All Rise...

Judge P.S. Colbert used to live on the streets of San Francisco as a member of the Mod Squad.

Editor's Note

Our review of Police Woman: First Season, published March 29th, 2006, is also available.

The Charge

"We've got a real psycho on our hands."—Sgt. Bill Crowley

Opening Statement

LAPD Criminal Conspiracy Unit fall out: Sgt. Bill Crowley (Earl Holliman, The Rainmaker), the no-nonsense squad leader; Detectives Joe Styles (Ed Bernard, The White Shadow) and Pete Royster (Charles Dierkop, Messenger Of Death); and Sgt. Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson (Angie Dickinson, Dressed To Kill), she with the ability to turn heads in 1975 by virtue of her stunning beauty and strange/exotic employment as something called a Police Woman.

The Case

The second season duty roster covers six discs:

Disc One
• "Pawns Of Power"
• "The Score"
• "Paradise Mall"
• "Pattern For Evil"

Disc Two
• "The Chasers"
• "Cold Wind"
• "Above And Beyond"
• "Farewell, Mary Jane"

Disc Three
• "Blaze Of Glory"
• "Glitter With A Bullet"
• "The Purge"
• "Don't Feed The Pigeons"

Disc Four
• "The Hit"
• "Silence"
• "Incident Near A Black And White"
• "The Melting Point Of Ice"

Disc Five
• "The Pawn Shop"
• "Angela"
• "Wednesday's Child"
• "Generation Of Evil"

Disc Six
• "Double Image"
• "Mother Love"
• "Task Force: Cop Killer" (Part One)
• "Task Force: Cop Killer" (Part Two)

The Evidence

Gotta cram for a big test on '70s cop show trivia? Pick up Police Woman: Second Season which plays like Cliff's Notes on the subject, for better and worse.

You get it all here: Mobsters, hustlers, blackmailers, dope peddlers, troubled kids, housewives on the make, bad cops on the take, velvet-hatted pimps, hookers in hot pants (or double-knit pantsuits), and Don Stroud—the decade's default TV and B-flick heavy—showing up twice!

There are discos, rolling casinos, squealing tires, cut brake lines (for winding mountain roads taken at top speed), rooftop rundowns, frantic chases through restaurant kitchens, and amusement parks. There are fist fights on cliff tops, shootouts in stairwells, on fire escapes, down busy streets, and in abandoned warehouses. In fact, I'd wager there were shootouts during the original commercial breaks, but alas, they've been edited out of this set.

Though certainly groundbreaking in terms of its lead character, this otherwise run-of-the-mill procedural could hardly be called earth-shattering. That's not to say Police Woman couldn't be damned good on occasion, quite the contrary. From week to week, while the stories were good, bad, or merely makeweight, the key to the series' long-running success was undoubtedly the chemistry between Dickinson and Holliman, two accomplished and extremely charismatic actors who could finesse an episode of Supertrain. Fortunately, they were never called upon to do so.

Shout! Factory once again delivers a set of full frame sparkling transfers. Though time may have dulled some of the more garish colors of Police Woman: Second Season, somebody has been taking good care of these masters. The same goes for the Dolby 2.0 mono audio, which is surprisingly clear; though English SDH captioning for the hard of hearing should be made standard on TV shows from the previous century!

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Not a single extra.

Closing Statement

Hit the showers, Pep. You've earned it. Don't worry, I've got your back.

The Verdict

Not guilty.

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