Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the police commissioner is suspected of murder!

Episode 1.3 “The Hot Grounder”

(Dir by Bill Duke, originally aired on October 5th, 1984)

After the police commissioner’s wife is blown up by a car bomb, all the homicide detectives hide out in the bathroom because they don’t want to get assigned the case.  Captain Cain still manages to track them down and gives the case to Hunter and McCall.  When McCall asks Hunter why he didn’t do a better job hiding, Hunter replies, “I’m too tall!”

Hunter and McCall soon come to suspect that Commissioner Crenshaw (William Windom) had his wife killed.  Because Crenshaw was being blackmailed with photographs of him with another man, his wife was threatening to divorce him.  Despite all of the evidence against Crenshaw, the police chief (Jason Bernard) tries to protect him.  Hunter and McCall find themselves suspended from the force.  They still manage to prove Crenshaw’s guilt.  Crenshaw goes to prison and Hunter and McCall get their badges back.

This episode felt like a rough draft.  I enjoyed the humor at the start of it.  All of the detectives trying to hide felt very realistic.  Dryer was always obviously still getting comfortable with the role when this episode was shot but his jokes were well-delivered.  That said, the mystery itself felt half-baked and William Windom was not particularly believable in his role.  By the end of the episode, Hunter had been reduced to repeating, “Works for me,” over and over again.

This episode didn’t really work for me.  It was obvious that the show was still trying to figure out who Hunter and McCall were and how they would react to each other.  As such, their chemistry felt off in this episode and the end result was forgettable.