The BEST episodes of S.W.A.T.
Every episode of S.W.A.T. ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of S.W.A.T.!
This series features the missions of the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Weapons and Tactics team. They are a team of highly trained and heavily armed police officers who's purpose is to make coordinated assaults on armed and dangerous criminals in sensitive situations and defensible locations.
#1 - Coven of Killers
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/3/1975
Three members of Joey Hopper's "family," including newcomer Judy Collins, engineer Hopper's escape from a prison's hospital ward. After executing an assistant District Attorney, Hopper sends a recorded message to "Hondo" that he will be the next victim and that he also intends to punish the jury that found him guilty of other homicides. Russ Collins, owner of an underground newspaper which has published sympathetic articles about Hopper, refuses to admit knowledge of Hopper's whereabouts until "Hondo" informs Collins that his daughter has become a member of the treacherous cult.
#2 - Killing Ground
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/24/1975
Street's partner, officer Rob Duran, is killed in the premeditated police assassination by two brothers bent on revenging their father's death. That and subsequent police killings serve to shape the psychology of Lt. Dan "Hondo" Harrelson's newly formed Special Weapons and Tactics team, "S.W.A.T." The team's task is to combat high risk, contemporary, urban crime as a strike force. The team consists of James Street, David "Deacon" Kay, T.J.. McCabe, Dominic Luca, and Harrelson. "S.W.A.T."'s first assignment is an acid test of their ability to survive as individuals and as a team. Their rigorous training is literally a fight against time.
#3 - Ordeal
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/8/1975
Hondo and a convicted dope dealer are stranded in rough terrain when syndicate thugs who want to keep him from testifying sabotage their helicopter.
#4 - Time Bomb
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/4/1975
After completing S.W.A.T. exercises at a movie studio, Street realizes that he left his beeper on the lot. When he and his girlfriend return to collect it, they are trapped in the deserted studio by an embittered stuntman, who is planting explosives with the intent of blowing up the lot as an act of revenge.
#5 - Strike Force
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/15/1975
Hondo and his team are assigned to handle security for a demagogic former general who now leads a racist paramilitary group.
#6 - The Swinger
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/22/1975
D.A. Ainsely Stevens holds secret information which could convict two syndicate chieftains of capital crimes. Because Stevens insists on saying nothing until the grand jury convenes, and because police believe the mob has put out a "major contract" on Stevens, S.W.A.T. is assigned to guard him. But enforcer Mario Rosetti plans to abduct the prosecutor's daughter, Tory, and keep the girl until the father cracks. Oblivious to the danger, Tory is out for kicks as police and crooks try to track her down.
#7 - Terror Ship
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 11/29/1975
A man steals a tugboat laden with explosives and threatens to blow up a famous marine biologist unless he is given a million dollars.
#8 - Murder by Fire
Season 2 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/6/1975
Marco, an arsonist-killer posing as a fireman, engineers a fire during Southern California's dry season in the area's most affluent neighborhood. While looting the evacuated home of a wealthy couple, one of Marco's men kills a fireman. When S.W.A.T. is called in to locate a possible sniper, T.J. McCabe is shot and Marco escapes with a truckload of loot.
#9 - Silent Night, Deadly Night
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/13/1975
Millionairess Doris Bristol has brought gems into the hospital where she is undergoing cosmetic surgery. Her bodyguard, John DeLeon, is slain after he spots criminal Frank Malloy posing as a dying patient (part of a plan where a woman doctor and he plot to steal the jewels from the socialite). Hondo and his men, who are at the hospital putting together a Christmas party in the children's ward, find themselves on duty when the discovery of DeLeon's body leaves Mrs. Bristol unprotected and in apparent jeopardy.
#10 - The Running Man (1)
Season 2 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/24/1976
Syndicate hit men stalk an undercover officer, who plans to testify against the mob.
#11 - The Running Man (2)
Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/24/1976
The SWAT team protects a key government witness against an organized crime boss.
#12 - Lessons in Fear
Season 2 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/31/1976
Hondo Harrelson and his team are called upon to investigate robbery-homicides in which powerful drills and cutting equipment have been stolen. Meanwhile, Dom Luca is dating a student, Sharon Merlingdale, who is being carefully watched by Mark Worth, one of the killer thieves. The more Sharon sees Dom Luca, the more convinced North becomes that the girl must be eliminated.
#13 - Deadly Weapons
Season 2 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/21/1976
Bud Haskins, disowned after marrying a girl whom his father, John Haskins, disapproved, decides to help three "professionals" crack open the safe in the elder Haskins' warehouse. Bud is unaware that the thieves are actually after a huge arsenal of sophisticated, unmarked weapons that have been secretly imported for sale. Bud is slain after helping the criminals burglarize the warehouse. Although S.W.A.T. is assigned to investigate the burglary-murder, John Haskins recruits members of a tough Eastern mob to find the killers of his son.
#14 - The Chinese Connection
Season 2 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/28/1976
Lt. Eddie Chew is assigned to aid Lt. Hondo Harrelson when an elderly shop owner is fatally beaten by an illegal Chinese alien working as a shakedown man for Albert Parker, the Caucasian leader of what appears to be an all-Oriental crime syndicate, a deadly drug and protection ring. Hondo begins to doubt Chew's integrity when it becomes obvious that Chinatown criminals are being given secrets of his investigation.
#15 - Dragons and Owls
Season 2 - Episode 21 - Aired 3/6/1976
Clues to the perpetrators of a series of rapes are a religious medal and a Biblical quotation overheard by one of the victims.
#16 - Any Second Now
Season 2 - Episode 22 - Aired 3/13/1976
A group of militants take over a radio station and demand that their jailed leader be released or they'll blow it up.
#17 - Soldier on the Hill
Season 2 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/20/1976
A mentally unbalanced veteran touring a movie studio suddenly thinks he is back fighting in Vietnam.
#18 - Officer Luca, You're Dead
Season 2 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/3/1976
Luca is charged with manslaughter after he is forced to kill a man who was holding his own wife hostage at gunpoint.
#19 - Dangerous Memories
Season 2 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/27/1976
As Lt. Harrelson lies in a hospital bed, severely wounded, the other members of the team reminisce about their best moments together in clips from previous episodes.
#20 - Blind Man's Bluff
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/19/1975
While leading the team in the rescue of several women being held hostage by two known killers in a massage parlor, Hondo is grazed by a bullet across his temple. He refuses to take time off for tests until dizziness and blurred vision force him temporarily to relinquish his command to Lt. Purcell, an officer whose methods and personality have a demoralizing effect on the S.W.A.T. team.
#21 - Death Carrier
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/10/1975
In a period of a year, model Janet Warren dated three young men, and each has been killed by a sniper's bullet. Police have been unable to find motives or suspects. Since Janet is the only link, Hondo assigns officer Jim Street to pose as the beautiful girl's latest boyfriend in a plan to draw out the sniper who apparently has Janet under constant surveillance.
#22 - Pressure Cooker
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/17/1975
Hondo and his men have been working around the clock on cases such as a food market heist and a kidnapping investigation, when lady journalist Meredith Cooper reports, with police department approval, to spend several days with the S.W.A.T. team. Ms. Cooper's presence creates problems. Her beauty is distracting. Her manner is pushy and her opinion of policemen is anchored somewhere below sea level.
#23 - Hit Men
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/24/1975
Vincent Ritchie, serving a prison sentence, agrees to expose the secrets of a crime syndicate before a Senate committee when he learns of "family" plans to insure his permanent silence. As he is transported with a police escort from the penitentiary, Ritchie is gravely wounded in an ambush attack which claims the life of a police officer. While doctors fight to save the convict's life, Hondo's team and other S.W.A.T. units station themselves throughout the hospital, awaiting an expected attempt to finish Ritchie off.
#24 - Jungle War
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/31/1975
Bo Pritchard is a veteran police officer who also served with Hondo in Vietnam. Having completed S.W.A.T. training, Pritchard all but begs Hondo to give him a chance to work on the team until "Deacon" Kay recovers. But going into action with Hondo recalls memories of jungle warfare to Pritchard whose hostility and resentments eventually pull him into an emotional breakdown.
#25 - Death Score
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 4/7/1975
A terrorist group takes a professional basketball team hostage and demands money.