Who can resist the joys of William Shatner running a lot, a very young Heather Locklear looking a bit rubbish with a gun or Adrian Zmed looking a little bit camp and sweaty? Yes, it’s time for TJ Hooker, in which grizzled veteran detective – the eponymous Hooker, played by Shatner – teaches students at a police academy how to be real cops.
Odd though it might seem from its weird old (season two) title sequence, TJ Hooker was initially supposed to be a gritty, more realistic police show than others of the time. But that plan quickly fell apart…
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
