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List Price: $24.95 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 10559
Released: August 9, 2005 |
| Our Price: $15.12 |
| Used Price: $14.50 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A street cop who gives a damn! The cop drama series T.J. HOOKER starred William Shatner as a police detective who turned his back on a gold badge and went back to patrolling the streets and training recruits. The long-running series also starred Adrian Zmed, James Darren, and launched the career of sexy Heather Locklear. Highlights include the show's original pilot and a special guest appearance by Leonard Nimoy!
Description of TJ Hooker - The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons:
Florid of face and flamboyant of voice, William Shatner oozes smarmy self-importance with the barest sliver of irony...yet that sliver transforms him from unbearable to bizarrely charming. Mock him all you want--and you will--but the man is unstoppable; T. J. Hooker was his fifth TV series (not counting assorted mini-series or the animated version of Star Trek), with more to come. As a freshly-divorced, middle-aged cop who--out of either proletariat zeal or just a bad attitude--would rather pound a beat than be a detective, Shatner swaggers around in a sausage-tight uniform and lush wig of curly hair, casually spouting right-wing speeches and fearlessly hurling himself onto moving vehicles. With cocky Adrian Zmed (Bachelor Party) and mischievous Heather Locklear (another TV diehard, co-starring in this show and Dynasty simultaneously) as co-stars/eye-candy, T. J. Hooker is a glorious slice of Aaron Spelling cheese.
The brief first season--only five episodes--delved into the dark side of Hooker's character, brooding over booze and mounting debts, riding his recruits because of his own regrets. All that went out the window as the second season roared into action, turning Hooker into a standard tough guy with a heart of gold. But the classic Spelling elements were there from the start: Almost every case involves a relative or an old friend; the bad guys announce their sleaziness from the moment they appear; and no opportunity to show a little skin is missed (short-shorts and tight, nipple-emphasizing tops are de rigueur). Featuring street gangs, snipers, Bible-toting psychos, baby-faced arsonists (a very young David Caruso, NYPD Blue), and vengeful cops (Shatner's old pal Leonard Nimoy), T. J. Hooker had no pretensions to anything but roiling melodrama with some midlevel stunts thrown in every few episodes. It all rests on whether or not you like Shatner. If you do, you'll hug yourself when Hooker's ex-wife tells him, as if intoning a zen koan, "You'll do your best, and I know you already have, because you always do." No commentaries, alas; the only extra is a pointless compilation of "Next week on T. J. Hooker" snippets. --Bret Fetzer
TJ Hooker - The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons Reviews:
TJ HOOKER ROCKS! 
2009-11-16 - TJ HOOKER was an awesome police drama about a divorced middle-aged tough as nails crime fighting LAPD like patrol sergeant who sometimes taught cadets at his departments police academy and was often butting heads with his superior officer Capt. Sheridan(Richard Herd) and partnered with the young hunky and often hot-headed rookie Officer Vince Romano(Adrian Zmed) who was also Hooker's good pal off-duty too, which made them almost like an upgraded carbon copy of ADAM-12 and made them a tad similar to Ponch(Erik Estrada) and Jon(Larry Wilcox)on CHiPs.
In fact, I used to watch it every Saturday night on ABC as a kid when it became an instant smash back in the Spring of 1982 when CHiPs was in its 5th Season on NBC along with the fact that this show also helped make the popular hot blonde bombshell(Heather Locklear) a superstar while Locklear was becoming famous while already playing the sexy Sammy-Jo on DYNASTY at the same time, which was of course before Locklear's co-starring days as the sassy bitch(Amanda Woodward)on MELROSE PLACE.
TJ HOOKER was one of the best cop shows of the 80's and probably William Shatner's best show and performance since STAR TREK, but I noticed this show started going downhill and the ratings slumped when Romano left the show, but prior to Romano's departure from TJ HOOKER, this show had gotten even better when Capt. Sheridan's foxy daughter(Officer Stacey Sheridan) joined the cast and crew of this show in TJ HOOKER's 2nd Season and then TJ HOOKER got even more better when Stacey's partner Officer Jim Corrigan(Jim Darren)had joined the cast and crew of the show in the 3rd Season when Capt. Sheridan departed the show, but I'm sure part of what contributed to this shows cancellation in the Spring of 1986 was TJ HOOKER had started running out of steam when Romano departed the show and when CBS tried to revive the series in the Fall of 1985 on CBS Crime Time Late Night after ABC had cancelled TJ HOOKER previously in the Summer of 1985.
However, I would still have to say that Stacey(Heather Locklear)was the real fox of the show and still the best looking character and co-star on TJ HOOKER to this very day as well as the sexiest officer on TV at the time and was even sexier looking than California Highway Patrol Officers Bonnie Clark(Randi Oakes), Sindy Cahill(Brianne Leary), and Kathy Linahan(Tina Gayle)on CHiPs all were, which was probably due to the fact that Heather Locklear was a lot younger than they all were too.
I also think Romano and Stacy would've been a great looking couple since Stacey and Romano always seemed to have a chemistry between one another since they often teased and flirted with each other quite a bit during the 2nd thru 4th Seasons of TJ HOOKER, but I'm almost surprised that Romano and Stacey never became an item.
Unfortunately, Adrian Zmed(Romano)left the show after the Spring of 1985 to pursue other projects, which left Hooker riding solo without a partner and sometimes had Hooker working with Sheridan and Corrigan as a 3-officer team instead of a 4-officer team when they didn't have Romano anymore, which really sucked.
Something else I noticed about this show was Hooker(William Shatner)always seem to run kind of funny during a foot pursuit and could never seem to quite run as well as his other co-stars on this show.
Now that Sony has already come out with TJ HOOKER'S first 2 seasons on DVD, I don't see what's taking them so long to bring out the remaining 3 seasons out on DVD, starting with TJ Hooker's 3rd Season, since Sony hasn't even released another season of TJ HOOKER since the Summer of 2005, but I suspect that it may perhaps be due to the fact that this DVD box set didn't sell too good and/or because of today's ugly economy.
However, I would've figured that they would've had the rest of TJ HOOKER's seasons released on DVD by now since TJ HOOKER was such a popular police drama just like CHiPs, ADAM-12, DRAGNET, HUNTER, HILL STREET BLUES, etc.
For instance Universal already has the first 4 seasons of ADAM-12 out on DVD, Warner Bros. already has the first 2 seasons of CHiPs out on DVD, and Anchor Bay already has the first 3 seasons of HUNTER out on DVD.
In addition to what baffles me about Sony not having any of the remaining seasons of TJ HOOKER released on DVD yet, starting with TJ HOOKER's 3rd Season, TJ HOOKER was not only a top 10 show in the early 1980's, TJ HOOKER even had higher ratings than CHiPs did during TJ HOOKER's first 2 seasons on ABC along with the fact that TJ HOOKER seemed to have stolen some of CHiPs thunder back then, especially since TJ HOOKER was in its honeymoon phase of the show when it made its debut on ABC in March of 1982 while CHiPs honeymoon phase was already long gone along with the fact that between the Fall of 1982 and the Summer of 1983 the Nielsen ratings on TJ HOOKER were still rising at an all-time high while the ratings on CHiPs were sinking to an all-time low, which eventually contributed to NBC cancelling CHiPs by July of 1983.
Therefore you could say that TJ HOOKER K.O.'d CHiPs in the ratings.
In addition to what made TJ HOOKER more popular than CHiPs, TJ HOOKER seemed to be a little more realistic and more convincing than CHiPs too since Ponch and Jon and their fellow California Highway Patrol officers never used their guns or deadly force while busting or pursuing a suspect, unlike Hooker and all his fellow police officers who have sometimes had to even shoot to kill like on ADAM-12, DRAGNET, and HUNTER.
Something else that led to CHiPs cancellation while TJ HOOKER's 3rd Season was underway for its 3rd Season in the Fall of 1983 was the departure of Ponch's first partner(Officer Jon Baker)who left CHiPs in the Spring of 1982 while CHiPs 6th Season was in the works on NBC and TJ HOOKER's 2nd Season was in the works on ABC for the Fall of 1982 when Stacy replaced previous co-star(April Clough) and when Tom Reilly joined the cast & crew of CHiPs replacing Jon as Ponch's new hotdog rookie partner(Officer Bobby Nelson) since the ratings on CHiPs had fizzled when Jon left the show and when Bobby came along since Ponch and Bobby didn't have the same kind of chemistry that Ponch and Jon had together along with the fact that Ponch didn't seem to have nearly as much in common with Bobby as he did with Jon either, despite the fact that Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada didn't get along in real life and had constant rivaly behind the set of CHiPs and frequently butting heads with each other, which was Larry Wilcox's reason for departing the show in May of 1982, but Wilcox and Estrada were able to patch up their differences and become friends years later before they made the CHiPs reunion movie "CHiPs 99", which reminds me that I can't understand why they haven't made a TV reunion movie for TJ HOOKER yet.
Something else about this show that I never quite understood about this show was what was the name of the law enforcement agency Hooker, Romano, and all their fellow officers worked for since TJ HOOKER obviously took place in the L.A. Area, but I can almost swear that it wasn't the LAPD that Hooker and his fellow officers worked for since Hooker and all his fellow officers uniforms said LCPD on them, which I don't know stands for, although Hooker and his fellow officers looked almost as if they were from LAPD since their patrol cars looked exactly like the LAPD's and their uniforms looked almost identical to the LAPD's.
Therefore, Hooker and all his fellow officers seemed a lot like a carbon copy of the LAPD.
Additionally, these first 2 seasons of TJ HOOKER take me back to memory lane to when we had all those budget cuts going on from the recession we had back in 1981-1982 when Ronald Reagan was the president and when I was living in the Imperial Valley growing up in my hometown(El Centro,CA).
Great Show 
2009-11-04 - I remember watching this show as a kid. I watched some reruns recently, and I forgot how good this show is. The show was made differently, than your boring cop shows today.
TJ Hooker DVD Complete Seasons
2009-11-04 - This DVD is great. If you ever seen this television show you, this is a must have DVD set. If you hae never seen the television show, you need to buy this DVD.
Excellent Series - Where are the other season's?
2009-10-11 - "TJ Hooker" is an excellent series, the best cop series I have seen and it's a pity that more seasons have not been put on DVD - I would definitely buy the rest.
However considering the 1st and 2nd series was released in 2005, it does not look as if any more of the series are going to come . A great pity. I hope Sony will consider putting the rest of the series on DVD. This show was made in the days when good TV mattered. It has good acting, good scripts and plenty of action. The DVDs themselves are excellent quality with good sound and picture.
Sony does not deliver 
2009-09-28 - This item is inaccurately represented by Sony. The box set is suppose to contain the complete Seasons 1 and 2. However, when scrolling through the DVD's episode menu, at least two episodes are missing from each of the six DVD's. I've written Sony in an attempt for them to make good on the sale. If they do nothing about the missing episodes then I will contact the Attorney General.
What has me really upset is that I cannot purchase future DVD's of T.J. Hooker or any other T.V series that Sony may produce on DVD. I like the old TV series, but will not purchase any until Sony corrects their "mistake" I'm sure I'm not the only one who has brought this to their attention. The DVD's should of been pulled and the missing episodes added.
