Very best movie i ever watch

Sadly Over-hyped

I wanted to but couldn't!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The all star cast in this show was excellent. Some of the best TV actors of the time wanted to be on the show. This show allowed more gritty TV shows that came later. Up to that time police dramas followed a party line. Jack Webb's shows are the best examples of that genre. I think "Southland" was a much more realistic and gritty show, but for its time in the early 70's "Police Story" was on the forefront of gritty shows. People were not used to seeing blood and guts and that is lacking when this show is viewed, but it was likely something the viewers did not want to see depicted at the time. I would buy every season of this show, minus season one, which I already own. The show started while I was in college and I didn't have a TV until after graduation so I missed three seasons. I would really like to see seasons 2 and 3 having not watched them at all, I would like to see the last seasons as well. This show is definitely one that people who like to watch police dramas need to see.

The first season of Police Story is FINALLY out on DVD! You can order it at amazon.com or at shoutfactory.com. More than likely, the DVD will also be sold at some of the major retail outlets, but I don't know that for sure. Anyway, I ordered my DVD from amazon.com and I should be receiving it today or tomorrow. The first season DVD includes the pilot episode, titled, "Slow Boy", along with a Joseph Wambaugh interview segment. I can't wait for the second season to come out! In fact, I would be willing to buy all of the seasons now if Shout Factory were to release them all at once, which is unlikely, but hope springs eternal.:-)

Police Story was a bold and innovative concept for television police drama. It was perhaps the first police drama to portray cops as real humans with human frailties. There was not a smooth script with the sense that everything was under control. There was always an edge that something might go wrong and be irreparable by the end of the show. Its strengths were the revolving collection of actors from week to week. It often took well known type casted actors such as Martin Milnor as Pete Malloy,Adam 12 Hugh O'Brien as Wyatte Earp, and others and played them against type as the so clean appearing cops they were used to playing. That casting against type could make even a lack luster episode interesting.

I remember this series well. I tried to make sure that I watched it every week. Of course, my social life came first. What I liked most about this show, in contrast to its daughter Police Woman and so many others, it did not have a recurring main cast that you knew would always return the next week, thus there was really no cause for alarm when the main cast came in jeopardy. Most of the regulars were background players such as Profaci on Law and Order is now.Instead, Police Story was an ensemble series more akin to later shows such as St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues that deliberately sometimes knocked off likeable leads and there were so many recurring leads that one did not get sick of them every week. The show was unpredictable, not Mission Impossible or other gimmick shows such as McGyver where you always knew the good guys would win.The most similar current shows are Deep Space Nine and Law and Order, which are not afraid to knock off a major character for the sake of the story.There were so many Police Stories, and I have forgotten most of them; if they ever were rerun, I did not see them again. Two of the most memorable ones were, one where the hero was undercover and went to Tijuana to track down a drug shipment but the buy went wrong.The other memorable one starred Claude Akins, a well-known character player, as a detective, who with his partner, was tracking down violent felons and bail jumpers.Of all the thousands of movies and TV shows I've seen since the late 1940s, it takes a real powerful one to stick in my mind as those episodes did. The whole series was full of powerful episodes of equal impact. I just don't have room here for all them.