T.J. Hooker: undercover

Just about every cop and detective show eventually has an episode where a main character requires going undercover to nail the perps. Hell, even Columbo did it in the episode Columbo: Undercover, where Columbo, if memory serves, plays an old, confused down and out drunk in a hat and was at one point beaten up using the blunt end of a telephone. I try not to think about that episode much. It was a sad and embarrassing day for both of us.

I don’t recall Quincy M.E. going undercover – though I am sure he did a lot of work under the covers on his yacht at the marina, if you get my meaning, smooth coroner that he is – and so keeps integrity points for that.

It seems, however, that T.J. Hooker – the early 1980’s vehicle for William Shatner – resorted to working undercover more than most. The programme being rather poor in general made no mistake and kept the tone of the undercover aspects similarly ridiculous.

Now I realise that a certain amount of suspension of belief is required on behalf of the viewer and so we must forgive the obvious issues of 3 street cops (of whom one is a young lady called Stacey who appears to be nothing more than a receptionist in a police uniform at the Police Academy) going into dangerous undercover operations with seemingly little to no preparation or backup. But even without, it seems, the necessary training or support they are the worst undercover cops I have seen:

In a plot involving the complicated scenario where diamond thieves (a hired heavy, a helicopter pilot, a pornographic filmmaker and girl who is a dancer-cise instructor which the filmmaker is blackmailing with their linked past – like if the A-team had gone wrong) in a series of thefts, steal some diamonds then make off in their signigture move by hotwiring helicopters (!!) [don’t get me started on the concept of the many helicopters just left lying about in back alleys in the realm of T. J. Hooker] – T.J. Hooker needs Stacy to go undercover to check on their one lead, the filmmaker.

It’s ok for Stacy – the filmmaker bloke doesn’t do 70’s funk movies since he was busted a few years back, these days he does innocent dancer-cise instruction videos.

Stacy gets the gig by dancing and exercising on the podium and following the, albeit, dubious directions of “now add a bit eroticism, but not too raunchy!” [yep, that's how it started the first time]. She’s onto to something too: after another successful workout video in the can she has found a note with a phone number in a bin. Unfortunately she is discovered looking at the paper by the filmmaker. She drops the note and heads off to the showers. Her smoke [or heh, heh, steam] screen doesn’t work and soon the filmmaker is suspicious.

So suspicious in fact, that he goes to the changing room and picks the lock of her… er… locker. He doesn’t need to dig too deep to find her Police Badge. I mean, come on! I am no fully trained police officer but to have your badge with you, and out of your control while undercover surely is the in the top 5 things not to do when on undercover operations?

Needless to say her cover is soon blown and it is only a matter of moments before her life is in danger as the heist group fire up another chopper.

Thankfully in the T.J. Hooker universe the crooks are often just as bumbling when things go “undercover”.

T.J Hooker and Jim Corrigan are working undercover as a couple of big time cocaine dealers. The Feds are quick to note that they are quite possibly not experienced enough to pull this off and so Washington wont give them the $30,000 needed to continue with the operation. T.J. Hooker mystifyingly tells the Federal Agent, “I’ll use my own funds”. Fine, but at least take a wire, the Agent reasons. “No wires!” Hooker spits back. Despite this perhaps now perilously blending the lines between working undercover using government money and evidence gathering techniques and simply doing a $30,000 drugs deal T.J. Hooker and Jim bash on.

Once in the neon lit and velvet furnished bar, the two undercover cops are searched for wires. “You can’t be too careful, you might be cops” they are told as the goon pads them down. Clean, they sit down to conduct business. The drugs dealer tells them that business has been good and displays his threads to them as proof, gold tooth gleaming from his grin. [The suit appeared quite flimsy to me and the shirt although very red, hints that maybe business is not that good as it seems to be missing half its buttons – the poor drug lord is using a yellow medallion to try and distract from this, unfortunately it only seems to highlight it].

Once the deal is done, T.J. Hooker draws his 6-shooter under the table and gets the information he needs.

It seems that you really can’t be too careful if you are drugs lord – although perhaps making sure your goon doesn’t just check to see if the stranger you are in dealings with has a wire but is also checking he isn't packing heat in the form of a large police issue gun is the very least you should expect.