The BEST episodes of T.J. Hooker
Every episode of T.J. Hooker ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of T.J. Hooker!
After his partner was murdered, veteran plain clothes Detective T.J. Hooker had reverted back to his former role as Sergeant, and returned to the beat to rid the streets of the type of scum that was responsible for his partner's death. Back in uniform, Hooker was assigned to train the academy recruits, and was partnered with brash, sometimes hot-headed young rookie Vince Romano. With Romano much his junior, Hooker acted as his trainer and mentor on both a professional and social level. The age difference generally being the key hook of the partnership, the pair quickly became good friends and a good team. Hooker's tough, no-nonsense ways saw him often clashing with station Captain Sheridan, but he always got the job done and was highly respected as a result. Seen in the short first season, mostly on desk duty, was Officer Vicky Taylor. Introduced at the start of the second season was attractive Officer Stacy
#1 - A Kind of Rage
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/1/1984
While on a stake-out to capture a strangler who is killing homeless women, Corrigan receives a blow to the head while struggling with a suspect, leaving him with a concussion which triggers sudden, unexpected bouts of enraged behaviour. But the suspect Corrigan took on isn't in fact the strangler, and with the real killer still on the loose, Hooker and the team must track him down before he strikes again. Corrigan's refusal to acknowledge his condition doesn't exactly help matters...
#2 - Homecoming
Season 4 - Episode 19 - Aired 3/9/1985
Hooker's children come to visit their father, but the vacation is interrupted after Corrigan and another Officer unwittingly disrupt an armed race-track heist, which leaves Corrigan's fellow Officer dead. The robbers were under the pretence of being ambulance attendants, and Hooker has reason to believe that the robbery was an inside job; but the case means that his time with his cherished kids is limited...
#3 - Sanctuary
Season 4 - Episode 18 - Aired 3/2/1985
Corrigan and Stacy stop a car for speeding, only to have the trio inside open fire on them with automatic weapons, badly wounding Corrigan. Hooker and Romano are first on the scene, and the trio, who comprise of a woman who is a convicted murdered and two men who have broken her out of prison, take sanctuary in a nearby church, with Stacy and the seriously injured Corrigan as hostages. With the church surrounded with SWAT Officers, Hooker must try and negotiate not only with the gun-happy thugs, who are demanding a safe passage to Mexico, but also reason with the church's priest, also a hostage, who has beliefs that he is determined to stick to, not matter what the circumstances...
#4 - Hollywood Starr
Season 4 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/23/1985
Dani Starr is an attractive Hollywood Detective who lives alone, dresses snazzily, and always gets the job done. While en route to Hollywood to deliver a captured jewel thief, Hooker and Corrigan are ambushed by the thief's men, who free their leader. Hooker teams up with Dani Starr to find the sprung thief, who is the prime suspect in the murder of a porn film producer. As they search for leads, they find that there is a Mob connection; Hooker learns that Dani's husband was previously murdered by the Mob, and she is determined to find those responsible...
#5 - Love Story
Season 4 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/16/1985
An attractive woman named Teri, whom Hooker meets when giving a speeding ticket, finds that her friend has been robbed and raped, and herself is attacked when she unwittingly stumbles onto the scene, until Hooker comes to the rescue. She aids him as they try to identify the violent gang behind the attacks, and in their together, they quickly fall in love, but things take a nasty turn when the gang track Teri down and badly attack and rape her. The result of the attack takes its toll on her and Hooker's relationship, and causes Corrigan, Stacy and Romano to become concerned that Hooker's fierce pursuit of the gang is being clouded by personal feelings and the want for revenge...
#6 - The Bribe
Season 4 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/9/1985
When Hooker and the team assist in a large drugs bust, the main dealer escapes, but a videotape is seized that incriminates Hooker for seemingly taking bribes to keep prostitutes out of jail. Stripped of his badge and gun as he awaits being charged with corruption, he travels to Las Vegas and meets up with the prostitute accused of bribing him, in a bid to clear his name and get to the bottom of the drug operation by nailing the mastermind crime lord at it's centre... Meanwhile, Corrigan asks Romano to use his trainee lawyer skills to help a pregnant woman caught up at the scene of the bust who is an illegal immigrant...
#7 - Outcall
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/2/1985
The shooting of a masseuse girl in Chinatown convinces Hooker that a Vietnamese crime mob is operating in the area and trying to take over the district's message parlours. With information from a Vietnamese girlfriend of Corrigan's, Romano goes undercover at the parlour in the middle of the trouble as an outcall driver, while Stacy works as one of the massage girls; but when Stacy's cover is roused, Hooker must race to save her...
#8 - Trackdown
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/26/1985
A parking attendant's suspicion leads to the discovery of a woman's body in the trunk of a car, sending Hooker and the team on the trail of a psychotic killer who is on a cross-country murder spree. Meanwhile, the deranged killer lures a young woman into his clutches and takes her hostage, leaving behind her husband and sick baby. Hooker persuades the Detective in charge of the case to let him place a trap to try and catch the killer and get the woman back safely, but it places Stacy in great danger...
#9 - The Surrogate
Season 4 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/12/1985
After a woman in a troubled marriage, whom Hooker meets in a bar, is fatally stabbed, he notices a similarity with three other cases, and a pattern emerges that all of the women had phoned in to a relationship therapist's call-in radio show before they were murdered. Convinced that the connection to the radio station is the key to the killings, he tries to persuade the show's therapist to help him track down the killer, but she is very reluctant, worrying that the bad publicity will stop callers to her show... During the investigation, Stacy and Corrigan rescue a young baby and it's mother from a brutal attack stirs feelings between them...
#10 - Street Bait
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/5/1985
After the third in a series of murders on attractive young blonde women, Stacy goes undercover to work as a salesgirl at a shopping mall store where each of the girls had worked, to act as bait to try and lure out the killer. With Stacy wired up, Hooker, Corrigan and Romano keep tabs on her until the killer makes himself apparent, but Hooker is concerned when the gun used in the murders suggests the killer to be a cop, and all indications point to the store's security officer being the culprit. But the operation puts Stacy in a dangerous position...
#11 - Grand Theft Auto
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/29/1984
Romano, celebrating his new Porsche sports car, takes Hooker out for a night at a dance club, but the car is stolen, hitting a gypsy king as it speeds away. The injured man and his 10-year-old niece have been tracking the thieves trying to recover stolen automobile parts, but they refuse to give any information to the Police. The next day, the man is murdered, but the niece once again refuses to talk. Hooker reluctantly releases the girl into the custody of her older sister, hoping that she might open up to her about the killing, but the young gypsy girl is determined to avenge her uncle's death...
#12 - The Confession
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/15/1984
Responding to the latest in a string of rape muggings on women using automatic teller machines, Hooker finds that the latest victim is Episcopal female priest Beth Harrison, an old acquaintance. Although terrified, she agrees to testify when Hooker and the team nab the culprit, but the attacker cunningly goes to church to give confession about the rape to her, leaving Beth sticking to her sworn vow of silence over confessions and thus refusing to give testimony. Hooker tries to convince her to go against her beliefs and testify, or else the rapist will be free back on the streets and strike again...
#13 - Serial Murders
Season 4 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/16/1985
Hooker's investigation into a series of gristly murders by a pair of religious crazies is accompanied by Sergeant Leigh Stockwell, a close, old friend, whom is somewhat his protégé. But Stacy becomes suspicious that Leigh is using cocaine, an addiction which not only jeopardises the case and Leigh's job, but also Hooker's life...
#14 - Model for Murder
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/24/1984
Investigating the killing of a fashion model, who had also been working as a high-class prostitute, Stacy's contact, another model, is too found murdered in similar circumstances. Stacy befriends the murdered girl's room-mate, and goes undercover as a model at the company that the girls belonged to, to try and root out the killer, who is using sale of the girls to ensure a large order of costumes. But Stacy's handling of the case causes some friction between Corrigan and herself...
#15 - Target: Hooker
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/17/1984
Hooker and Romano are on patrol when their car is hit with a chemical based fire-bomb, which leaves Romano blinded. With Romano in hospital and facing permanent loss of sight, his girlfriend Maggie, a fellow Officer, takes his place as Hooker's partner as they investigate who was behind the attack and why. Unbeknown to them, a recently released convict, who's deceased cell-mate was put away by Hooker, has hired a chemical genius to wipe Hooker out, but the attempts on Hooker's life have deadly consequences for Maggie...
#16 - Anatomy of a Killing
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/10/1984
Following an execution-style murder connected to a drug racket, Hooker joins forces with ex-partner and personal friend Jim Cody to solve the killing and put the drug ring out of business. But as they investigate the case, it becomes apparent that Cody's own daughter is a heroin addict and involved with key members of the drug ring...
#17 - Hardcore Connection
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 11/3/1984
While on a prostitution sting, Hooker spots veteran vice officer Daniels' car parked outside a motel, and goes to investigate just as the officer is shot by an assassin. Both the gun-man and the prostitute Daniels was meeting with flee the scene, and the officer's superior reports that Daniels wasn't there on Police business, and what's more, was found with money suggesting that he'd been taking bribes. But Hooker is adamant that the veteran officer is innocent of the accusations, and has two days before the funeral to clear the officer's name and find out what he was really doing at the motel. The girl Daniels was meeting with holds the key to the true circumstances, and Hooker forces her ex-roommate, a reluctant, wise-cracking ex-prostitute, into helping him track the down. But the girl is hiding in fear from the dangerous porno producer who was involved with the officer's shooting...
#18 - Pursuit [a.k.a. Hot Pursuit]
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/27/1984
Hooker and Romano give chase of a couple of armed robbers who have held up a local bank and taken a teller hostage - a high-speed pursuit which ends in the thieves' car ploughing into the side of a tanker. Hooker receives criticism over his decision to give chase, which deepens when it's learnt that the young woman taken hostage has lost her unborn baby as a result of the crash. An old girl-friend of Hooker's, now head of security at the bank, is concerned that the high-speed pursuit was unnecessary and is prepared to testify against him. Meanwhile, the extravagant couple of robbers, who go by the aliases of Bonnie and Clyde, are still at large and pulling heists...
#19 - The Two Faces of Betsy Morgan
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/20/1984
Hooker and Romano by chance spot a van swerving dangerously over the road – in which a pair of teenage prostitutes are being held against their will by two men. When the van crashes off the road, they find one of the girls dead after being strangled – the latest victim in a series of killings by ""The Boulevard Strangler"" and his accomplice, who are prying on young runaways. Hooker finds that the surviving girl has run away after being abused at home, and leads a double life – a perfect high-school student, and as a prostitute. But now the girl is in danger with the killers after her, who are concerned that she can identify them in the murder of the other girl... Meanwhile, Corrigan considers leaving the force to take a job teaching...
#20 - Night Vigil
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/13/1984
On routine patrol with Corrigan, Stacy is shot when unwittingly walking in on an armed robbery, leaving her hospitalised in a coma and with a bullet lodged dangerously close to her heart. With Stacy facing precarious surgery, Hooker, Corrigan and Romano search out the robbers, who are armed with armour piercing bullets. But Hooker's determination to catch the thugs, no matter what, sees him putting his career on the line...
#21 - Deadlock
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/12/1984
On night patrol, Hooker and Romano follow the trail of a pair of graffiti vandals to a department store, only to find the store guard dead and themselves unwittingly stumbling onto a gun robbery from the store's sports department. With their patrol car stolen by the graffiti vandals and the store's phones cut, the pair take on the thieves with no back-up, leading to a gun-fight with the trio of robbers which leaves Romano badly wounded by a gun-blast. Both sides trapped in the confines of the department store floor, the battle of wits climaxes with Hooker and the psychotic leader of the robbers trapped together in a store elevator, in a guns-drawn test of will...
#22 - Gang War
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/5/1984
Hooker and Romano are involved in a new neighborhood peace programme designed to reduce tension in an area where two Hispanic gangs are close to declaring all out-war on each other. But the whole programme and peace on the streets is jeopardised when the president of one of the gangs is gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Although the assailants are identified to be wearing the dress code of the victim's rival gang, Hooker suspects that someone else is fuelling the feud to benefit from the sale of fire-arms sold to both sides of the conflict, and must work fast to find the culprits before all-out war erupts between the two gangs...
#23 - Psychic Terror
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/24/1984
A renowned psychic is teamed up with Hooker to find the whereabouts of a kidnapped young girl, using visions of the girl's whereabouts that the woman keeps seeing; but even before the pair have met, the she keeps having a recurring dream about Hooker's death. Hooker has little belief in the woman's psychic abilities and how they can help locate the young girl, and is even more sceptical about her visions of his fate; but the more the pair work together, the more the woman's visions become realised - and the closer Hooker's predicted fate looms to come true...
#24 - The Night Ripper
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/29/1986
Arriving at the scene of the brutal murder of a college girl, Hooker recognises the method of murder as used by a serial killer dubbed ""The Night Ripper"", who was behind a spree of six grisly sex murders four years previously and was never caught. With the psychotic killer terrorising the city once more, Hooker is under pressure to uncover his identity and get him off the streets...
#25 - Deadly Force
Season 5 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/28/1986
After Corrigan drops Detective O'Brien's niece Jennifer off at a jewellery store to buy a gift for her uncle's 25th anniversary in the force, the store is hit by a pair of armed robbers, and in the robbery Jennifer is gunned down. With the only lead being the hi-tech gun used by one of the thieves, Corrigan feels responsible for Jennifer's death, and the investigation is hampered by a television news reporter eager for a story. Meanwhile, one of the murderous robbers gets a taste for the fame that the shooting brings him, and plans to make a play for the determined reporter...