Police Detective Sam Dietrich (Vincent Bagetta) and his partner Detective Tony Fernandez are on stakeout inside a sports bar which they think will be hit by armed robbers 'the Jumpsuit Bandits'. Dietrich who has begun to drink on duty is wasted. When the bad guys suddenly make a move Dietrich is startled and unprepared and because of it Fernandez is shot.
Backing up Dietrich and Fernandez are veteran cop Sgt. T.J.Hooker (William Shatner) and his young partner Vince Romano (Adrian Zmed) stationed nearby in a cop car. other colleagues Officer Jim Corrigan (James Darren) and Officer Stacy Sheridan (Heather Locklear) are on a rooftop across the street. Despite all the positioning the bad guys still get away mainly because Dietrich was under the influence.
Whilst his career is on the line and his marriage is in trouble Dietrich shows no signs of getting help or wanting to get help. Hooker intervenes and tells a superior which results in the Internal Affairs division launching a probe. All this sad melodrama runs concurrent to the hunt down of the robbers.
Any episode of this series which gives us depictions of more cops than than just Hooker, Romano, Corrigan & Stacy and a few extras should theoretically be superior to the others. But this one just offers a bad movie-of-the-week storyline. Not that alcoholism has never been a very real issue for some cops. If Belinda Montgomery had played the drunk cop instead of just Dietrich's wife I might have found it more interesting.
Aside from the normal clichés of the series (like football tackles of suspects) was Hooker clinging to the outside of a moving vehicle like Velcro. Here we get that as well as two car chases that end with the baddies getting their vehicles flipped over. After a while you start to wonder how many different ways they can stage the same thing and still think what they are showing the audience is different.
Backing up Dietrich and Fernandez are veteran cop Sgt. T.J.Hooker (William Shatner) and his young partner Vince Romano (Adrian Zmed) stationed nearby in a cop car. other colleagues Officer Jim Corrigan (James Darren) and Officer Stacy Sheridan (Heather Locklear) are on a rooftop across the street. Despite all the positioning the bad guys still get away mainly because Dietrich was under the influence.
Whilst his career is on the line and his marriage is in trouble Dietrich shows no signs of getting help or wanting to get help. Hooker intervenes and tells a superior which results in the Internal Affairs division launching a probe. All this sad melodrama runs concurrent to the hunt down of the robbers.
Any episode of this series which gives us depictions of more cops than than just Hooker, Romano, Corrigan & Stacy and a few extras should theoretically be superior to the others. But this one just offers a bad movie-of-the-week storyline. Not that alcoholism has never been a very real issue for some cops. If Belinda Montgomery had played the drunk cop instead of just Dietrich's wife I might have found it more interesting.
Aside from the normal clichés of the series (like football tackles of suspects) was Hooker clinging to the outside of a moving vehicle like Velcro. Here we get that as well as two car chases that end with the baddies getting their vehicles flipped over. After a while you start to wonder how many different ways they can stage the same thing and still think what they are showing the audience is different.
