I searched, and couldn't find any threads on this show. No, not the Jackie Chan actioner from 1985, or the Black Flag song, I'm talking about the anthology series from the 70s, with various stories centered around LA law enforcement. Its biggest claim to fame was probably the Angie Dickinson episode that was spun off into its own series, Police Woman.

I've only watched a couple of episodes on H&I network, and admittedly it was due to some actors who became much bigger. Notably, an episode with Kurt Russell as a hayseed police cadet, and one this past weekend with Robert Forster as a narc (also, that episode had David Hasselhoff as a parking lot attendant!). What has struck me is that in both episodes, the protagonist was the loser. That was a big surprise; some of the knocks on last year's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was that the storylines on "Bounty Law" where the criminals came out ahead could not have been done in that era. I guess it changed in the 70s though. In Russell's episode, he's a young cadet who does well in everything except the written tests. He even saves another officer's life in the field, but in the end he flunks out of the academy anyway due to the exam scores. And Forster's was REALLY bleak; he's a narc who uses informants. His informant is killed, and shortly thereafter he is as well. The ending reminds me of To Live and Die in LA, where his partner takes over the work using the same methods.

Are there any fans here? Did I stumble upon rarities here, or were there a lot of episodes like that? If so, I may definitely be in for the whole series.

It was one of my favorite series in its original run, and, sadly, pretty much forgotten about. It followed the lead of Joseph Wambaugh's "The New Centurions" and looked deeply into all aspects of the Police Department, its officers, and their place in the world. Some episodes were very gritty, others were lighter in their approach. It was a Tuesday 9pm Central show, and it was never a huge hit. It was an intelligent show for the most part that set the stage for shows like "Hill Street Blues". That's my memory, anyway...

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the Hill Street vibe, in that it shows so many different aspects of police work. Hill Street would have stories about the beat cops, plainclothes detectives, undercover operations, SWAT, hostage negotiations, street gangs, office politics, the public defender's office, and personal lives. I can't think of a show since then that's so global. Even the far more successful NYPD Blue was very narrow in its focus.

So Police Story looks like it'll be worth watching more of.