Rick Fitts – 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 faces off against a scarred killer wearing a mask! Pretty scary, kids!

Episode 2.5 “Killer In A Halloween Mask”

(Dir by Sidney Hayers and Michael Peerce, originally aired on October 26th, 1985)

After getting the bill for yet another high-speed chase involving Hunter and McCall, Captain Wyler (the great Bruce Davison) decides that they need to take a week off from causing trouble. He assigns them to work as technical advisors for a cop show called Street Heat.

At first, everything seems fine. Hunter hits on the publicity woman. The star of the show, J.J. Hendrix (Stephen Shortridge), asks McCall out to dinner. But then, one night, a man in a cheap plastic mask breaks into Hendrix’s house, bashes in his skull in with a fireplace poker, and sprays acid on the star’s face! (I guess he wasn’t a fan of the last season of Welcome Back Kotter.)

A masked killer is targeting the cast and crew of Street Heat! Hunter and McCall suspect that it might be Dave Tolan (Gary Graham), the former star of the show whose career ended when he set himself on fire while freebasing. The horribly scarred Dave now works at a wax museum and has access to all sorts of chemicals and acids. Plus, Hendrix was dating Dave’s ex-girlfriend….

And, of course, Hunter and McCall are correct. We know that they’re correct because we see Dave plotting the murders at the start of the episode. I have to admit that I spent the entire episode waiting for some sort of twist. I thought Dave would have an accomplice or something similar. But nope, it’s just Dave. It all leads to a confrontation in the wax museum. During a struggle with Hunter, Dave gets impaled. Hunter doesn’t say, “Works for me,” but you can tell that he’s thinking it.

There weren’t any big surprises in this episode but I still enjoyed it. It aired on October 26th and it was obviously produced with Halloween in mind. The late Gary Graham gave an appropriately unhinged performance as Dave. The scenes on the set of Street Heat also served as a commentary on Hunter as a show. After watching Hendrix “shoot” a suspect in a scene that felt like it could have been lifted from any episode of Hunter, McCall and Hunter commented that Street Heat wasn’t very realistic.

Fans of washed-up politicians will be happy to see Jesse “The Body” Ventura in this episode. He shows up at the start of the show. He’s been arrested for attacking his dentist. Ventura complains about his toothache. Hunter knocks the tooth out of his mouth. Ventura thanks him. Whenever I see Jesse Ventura in an old TV show or movie, I always regret that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the only other future governor that he co-starred with. If Fred Dryer had later been elected governor of California, this episode would have been legendary.

Governor Dryer. It has a nice ring to it.

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.