T. J. Hooker


T. J. Hooker is an American police drama television program starring William Shatner in the title role as a 15-year veteran police sergeant. The series premiered as a mid-season replacement on March 13, 1982, on ABC and ran on the network until May 4, 1985. The show was then picked up for a further single season by CBS.
The supporting cast includes Adrian Zmed as rookie Officer Vince Romano; April Clough as Officer Vicki Taylor, replaced by Heather Locklear as rookie Officer Stacy Sheridan ; and Richard Herd as Captain Dennis Sheridan, portraying officers in the fictional Lake City Police Department Academy Precinct. Toward the end of the show's second season, James Darren became a regular cast member as Officer Jim Corrigan.
The Lake City Police Academy scenes were filmed at American Film Institute Headquarters in Hollywood.

Plot

The background of Sergeant Thomas Jefferson "T.J." Hooker is that he, up until recently, was a plainclothes LCPD Detective Sergeant whose partner was killed in the line of duty while he and Hooker were trying to stop a bank robbery. An angry Hooker becomes motivated to rid the streets of criminals like those who murdered his partner. Thus, he decides the only way to do so is return to his former position as a uniformed patrolman.
In "The Protectors," the series' pilot/TV movie, Hooker, back in uniform, trains a group of police academy recruits, including those played by Richard Lawson, Brian Patrick Clarke, Kelly Harmon, and Adrian Zmed. Hal Williams plays a senior officer, and Richard Herd makes a brief appearance as Captain Dennis Sheridan, Hooker's tough but understanding superior. During most of the series, Hooker is partnered with brash, sometimes hot-headed young rookie Vince Romano. Hooker acts as his mentor both professionally and socially. The age difference generally being the key hook of the partnership, the pair quickly became fast friends and a good team.
Outside of his work, Hooker is divorced as a result of his work putting a strain on his marriage, but he is friendly with his ex-wife Fran, a nurse. A ladies' man, Hooker is still trying to adjust to being single again. Lee Bryant was the original actress to portray Fran; the part is later played by Leigh Christian.
Hooker's tough, no-nonsense demeanor has him often clashing with station Captain Sheridan, but he always got the job done and was highly respected as a result. Working behind the desk at the police precinct, Vicki Taylor is a female officer who continually dodges pick-up attempts by Vince Romano. Introduced at the start of the second season was attractive Officer Stacy Sheridan, the daughter of Captain Sheridan, who attended the police academy. Initially brought in to replace Vicki, by the end of the season she had progressed to patrolling with Jim Corrigan, another veteran cop much in the mold of Hooker.
From the third season onward, Hooker and Romano, and Stacy and Corrigan, usually worked closely together to tackle cases. The addition of Corrigan and Sheridan's partnership added an extra dimension to the show, sometimes with whole plots revolving around one or both of them.
For the final season, the series moved from ABC to a late-night slot on CBS. Along with the move, Adrian Zmed chose to leave the series to pursue other projects, leaving Hooker to patrol alone or to generally work as more of a trio with Stacy and Jim, often on undercover work.
With its blend of humor mixed with "on the streets" grittiness, the show proved popular. The first season ranked 28th in the Nielsen ratings, but subsequent seasons failed to repeat the same level of success. The third season saw a slight revamp, with Corrigan set into place as Stacy's partner, Captain Sheridan being dropped into the background, and stories drifting toward a more straightforward cops-and-robbers fare.

Cast

Background

The series was created by Rick Husky who had also worked on The Rookies for Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg. The series was originally to be a reworking of that former cop show, this time called The Protectors. After the pilot, it was decided to focus the series on William Shatner's character and retitle it T. J. Hooker. The series initially set out to give a more "hands on", procedure-based view of police work than some of the more stylized cop shows of the 1970s and 1980s, evident in the very early episodes.

Setting

Hooker and Romano's radio call sign for their "black and white" was "4-Adam-30", and radio calls were very similar to those of Los Angeles Police Department, using three bursts of a 900 Hz tone, using LAPD-type radio codes, and the officers acknowledging with roger. Though the series itself was produced in the Los Angeles area, the setting of the show is not told through the show, but the letters LCPD actually stand for Los Angeles County Police Department.

Cancellation and revival

Hooker was canceled by ABC in the summer of 1985 but the series survived when CBS picked up the show and produced new episodes and one two-hour TV movie titled "Blood Sport". The new episodes were shown later at night as the first portion of the network's CBS Late Night program block, with each episode's runtime extended to 70 minutes to allow CBS affiliates time for increased availability for advertisements. The TV movie and the penultimate episode were both aired by CBS on May 21, 1986, with the finale one week later on May 28, 1986. The season was done on a much smaller budget and reused action sequences from the previous seasons.

Episodes

William Shatner is the only actor to appear in every episode of the series. Heather Locklear appeared in the second highest number of episodes, appearing in 84 of the 90 episodes, after joining the cast's second season.

Broadcast

US and international syndication

Starting in 2005, the A&E Network re-broadcast the entire series, running one episode per weekday at 4:00 a.m. It is also available in a shortened format on The Minisode Network and full length episodes are available on Crackle. The Universal HD Channel started airing episodes in September 2010. On October 9, 2010, the Sleuth network began a 24-hour T. J. Hooker marathon.
In the United Kingdom, the show was originally broadcast by ITV starting in April 1983. Most regions broadcast episodes at 7:45 p.m. on Saturday evenings, later in a similar Friday evening slot. Some regions gave it a slot on a different day, and not all regions broadcast the entire series, with some areas not progressing beyond the third or fourth seasons. Some regions also broadcast the later episodes - particularly those concerning a more adult or violent nature - as part of the night-time line-up during the advent of 24-hour broadcasting in that later 1980s. In 2002, Five ran the whole series through, in a weekday 11:00 a.m. slot. This run included every episode, although some were edited for content for the daytime slot. In 2009, digital channel Quest aired the series on a daily basis, although they only hold the rights to show the first three seasons. On 11 November 2019, series 1 began broadcasting on Sony Channel.
In Italy the series started to air in 1983 on Canale 5. After his first run, it was often repeated through the years: first on Italia Uno and then on Rete4 and Fox Retro. Recently, METOO a Sister station of WCIU-TV in Chicago began airing the show in a 2:00 p.m. timeslot.
In Australia, the series has been playing reruns on the 7 Networks 3rd channel 7mate from 2012 - 2016.
In New Zealand, the series is being screened for the first time, as from May 13, 2013, on Sky Television's Jones! channel.
In September 2014, FamilyNet cable channel began carrying the series, which was remastered in the mid-2000s with a high definition version that originally aired on Universal HD. On June 26, 2017 FETV began airing the series weeknights at 10:00 p.m.
As of 2019, the show has been re-run in the UK and Ireland by Sony Channel.
Currently in the U.S., the show airs late evenings on FETV.

High definition

Beginning on October 1, 2010, the series was rebroadcast on Universal HD to overwhelming success, quickly becoming one of the most successful series on the channel although the channel did not yet subscribe to Nielsen ratings. Due to the high ratings, the original film elements were re-mastered for high definition, and the program was cropped to a 1.78 aspect ratio to fill the screens of modern televisions.

Home media

has released the first two seasons on DVD in Region 1 and 2. Due to poor sales, no further seasons were released. This release has been discontinued and is out of print.
On August 27, 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment announced that it had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library, including TJ Hooker. It subsequently re-released the first two seasons on DVD on April 1, 2014.
On April 5, 2017, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series and subsequently released T.J. Hooker- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on July 18, 2017.
TitleEp #Region 1Region 2Region 4Special FeaturesDistributors
Seasons 1 & 227August 9, 2005
April 1, 2014 		September 26, 2005N/ATBASony Pictures Home Entertainment
Mill Creek Entertainment
Season 322N/AN/AN/AN/A
Season 423N/AN/AN/AN/A
Season 519N/AN/AN/AN/A
The Complete Series91July 18, 2017N/AN/ATBAShout! Factory