommend this! SPOOOOOOOOCK!

After a lean run for William Shatner in the 1970s, things began looking up for him after the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and since then he has gotten steady work in film and television. Shatner signed on to star as the title character of the cop show T.J. Hooker as a former detective who decides to go back to being a uniformed street cop in order to rid Lake City of crime in the memory of his former partner.

There's nothing special about T.J. Hooker; it's just another cop show like the dozens of others before and after it. I just think it's a stretch for Shatner and Heather Locklear to play cops. Shatner could play Captain James T. Kirk or a gangster or somebody who's a bit nutty but I found it droll to see Shatner and that rug on his head running around and doing those rolls versus the thugs of Lake City. Aaron Spelling regular Heather Locklear, all 5 feet and 98 lbs of her, is miscast here. Adrian Zmed as Officer Vince Romano and James "Moondoggie" Darren as Officer Jim Corrigan fare better. It's clear the cast were hired on their good looks than playing convincing police officers.

Regardless, I like TJ Hooker because there's that feeling of zaniness seeing Shatner, Locklear and Co. playing against type. Shatner doesn't disappoint with his brand of acting here. His presence carries this show. If you liked him in Star Trek, you'll like him here.

Recommended.

Looking back over the various guest roles that William Shatner has played over the past couple of decades, there are two guest shots he made over the years that would indicate that he was the perfect choice for the role of Sergeant Thomas Jefferson 'T.J.' Hooker (incidentally, everyone, including his wife, calls him 'Hooker'...the only person to ever call him T.J. was Henry Darrow's character in "A Cry For Help").

First off, there's Shatner's 1971 guest appearance on Ironside, in an episode entitled 'Walls Are Waiting"...imagine a parole officer who's just like Hooker, and you have the Shat in this episode about a hard-ass P.O. who has a hard-on for pushers (due to his sister being an addict). When he receives several threats on his life, he suspects one particular pusher, and naturally, Ironside isn't so sure.

Fast-forward to 1975, and here's Bill on The Rookies, donning the uniform as yet another wacko veteran officer, the type of guy Sam Melville's Rookies character, Mike Danko, seemed to be always partnered with. In this episode, "The Hunting Ground", the cop played by Shatner is hunting down criminals on his off-time...emphasis on the word 'hunting'.

Watching both of these roles, you get the feel for the Hooker character...all that's missing are the constant references to 'maggots'...yes, in every episode, Hooker vows to 'get these maggots off the street!' I was always under the impression that 'maggots' was a substitute for a certain epithet that rhymed with it, and that ABC (and possibly Aaron Spelling and Columbia) were a little skittish about using *that* word too much.

Now to the series...while it's not the greatest crime drama ever, it certainly fits the action bill with Shatner jumping on the hoods of moving cars, sprinting after suspects, etc. And while Hooker starts out the series as an alcoholic hard-ass, he lightens up considerably during the show's run, becoming more of a friend to his young stud partner Vince Romano (Adrian Zmed). The requisite 'cute female' is Officer Vicki Taylor in the first season (April Clough), replaced by Stacy Sheridan (Heather Locklear) for the remainder of the series. Their Captain is Stacy's Dad, Dennis Sheridan (Richard Herd), and near the end of the first season, Moondoggie, I mean, James Darren comes aboard as Officer Jim Corrigan.

The stories are naturally the usual Aaron Spelling cop show fare, with Hooker taking on pimps, pushers, crooked cops, etc. The villains are played by many of the usual cop show villain actors, like Don Gordon, John Vernon and Jonathan 'The World's Most Interesting Man' Goldsmith, to name a few. And let's not forget the manly power of the Shat...yep, even with the toupee and the paunch, he's quite the stud, landing beauties like Lisa Hartman, Cristina Raines, Kristen Meadows (very hot in a white swimsuit!) and Michelle Phillips, to name a few. Ladies' man Romano manages to score a few times himself, as do Stacy and Corrigan.

The series lasted a little over three seasons on ABC...if it had continued on the Alphabet Network, it would've turned toward comedy, as the last ABC episode featured Hooker getting a transfer to Chicago and being partnered with a jive-ass cop. The rest of the cast would've been gone. Instead, ABC canceled the series, CBS picked it up for their Crime Time After Prime Time feature, Hooker went back to L.A. with Stacy and Corrigan, but no Romano...Adrian Zmed had rightfully moved on to host Dance Fever. The CBS season was the final one.

Throughout the run of the series, Shatner and the rest of the cast deliver the action like clockwork. T.J. Hooker is a bit dated, sure, but for a good, quick action fix, it doesn't hurt to catch an episode now and then. Watch out, Maggots...Hooker's on the job!

William Shatner pretty much personified T. J. Hooker, and it was one of those series that was get-home-in-time-to-watch TV for the first two seasons, but after that the writing got a bit tired and I suspect William Shatner was focussing on his Star Trek movie career.