20180328

T.J. HOOKER

In the 1982-83 season, Aaron Spelling produced an entire Saturday night of prime time television in series format for the American Broadcasting Company. Aaron Spelling was known for producing "cotton candy for the mind." On 'T.J. Hooker' William Shatner stated, "In those terms, we're potato chips and dip. We want to show that a cop's life is not high adventure, but tedium punctuated by moments of terror." 

Then 50, William Shatner, who rose to stardom as Captain James Kirk, the commander of the Starship Enterprise, played a police sergeant. William Shatner told the press, "I did not realize then (in 1964) that 'Star Trek' was part of this country's mythology and I'm apparently part of that mythology. Its greatest success came when the series was put in syndication. It airs somewhere every day and its legion of fans continues to grow. It's seen in more than 100 countries."

By 1982, "There has been an extraordinary turnaround. People see me on the street and say 'Hi, T.J.' or, 'Hello, Hooker.' So, they no longer see me just as Kirk. But, to be truthful, I don't know if I want to shake off 'Star Trek'." On 'T.J. Hooker', "The policeman is the fantasy of the good man upholding the law in society but the character I play is also in conflict with society. The uniform carries enormous authority. I felt that sense of potency. It's a strange and dangerous mix. 

"T.J. Hooker is a conservative man. He finds himself in the midst of laws that tend to aid the perpetrator rather than the victim. So I'm looking for boundaries of how far you can go with an authority figure – the boundaries of what the audience will identify with and what would be unpalatable." At the time, "We're not on the air yet, so I have no feedback from the audience. I can only go on my own instincts."  

'T.J. Hooker' was an Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg production in association with Columbia Pictures Television. The pilot movie plus four episodes ABC aired in March 1982 ranked 'T.J. Hooker' the 30th most popular program of the 1981-82 season. William Shatner continued, "The series I signed to do last year (1981) had a lot of characters in it who would carry the show with me. It was called 'The Protectors' - and was a sort of 'Dallas'-type soap opera story of the police force. 

"It was to be a serial with a lot of characters, each with his own story. It seemed the best of all possible worlds: a character that broke away from my 'Star Trek' Captain Kirk image, and a work schedule that was easy to live with. Then it went through a strange metamorphosis – and now (in 1982) I'm the title character in the show. The change came after they filmed the pilot and they began to see the strength of Hooker, so they began to write it for me. 

"I smelled a good thing. You can only go by your feelings. The project originally called for a hard-nosed police sergeant and they asked me to do it. What I didn't anticipate was that it was going to end up being called 'T.J. Hooker' and that I would be in every scene. I call that an ecstatic nightmare. After a lot of thought, I decided that the best way to reach the largest audience was to do a series again. 

"The pilot centered on Hooker, but to a lesser degree than now (the first season). It was set in the police academy and the other characters were the cadets. We've retained the academy by making it the precinct station and I still take cadets out to train them. But the academy is no longer the focus. We're now (the first season) out looking for criminals. 

"Hooker is a fascinating character. He speaks for the people when he voices his concern over how the laws have not taken care of the victims, but seem to protect the perpetrators. Let's face it, the good guys to most viewers are the defense and not the prosecution. Hooker is not an easy character to create. I have to walk a narrow line between being a zealot and being a protector of the people. I have to show his humanness, his flaws and make the audience care about him. 

"This is not going to be a crime-of-the-week show. It will be a show of relationships and the action will spring from the characters. With a lot of young viewers at that hour (8pm Eastern time), we're going to need more physical action to hold their attention. It's easier to retreat and play nice. You take a chance by taking an attack. It's a fine line and it requires good writing and producers who know what they're doing. 

"By attack, I mean that you have definite viewpoint of a scene. Say that Sgt. Hooker's words come out reflecting his distaste for those who break the law. Everyone is walking around with trepidation. No one knows the form of this character. I don't know the form of the character, and I'm reaching. I know some lines have to be read with humor and I know some have to be read exactly the opposite – all of that leavened, hopefully, with the humanity of the character. 

"With Capt. Kirk, whenever I had acting choices I went for the way I, Shatner, would ideally have liked to behave. With courage in the face of danger, romantic with women and with equanimity with my peers. The difference I think with Sgt. Hooker is that he must make angrier choices. They're a lot alike. They're both strong characters, decisive and opinionated. But the major difference is that Kirk is noble and Hooker is angry. 

"Myself? I’m somewhere in between. A noble angry guy. Or is it an angry noble guy? And, yes, I am opinionated. I'm just wrong 50% of the time. I'm living proof that the older you get, the less you know. I realize more and more how accidental things are, or how fortuitous, and how little anybody knows about anything, from what makes a hit show to the existence of God. There are no sure things, either in life or art." 

Compare to other Spelling-Goldberg productions, "I think in this particular case we broke the mold. The character is totally atypical, but the setting is not. The dichotomy is this unfamiliar character in a familiar setting. We'll see how the mix works. Hooker doesn't bend the law. If anything it's the opposite. The sanctity of the law is one of his tenets. But there is a fine line between police coercion and merely spirited questioning. He might intimidate by force, but not by the force of his right arm. 

"We did 79 'Star Trek' shows and I think we only did two outdoors. We'd go to Vasquez Rocks for your average barren planet. The last 'Star Trek' movie we didn’t go out at all. We did the dust-blown planet inside and used wind machines." By the end of the 1983-84 season, William Shatner made the point, "I think if a poll were taken, a third of the people would identify me as Kirk, a third as Hooker and a third as Bill Shatner. It's a strange amalgamation of three separate entities. 

"Hooker isn't the hero that Kirk is in the eyes of people who watch both characters, but he may reach that status now that the series has been renewed for a third year (1984-85 season). Viewers think of Hooker as the archetypal conservative cop fighting for everyman, which Kirk does but on a higher plane. They are both universal characters doing what they can to preserve peace and justice. Hooker and Kirk share similar qualities, but there are differences too. 

"Kirk has a thoughtful, analytical approach to problems. Hooker is an angry man who reacts to stress with action. Like most actors, I prepare my lines and moves as much as possible in advance. But when the cameras start rolling I let the character take over. In a series you can't really play a character. People see through it too easily. And fatigue factor is such that gradually you lose hold of some of the character traits you're trying to show. In about two episodes you're back to the basic you. 

"I have a high level of energy and before the series started, I was working my daily running up to marathon distance. But this series is taking every bit of endurance I have because it makes a lot of physical demands on me with long hours and stunts. There are also many highly dramatic scenes. When I did 'Star Trek' I used to meditate to conserve my energy. 

"Actually, conserving energy in a person is no different than conserving energy in a house. You have to insulate and I haven't redeveloped that ability as yet. It's probably the typical character most people expect me to play. Hooker stands for everything that's right. He'll let nothing get in the way of his making sure that justice is done. There's no mistaking what Hooker's about. Obviously people are watching the show. I think people appreciate it because it's not too cerebral a show. 

"It's action and adventure without a heavy message other than truth and justice being virtuous qualities. I think it's good that the show carries that theme. Not enough series today do that. I think that 'T.J. Hooker' can remain a successful series, and I think the character can be a viable one – rooted in today. I would be very grateful to the masses if Hooker is a success." 

However ABC canceled 'T.J. Hooker' at the end of the 1984-85 season. In 1981-82, the Saturday prime time rating of the three networks was 48.0%. In 1983-84, the households ratings fell to 43.0% and in the 1984-85 season, the ratings fell to 40.0%. 'T.J. Hooker' finished the season tied with 'Street Hawk' and 'Finder of Lost Loves' averaging 13.7% households ratings. In the 1983-84 season, 'T.J. Hooker' averaged 16.0% households ratings and 27% audience share. 

Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg ended their business partnership in 1982 and by 1985, it was understood both had sold their interest in 'T.J. Hooker' to Columbia Pictures TV. As only 72 episodes were produced, Columbia Pictures TV did not have sufficient episodes to sell the program in syndication began a campaign to save 'T.J. Hooker'. 

"A heavy barrage of on-air promotional ads" paid off with the announcement CBS would pick up the series. Aaron Spelling reportedly left 'T.J. Hooker' due to contractual agreements with ABC but collaborator Leonard Goldberg stayed with the show in a supervisory role. However the licensing fee CBS paid Columbia Pictures TV was for late-night (11.30pm Eastern time) budget, not prime time. Hence Heather Locklear would return full time to 'Dynasty'. 

Bud Grant told the press, "A lot of people feel that ABC shouldn't have canceled 'T.J. Hooker'. For us (CBS), it's intriguing to take a prime-time show and move it to a late-night time slot. It isn't our intention to put 'Hooker' back in prime." William Shatner added, "It's certainly a unique situation for 'T.J. Hooker'. There’s a possibility we could be moved into prime time for CBS. That’s what we keep hearing. It would be more pleasant to go from late-night to prime time, than the other way around. 

"The difference is in our budget, so we are somewhat inconvenienced by less money. We have to write in more dialog and character and plot. That's difficult to do on a weekly basis, but we've done the best we could. We've found CBS is much more picayune in the area of censorship, on the amount of violence that can be shown. So, we have a much tighter rein on violence for late night than we had at ABC for 8 o'clock. 

"I'm seeing two views of censorship policies. I can say that CBS is much more stringent. All the other cop shows are spending well over $1 million and when we're asked to pare it down, you’re really cutting muscle. The basis of an action show is clever. We've had to invent chases instead of car crashes. We have more character conflict." 

Question: How do you resolve the human problems which exist in the society whether you call them jobs or some other name? 

Marshall McLuhan: You know the way. If you’re uncomfortable where you’re sitting, you tend to shift around a bit, the same way with jobs. People get uncomfortable, they shift around a bit. And families, too. So when you ask how does one overcome these difficulties, it’s like asking what posture should these people adopt in order to feel more comfortable. It’s a very big question. 

The first question is to know what is the question. Not what is the answer. If you know the right question, answers are fairly easy. But finding the right question is not so easy. And that means finding the hidden ground. If you don’t know what the real underlying change is, unless you know what has really changed in your environment, it’s hard to formulate questions. 

You mentioned satellites. Instead of installing telephone lines, satellites make it possible to bypass telephone wires. And to bypass all the hardware installations of yesterday. One of the effects of moving at electric speed is that all hardware tends to become software. Not entirely, but tends in that direction. And all information tends to decentralize. At the speed of light centralism tends to yield to decentralism. That's where small becomes beautiful. 

Stewart Brand: People don't stay in one place long enough for small to make sense. They shift too fast for it to take hold. 

Marshall McLuhan: No community.

Blog Archive