The Rookies: Season 1

Aaron Spelling was in the beginning of his reign as ABC's personal hit-producer, having already contributed "The Mod Squad," when this show first aired in 1972. This show contributed to a era of cop shows that were as light and fluffy in content as they were heavy in pyrotechnic action.

"The Rookies" were a trio of newly-minted uniform patrolmen in a California police department. Terry Webster was a serious intellectual who had been a social protester, but decided he could make real change by patrolling the beat. Mike Danko was a serious minded ex military man married to a nurse, and Willie Gillis was a fun-loving college grad. Under the tutelage of their squad commander, Lt. Ryker, the three cops learned the ropes and how to take the bad guys off the streets.

Georg Stanford Brown played Webster with authority. Sam Melville, a veteran character actor, played Danko as a sober, but compassionate cop woh dearly loved his wife (played by Spelling's future Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson), and Michael Ontkean was the silly one, making jokes and always looking at things from a humorous perspective. (Ontkean would leave the series and be replaced by a different character played by Bruce Fairbairn in subsequent seasons). And Gerald S. O'Loughlin was marvelous as Lt. Ryker, a serious, almost unemotional superior who actually had a great sense of humor and was genuinely caring and concerned about his young charges.

This show wasn't going to set a high bar for plotting or originality, but it was well-written and well acted. It was entertaining and worth watching. And it continued to pave the way for Spelling's many other cop/detective dramas, including "SWAT," "Starsky and Hutch," "Vegas," "Hart to Hart," "Charlie's Angels," "TJ Hooker," and "Matt Houston." It's well worth remembering.

I know a lot about this series. First, this DVD set is a re-mastered digitally enhanced edition of uncut (MINUS previews to next week that originally aired!!) 50 minute episodes. That is the good news. The bad news. Where is the original PILOT movie called tHE ROOKIES that ran 74 minutes (no commercials) and featured the same cast (minus Kate Jackson and Gerald S.)' Loughlin) and featured Darren Mcgavin? It introduced the series and truly was a "pilot". Shame on SONY DVD. Also "missing" are the orignal bumpers that aired during eaach episode featuring a Police Siren "The Rookies will continue after Station identifaction" and all the previews to next weeks shows. There was a 60 second preview to next weeks show at the end of every episode aired on ABC in the 70's. All are missing on the DVD release.

Here is some information on the series many may not know. Getting the rest of this series released on home DVD might take..YEARS( aND IT TURNS OUT I AM RIGHT AS OF JULY 2011..IT IS TAKING years!) Season Two has an issue-- One episode--titled FROZEN SMOKE stars John Travolta and for years he kept the episode out of syndication and it was never aired for over 25 years until TV land did a once through run of PART of the series several years ago. They STOPPED airing episodes 1/3 throught the second season and no one else airs the series. If we do not get them on home dvd--we cannot get them. It is still possible the Travolta episode is a stumbling block for relase of Season 2 to DVD...if it is so much an issue with residual payments to Travolta. just leave it off. I would take Season 2 minus ONE episode if there is a good reason a deal could not be worked out. This way we have no Season 2 or 3 , etc.

More disturbing news--the original Pilot to the series SWAT-- a TWO hour episode of THE ROOKIES aired as BOTH a ROOKIES/SWAT cross over episdoe ONLY ONCE in March 1975 during the third season of The Rookies. The episode was NEVER syndicated to reruns with SWAT OR The ROOKIES and is NOT available on the SWAT first Season DVD set (That's right---the first episode of SWAT on home DVD--is really episode TWO!) Even more disturbing, The ROOKIES was the FIRST TV series to feature what is known
as "BLOOD SQUIBS". That is, when people are shot, they BLEED. You don't SEE people bleed a lot when they are shot on almost ALL TV series. Its considering "a no no" (CBS "frowns" on impact shots, NBC always does not like them, and ABC virtually doesn't air any impact shots) You can fire a gun at someone but you need to be 'tasteful' and HIDE the blood on network TV. (Just watch all the old westerns and watch as people clutch at their shoulders or hold a hand over the wound so you can not see blood)

On THE ROOKIES, since it was fresh and a new technology and it was the time of DIRTY HARRY!, they used Blood squibs in the ORIGINAL network versions on ABC TV. When they syndicated the show to VIACOM in the late 70's, 98% (that's almost ALL) of the gunshots and ALL of the blood SQUIB impact shots were REMOVED from the prints for TV, That's right--any print shown in syndication from 1977 to 2002 was a VIACOM print with edited violence. Some episodes were so badly edited they clocked in at less than 43 minutes out of 50 minutes and othes made no sense with the 'action/gunshots" cut out. It was done for marketing reasons so the show could be shown at ANY hour but it made the series virtually unwatchable and UNCUT episodes a VERY RARE COMMODITY! The series was sent out PRE CUT on low quality vidoetape in the late 70's through the end of the Viacom owned period early 2002. It was only during the ONE airing of Season 1 and the first third of Season 2 on TV LAND where we saw newly remastered SONY prints with uncut violence. But the epsiodes were edited for time by 5 minutes and they stopped airing the show after only 33 episodes were aired.

SO I anxiously await the release of Seasons two, three and four on DVD. Will they ever be released? And will they include the SWAT 2 hour pilot, FROZEN SMOKE starring John Travolta and THE ROOKIES PILOT MOVIE?

UPDATE:
It is July 2011 and Season 2 of The Rookies has yet to come to DVD. Just about everything else you could want has found its way to DVD...except the rest of The Rookies, Season 2 of SWAT, and Season 3-5 of TJ HOOKER--all of which are owned by SONY. Why won;t Sony release the shows to DVD? if they won;t release them, why won't they let another DVD company buy the rights and release them? This is quite unfair releasing only ONE season and then stopping.

I remember this show in the 70's, but only vaugly, however one episode stuck in my mind called "A taste of terror". and I remember seeing it when I was seven. and it was pretty scary for me at that time. However over the years I forgot about the show , until I was checking on Amazon on the release date for "Emergency- season four",and found this as well.
Oddly enough I started to remember the episode, and read the reviews, and took a chance and purchased it. The first episode was kinda lame ,and I began to worry a bit , but as I continued to watch further episodes on this set I began to enjoy this series. This really was well put together
and the stories were great and although "taste of terror" doesn't scare me anymore , it is still a very good episode to watch. I might take a chance and get further season releases of this series , I especially would like to see the spinoff episode for S.W.A.T. now that I discovered that it was a spinoff of this series.For those who never seen this show and love the classic's this series is for you.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 31 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars