My current TV binge watch is the first (1974) season of POLICEWOMAN, a show I enjoyed watching growing-up but only ever saw sporadically so it's great to see how it unfolded and developed from the start.
My impetus for revisiting this series came about from recently watching the first fantastic season of POLICE STORY, where the final episode ("The Gamble") was the clear inspiration for POLICEWOMAN, since it starred Angie Dickinson as an undercover cop (with a different name to her "Pepper" Anderson character) alongside Ed Bernard and Charles Dierkop, both playing the same cops (Styles and Royster) that they would portray in POLICEWOMAN. With Bert Convy playing the character which Earl Holliman would portray in POLICEWOMAN, "The Gamble" is another great episode of POLICE STORY and provides a further example of just how honest and uncompromising the series was (at one point in "The Gamble", when the Angie Dickinson character goes undercover as a hooker, Royster asks her "Do you know what a string of pearls is?").
POLICEWOMAN is not quite as tough or gritty as POLICE STORY but it is still a highly-enjoyable watch anchored by a great cast with terrific chemistry, and of course Dickinson is so strong as the lead. Some great guest stars so far in the first season as well - my favourites being William Shatner as a high-school science teacher mixed-up in the on campus drug trade, and Bob Crane as a radio DJ who uses his wife's extra-marital affair as an excuse to bump her off. Considering Crane's own bloody demise in a Scottsdale motel room just a few years later, it's a rather unsettling appearance. I had to wonder if he flashed his famous collection of X-rated Polaroids to Angie while on set (he was supposedly quite proud of his photography work and not shy about showing it)?
Now I need to find the POLICEWOMAN action figure and costume accessory sets, would make great playtime fun with the KOJACK and STARSKY & HUTCH dolls from the same era.
