Hunter - The Complete First Season (1984)

Hunter Rocks!

This 1984-85 Season of Hunter was great and was more sophisticated than any other police detective drama on TV at the time, especially since Hunter(Fred Dryer) and McCall(Stepfanie Kramer) were L.A.'s toughest cops, especially since Hunter was a maverick homicide detective with a Dirty Harry style personality in the first 2 seasons of this show and you could say that HUNTER was an upgraded police drama from DRAGNET, since HUNTER had more action in it and made everything look more convincing and realistic than they did on DRAGNET along with the fact that Hunter nearly outclassed Sgt. Joe Friday, since Sgt. Rick Hunter was a much tougher cop than Sgt. Joe Friday(Jack Webb) was.

Hunter was also the first cop show that I know of where a male police detective partnered up with a female police detective, especially in the old days, since the only time you'd see a male officer partner up with a female officer was only if they were patrolman, not investigators, unlike Hunter and McCall.

For instance, Stacy Sheridan(Heather Locklear) had partnered up with Jim Corrigan(Jim Darren) on TJ HOOKER at one time, but Sheridan and Corrigan were patrolman, not detectives.

This was also the season when the exasperated Capt.Dolan(John Amos) was Hunter and McCall's captain, which was of course before Capt.Wyler(Bruce Davison) and Capt. Devane(Charles Hallahan) came along, plus this was the season when Hunter and McCall's doofus fellow officer Sgt. Bernie Terwilliger(James Whitmore, Jr.) was working homicide often being a thorn in Hunter and McCall's side during their investigations, but was shown a lot less in the Second Season when Bernie was transferred to Internal Affairs.

Something else I noticed about this show was there was a lot more shooting in this show than most other police dramas, which was another cool thing about Hunter, despite the fact that all the frequent shooting on this show was pretty much exaggerated, since cops usually don't often shoot and/or kill people most of the time, even in a high-crime city like L.A. or New York.

Hunter's 1st Season also had some real cool action packed episodes like when Hunter and McCall go up against a crooked sheriff(Bo Svenson) in the "A Long Way From L.A." episode where the corrupt sheriff ends up being incriminated after getting beat up by Hunter.
-"The Snow Queen" episode when Hunter & McCall deal with an abrasive crooked New York Police detective(Dennis Franz) trying to kill a cocaine dealer(Lycia Naff) from the East Coast leaving McCall to go undercover as a singer to help entrap a big time drug dealer(Dennis Farina) from L.A.
-The "Sniper" episode when Hunter and McCall investigate a string of homicides being attributed to an Army Sergeant(Jack Starrett)who kills off blonde dames in a park
-The "Dead Or Alive" episode when Hunter & McCall track a bounty hunter(Wings Hauser) from New Jersey who comes to Los Angeles to track down an armed robbery suspect he wants to kill

It was also interesting seeing
-Ed O'Neill in "The Garbage Man" episode before his Al Bundy days on MARRIED WITH CHILDREN
-Dennis Farina in "The Snow Queen" episode before his days on CRIME STORY
-Nancy Stafford in "The Avenging Angel" episode before her days on MATLOCK
-Dennis Franz in "The Snow Queen" episode before his days on NYPD BLUE and HILL STREET BLUES
-John Amos co-starring as the hard nosed Capt. Dolan after his days on GOOD TIMES
-Shawn Weatherly in "The Shooter" episode before her Jill Reilly days on the original BAYWATCH August 20, 2008

TV Watcher

Hunter was one of best crime programs of the 1980's and 1990's. Fred Dryer is great as well as Stephanie Kramer.
I am really enjoying watching it again. July 11, 2008

Yes

Been "eyeballing" to by the Hunter series for a long time, finally did and what can I say. Sure like it alot, no regrets. I have a collection of old movies, TV Shows from the 80's - 90`s so this one fits right in. I like the storylines, the actors and the quality of the DVD is great March 16, 2008

Original music replaced with a horrible generic soundtrack!

The original music for each season of Hunter has been removed and replaced with generic music. Many consumers buy old TV shows such as Hunter because of the nostalgia value. When totally generic music and bland vocals erupt where there was once the popular music of the era, the scene is completey ruined. The new soundtrack is quite horrible and ruins the mood and much of the nostalgia value of quite a few episodes.

These DVD sets are cheap, and it's fun to see the episodes with a high quality picture, but whoever was in charge of changing the soundtrack should be fired!

Note:

It isn't a matter of COST for the studio to get the rights to the original music, it's a question of GREED concerning profit margins. VEI (an excellent company) released all THREE seasons of Hardcastle and McCormick (Another great Stephen J. Cannell TV series), quickly, and with all the original music. In comparison, Anchor Bay has RUINED every single Stephen J. Cannell release by horribly editing episodes and replacing the original music. You can't tell me that Hunter, 21 Jump Street, or the Greatest American Hero wouldn't sell well enough to cover the cost of obtaining the rights to the original music. If VEI could do it, that tells me that Anchor Bay just didn't care enough about the fans!

- JM September 17, 2007

Original Scoring MISSING

I have looked for the 'Bounty Hunter Dead or Alive' episode for years and was thrilled to finally find it here. What a DISAPPOINTMENT to discover the original soundtrack with Jim Croce? is replaced with some 3rd rate jingly stuff. Big letdown and NO MENTION of it in any of these early reviews I saw. The picture quality is high. March 28, 2007

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