William Shatner will always be known as Captain Kirk from “Star Trek,” but there’s a few other things in his filmography. He hosted the series “Rescue 911″ for several years on CBS in addition to doing the narration for it. He was also the legendary attorney Denny Crane on the final season of “The Practice” and its spin-off, “Boston Legal.” And then there’s T.J. Hooker. From 1982 to 1986 Shatner played the police officer the show was named after, while hamming it up with his gritty, no-nonsense, law and order. It was very much a relic of its time but Netflix has seen fit to revive it for an upcoming film.
Netflix is seeking to revive the series in the vein of an action-comedy, and have Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel set to write. The duo have a history of working on comedies, though the track record of quality is hit or miss. They wrote the 2008 Jim Carey comedy “Yes Man” in addition to writing and directing “The D Train.” They also co-created the television series “The Grinder” and the very short lived and critically reviled animated series, “Allen Gregory.” So, just the team to turn “T.J. Hooker” into a film?
There are some police programs from the ’80s that were legitimately good and dramatic, like “Hill Street Blues” but then you had others that could be so ridiculous in their attempts to be serious that they came across as funny; “Hunter” is a perfect example of that. “T.J. Hooker” also fell towards that comically over serious side, which does make it ripe for parody, except that it kind of exists already as a parody of itself. Watching Shatner run around like he’s God’s gift to the police uniform next to Heather Locklear is absurd enough as it is, and worth watching out of a hilarious sense of, “I can’t believe this ran for five season.”
Given that William Shatner is 94 years old as of the time of this writing, it’s likely he’s not going to be reprising his role. Though if they could actually make that happen it would be worth watching just for that. Very little information has been released as of yet regarding the film, including the cast, director, or a projected release date. It also begs the question, “Who are they making this for?” Are there any fans of “T.J. Hooker” that are clamoring for a new take on it? Are there people who need to be reintroduced to this property through a new lens?
One could cite something like the movie version of “Baywatch“ as the kind of film that this would take after, basically poking fun at the source material. But at least “Baywatch” had more brand recognition than “T.J. Hooker.” So when it comes to those discussions of whether or not Hollywood has any original ideas left, just remember, we’ve descended to the point where we’re revitalizing the character of T.J. Hooker.
