A man jogging on the beach one morning discovers the dead body of a beautiful fully clothed young woman in the surf. The police are notified and the case is assigned to an overworked homicide detective. The man who discovered the corpse is not satisfied with the amount of attention the case is getting. That man happens to be Veteran cop Sgt. T.J.Hooker (William Shatner) an overqualified workaholic who takes deep personal interest in cases.
An autopsy reveals the woman died of blunt force trauma rather than suspicious drowning. But there are no immediate clues available to who she is. With the help of Alice (Kristen Meadows) a chesty bikini-clad artist who frequented the beach - one of countless much younger females who happened to be inexplicably captivated by him during the series, he seeks to identify the dead woman.
Running down names and phone numbers in the little notebook in her possession he comes across the unlisted line of Grant Chandler (John Vernon) a very affluent and powerful man. Chandler is indignant when Hooker questions him and citing his status in the community he threatens to put in some calls to influential friends who will punish the uniformed officer for his temerity.
Hooker isn't worried about that kind of threat. He knows something is up and that Chandler is behind it. The timely manner in which Hooker's life is brutally made more complicated via other means appears to confirm his suspicions. The unintentional humour is his apartment is such a dump that it looks pretty much the same after the baddies have completely trashed it.
William Shatner and John Vernon are two of Canada's most famous actors. Their scenes together in this constitute covert Canadian content of the kind Canadians had to content ourselves with way back when - i.e. two of our icons happening to get cast opposite each other though the characters they are playing are almost certainly American born and bred.
Whether Vernon's casting is 'legacy casting' depends on how loosely you define the term. He played 'Wojeck' on the pioneering forensics series of the same name in the 1960s and it launched his career in America. Wojeck was a coroner with the same work ethic and passion for his job as Hooker. The case of a body being discovered on a beach and the possible involvement of some decadent aristocrat sounds like it could have been a Wojeck episode.
Instead it makes for one of the very best T.J.Hooker episodes or at least one of the few good ones. This instalment is so good it doesn't even seem like the same show. The excesses and clichés of this series remain but are so understated as to disappear beneath the strength of the story and characters.
An autopsy reveals the woman died of blunt force trauma rather than suspicious drowning. But there are no immediate clues available to who she is. With the help of Alice (Kristen Meadows) a chesty bikini-clad artist who frequented the beach - one of countless much younger females who happened to be inexplicably captivated by him during the series, he seeks to identify the dead woman.
Running down names and phone numbers in the little notebook in her possession he comes across the unlisted line of Grant Chandler (John Vernon) a very affluent and powerful man. Chandler is indignant when Hooker questions him and citing his status in the community he threatens to put in some calls to influential friends who will punish the uniformed officer for his temerity.
Hooker isn't worried about that kind of threat. He knows something is up and that Chandler is behind it. The timely manner in which Hooker's life is brutally made more complicated via other means appears to confirm his suspicions. The unintentional humour is his apartment is such a dump that it looks pretty much the same after the baddies have completely trashed it.
William Shatner and John Vernon are two of Canada's most famous actors. Their scenes together in this constitute covert Canadian content of the kind Canadians had to content ourselves with way back when - i.e. two of our icons happening to get cast opposite each other though the characters they are playing are almost certainly American born and bred.
Whether Vernon's casting is 'legacy casting' depends on how loosely you define the term. He played 'Wojeck' on the pioneering forensics series of the same name in the 1960s and it launched his career in America. Wojeck was a coroner with the same work ethic and passion for his job as Hooker. The case of a body being discovered on a beach and the possible involvement of some decadent aristocrat sounds like it could have been a Wojeck episode.
Instead it makes for one of the very best T.J.Hooker episodes or at least one of the few good ones. This instalment is so good it doesn't even seem like the same show. The excesses and clichés of this series remain but are so understated as to disappear beneath the strength of the story and characters.
