POLICE WOMAN — SEASON ONE: Beauty And The Badge

The 1970’s was an impor­tant time for cop shows.  As tele­vi­sion pushed towards greater free­dom in its por­trayal of adult con­tent, the police drama achieved greater lat­i­tude in how it por­trayed the extremes of the law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion.  Police Woman was a note­wor­thy land­mark in this area: though some might dis­miss it as a t.v.-friendly ver­sion of the cops-and-robbers movies that were so pop­u­lar dur­ing this area, it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that this was the first suc­cess­ful prime-time drama to have a woman in its cen­tral role — and thus paved the way for femme-centric adven­ture shows like Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, etc.

Police Woman had its roots in “The Gamble,” an episode from the first sea­son of the pop­u­lar anthol­ogy drama Police Story.  It starred Angie Dickinson as a cop who goes under­cover to infil­trate a gam­bling oper­a­tion and was pop­u­lar enough that the pro­duc­ers quickly con­sid­ered doing a reg­u­lar cop series built around Dickinson.

The next sea­son, Police Woman pre­miered on the prime-time scene: Dickinson stars as Suzanne “Pepper” Anderson, a police sergeant who works as part of an inves­ti­ga­tion squad led up by Lieutenant Bill Crowley (Earl Holliman).  Each episode presents Pepper work­ing with Crowley and Detectives Royster (Charles Dierkop) and Styles (Ed Bernard) on a dif­fer­ent inves­ti­ga­tions that require her to go under­cover to gather infor­ma­tion.  Along the way, she copes with the life-threatening ele­ments of the job as well as the more per­sonal ones, like get­ting per­son­ally involved with vic­tims and, occa­sion­ally, the suspects.

Episodes of Police Woman break down into a cou­ple of types.  The first are what you might call “Pepper on a mis­sion” sto­ries.  These focus on the mechan­ics of the under­cover oper­a­tion, with Pepper front and cen­ter.  These are not as seri­ous as the show’s Police Story roots and often have a b-movie fla­vor to them that enhances the enter­tain­ment value: a great exam­ple is “Smack,” an episode with Pepper going under­cover at a high school to find push­ers.  It plays kind of like High School Confidential updated for the mid-1970’s.

The other type of episode is “social com­men­tary” style that mixes the expected inves­ti­ga­tion but allows an impor­tant social issue of the day to take cen­ter stage.  A good exam­ple of this style is “Bloody Nose,” a mem­o­rable episode that finds Pepper get­ting involved in the trou­bles of a bick­er­ing cou­ple only to find out things aren’t entirely what they seem to be.

Police Woman was an instant suc­cess dur­ing its first sea­son.  Its crit­ics often dis­missed it as the begin­ning of the “jig­gle” show trend.  That’s not a fair crit­i­cism but there is an ele­ment of truth buried in it because the show isn’t shy about cap­i­tal­iz­ing on Dickinson’s camera-friendly charms: dif­fer­ent under­cover oper­a­tions have her play­ing a pros­ti­tute, an exotic dancer, a prison inmate and any num­ber of morally ambigu­ous female types that linger on the edges of the crime world.  That said, sea­son one does this with a know­ing sense of humor: for exam­ple, “Smack” has Pepper pos­ing as a high-school coach and her intro­duc­tory scene has her lead­ing a group of young coeds through smirk-inducingly eroti­cized stretch­ing exercises.

It’s also worth not­ing that the first sea­son episodes never use the sexy-female-cop angle of the show to make a joke out of Dickinson.  Indeed, she man­ages to radi­ate strength in these sit­u­a­tions because she is an inde­pen­dent and self-possessed per­son.  She’s always por­trayed as being smart, resource­ful, brave and an equal part­ner to her fel­low offi­cers in the inves­ti­ga­tion team.  This blend of attrib­utes works because of the show’s star.  Dickinson is a stun­ner and can eas­ily pull off being sexy with­out effort but it’s her act­ing skills that really sell the role of Pepper Anderson.  She has a nat­ural abil­ity to stay cool under pres­sure but is able to bal­ance that with a warmth that gives the char­ac­ter humanity.

The show also gives her a strong backup cast to work with: vet­eran t.v. actor Holliman is a lot of fun as the cheap but charm­ing Crowley, who is as much friend as col­league (the show teases the audi­ence with — but never clar­i­fies — the issue of whether Pepper and Crowley are more than friends).  Dierkop and Bernard — who both costarred with Dickinson in “The Gamble” — offer con­sis­tently pro­fes­sional backup, adding a sly sense of humor with­out laps­ing into the kind of bur­lesque inher­ent in por­tray­ing vice cops.

The final part of the appeal of Police Woman: Season One is the guest stars.  To the b-list stars who made the guest star cir­cuit on prime time t.v., a show like was a good “get” because it would allow for a nice showy role.  For example, William Shatner turns up in “Smack” with a mem­o­rable hambone-Shatner turn as a trou­bled chem­istry teacher while “Blast” gives Robert Vaughn a swell role as a strip-bar owner with dreams of legit-society suc­cess and a tragic past.

These shows also allowed said b-listers a wel­come oppor­tu­nity to play against type: high­lights in this vein include Bob Crane play­ing a smarmy talk-show host with a cheat­ing wife in “Requiem For Bored Wives” and Patty Duke as a hus­tler who’s itch­ing to get out of town in “Nothing Left To Lose.”  The lat­ter episode even allows her to have a scene with then-husband John Astin as an ex-boyfriend/crippled for­mer drug pusher!

In short, Police Woman: Season One is clas­sic 1970’s t.v. fun that will have a spe­cial appeal to fans of exploita­tion movies from this era.  It’s like a gritty lit­tle crime flick each week, com­plete with all the fly fash­ion, funky music and a stun­ner of a star to hold it all together.