Lyle Howry | Through the Shattered Lens

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, Hunter and a biker compete to see who has the fastest draw.

Episode 1.10 “The Shooter”

(Dir by Michael Lange, originally aired on January 4th, 1985)

Someone is gunning down motorcycle cops. It’s a crime that both Hunter and McCall take personally. Unfortunately, Bernie Terwiliger is in charge of the investigation and he insists that he doesn’t need any help from Hunter or “the brass cupcake.” Considering that McCall’s husband was a police officer who was killed while doing a routine traffic stop, you would think Terwiliger would be a little bit more sensitive but nope. That’s not the way things are done on Hunter.

Hunter and McCall conduct their own investigation, which leads them a country-western bar and a quick-draw video game. Deke Broder (Robert Dryer) is a redneck who is very proud of having the fastest draw on the game. The only problem is that cops keep coming in the bar and beating his time. So, Deke stalks and kills them.

Deke — it’s just a game!

Soon, Hunter is playing the video game and Deke has a new target.

Now, this is a good episode! It’s everything that you could want from an episode of Hunter. It’s violent. It’s fast-paced. It’s got enough atmosphere to hold the viewer’s interest and it features a bad guy who is more interesting than the run-of-the-mill cop show villain. Deke and Hunter have a lot in common. They’re both cocky. They’re both convinced their the best. And they both really like to shoot their guns. Between the motorcycles and Deke’s leather kill suit, this episode was pure style.

This is exactly what an episode of Hunter should be like.

This week, Hunter gets another bad assignment.

Episode 1.9 “High Bleacher Man”

(Dir by Arnold Laven, originally aired on December 7th, 1984)

Hunter and McCall have finally arrested Elton Gavin (Michael Baselon), a murderous punk who has been causing mayhem all over Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Gavin works out a deal. For immunity, he’ll turn on gangster Nate Demarest (Richard Romanus). With Demarest eager to kill the informant, Hunter finds himself assigned to protect Gavin until Gavin can testify.

The problem, of course, is that Gavin is a sociopath. Hunter doesn’t want to protect Gavin. He doesn’t want Gavin to get immunity. He certainly doesn’t want to see Gavin back out on the streets. When Hunter learns that McCall once investigated Demarest for killing a federal agent, he asks her to reopen the case. If they can get Demarest on that charge, then there won’t be any reason to give Gavin immunity.

Poor Hunter and McCall. They always get the worst assignments. This was pretty much a standard episode of Hunter but the chemistry between Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer was fun to watch. In the middle of all the action and the bullets, Dryer and Kramer were actually a pretty good comedy team. It’s fun to listen to them talk.

As I watched this episode, I suddenly remembered that Hunter’s father was a gangster and therefore, one would think that Hunter would have more contacts in the world of organized crime than he does. Hunter’s mob background is one of those things that the show sometimes seems to forget about.

The other thing that occurred to me as I watched this episode is that, in 1984, John Amos probably had one of the easiest jobs in television. He played Dolan, Hunter and McCall’s captain. As far as I can tell, his role consisted of showing up at the end of each episode and yelling at Hunter for taking unnecessary risks. That was pretty much it. Amos just had to be annoyed for two-minutes every week.

Of course, it didn’t matter how much Dolan got annoyed,

Hunter got results!