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THE
T.J. HOOKER EPISODIC FORMULA
Once the series began to hit its stride, the writers
of T.J. Hooker developed a sure-fire formula for success. The vast majority
of episodes at least partially follow the formula below, possibly bending
a rule here and there for variety's sake. If you are lucky enough to
have a television station in your area that is broadcasting T.J. Hooker
reruns, try applying this seven-part formula to the episodes you watch.
Every good cop show has a criminal. Hooker's criminals were your regular
dimestore variety rapists, serial killers, and thieves. However, some
had bizarre twists: the psychotic man who dressed as a nurse when murdering
nurses; the rapist who had a penchant for saying the victim's name over
and over ("Sweet Val...sweet,sweet Val"); the serial killer
who strangled street people in broad daylight with a single piece of
string.
Routinely,
Hooker was faced with a moral dilemma in each episode, eg. "Should
I turn in a good cop who's begun drinking on the job?" or "Should
I defend a cop at an inquest whom everyone else thinks is a coward,
but there's no physical evidence she failed to provide covering fire
for Romano?". Inevitably, Hooker chose to
see that justice and morality were upheld, and every moral dilemma was
found to have a simple solution.
Nearly
every episode contains a character introduced merely to place Hooker
on the right track towards solving the case of the week. Whether it's
a man who runs a video arcade as a front for providing thugs with explosives
to use in their robberies of grocery stores, or "Pinwheel"--a rastafarian
conga player who hides dope in his drums, Hooker always stumbles upon
someone who will give him the information he needs.
Hooker's
definitely a man of action...and normally he gets to see some of the
pulchritudinous kind in most episodes. Sometimes it's a quick kiss from
Fran, his ex-wife (pictured above). Other times it's a bikini-clad painter
who finds a body washed up on a beach. Or sometimes it's even a prostitute-turned-informant
like the one played by Heather Thomas. And if Hooker doesn't get some
action, then Romano does. If Romano doesn't, then Stacy does. Corrigan
never gets any until he gets involved with Stacy. If nobody gets any
action, then there's always...
Many
times, Hooker finds #3, The Informant, lurking in a strip club.
Other times, he and Romano must visit a club undercover while looking
for clues. Still other times, one of the gang (usually Stacy or Romano)
have gone undercover as an exotic dancer. If it's not a strip club,
then it's a bar featuring mud wrestling. Or even just a bikini-clad
woman on top of a pool table rubbing her body with papaya oil as part
of Romano's new home business. No matter what, there's definitely always
a glimpse of L.A.'s seedier side in almost each and every episode.
Yes,
there are chase scenes. Sometimes it's merely a standard car chase,
sometimes it's a footrace. Other times (and these are by far the best
episodes) they involve Hooker leaping onto the back, top, or side of
a moving vehicle--like the time he jumped onto the back of a bus full
of nuns that had been hijacked...or the time he lept from a helicopter
onto a killer's speed boat. For an extra special treat, many final chases
build up to an explosion of some kind. Normally, when the chase is over,
Hooker has single-handedly caught #1, The Criminal, and hands
him over to Romano, who reads the miscreant his or her rights.
Almost
always the episode ends with a joke of some kind, after a case that
would take a real cop weeks to solve has been dispatched in a mere 40
minutes of screen time. Sometime's the joke's on Hooker, like when he
had a run-in with a coffee machine that kept rejecting his change. Other
times, the ending is tidy, but there's a chance for Hooker to do some
serious reflection--either he places a loving phone call to his kids,
or he walks pensively down a beach to the sound of some big band music.
No matter what, there's almost never a two-parter...each case wraps
itself up tidily, with a Criminal behind bars, a Love Interest
conquered and left behind, and a Moral Dilemma solved.
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"One
day Frances said 'It's over.' There I was, no wife, no kids. I needed
a friend. And I found one, all right."
--Hooker
to Sam, an alcoholic cop, on how Hooker turned to the bottle when times
got too tough
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