With a crime-wave sweeping the city, a new Police programme has been formed to fast-track recruits to get them patrolling on the streets, and it's up to tough veteran cop Sergeant T.J. Hooker to bring them up to scratch. Trying to cope with his recent divorce and money problems, Hooker struggles with a job that he can't get away from. Meanwhile, the spate of crimes, including robbery, murder and a sniper is quickly getting out of hand. Only Hooker can train the eager but inexperienced young recruits as he leads them in bringing peace back to the streets, but the pursuit of the two murderous armed robbers at the head of the crime-wave inevitably leads to an explosive confrontation...

While hunting for a mugger who attacks women and leaves a Bible at the scene of his crimes, Hooker and Romano have to escort an overeager, aggressive newswoman. But the reporter's involvement just serves to complicate matters further...

An attractive young woman witnesses a murder, but her married boss dissuades her from going to the Police in fear that it will uncover their affair. Hooker must try and persuade the frightened girl to help them and testify against the psychotic killer, but the murderer intends to see that she never makes it that far...

Two armed juveniles rob a liquor store, and the ensuing Police pursuit results in an Officer being shot dead. Romano waits until the killer is out of bullets before he corners and apprehends him, resulting in a number of Officers being angry at Romano for not avenging their colleague's death. Hooker is torn as his partner is slated for going by the book and not taking the opportunity to shoot the cop-killer...

When a man attacks and rapes a young female jogger, Hooker and Romano find themselves on the trail of a serial rapist who has left behind only one clue: a size 13 shoe-print...

After arresting a teenager who's been left to take the rap for a murder by his fellow gang members, Hooker discovers that the youth is hearing impared. Convinced of the boy's innocence and that his membership in the gang is a cry for help, Hooker and Romano try to help the youth's hearing problems and to root out the real culprits behind the drugs-related killing. But Hooker can't help the teenager unless the boy is first willing to help himself...

When Hooker and Romano spot a cocaine deal taking place and intervene, they are surprised to find that the supplier is a family man with no prior convictions. With the help of an old flame of Hooker's, a reformed gambling addict, they uncover a crooked gambling club owner's scheme that involves having members run up huge debts on rigged games, and then forcing them to make drug deliveries to help pay off the money they owe...

After Hooker and Romano foil an armed robbery committed by a family of robbers, which leaves the father wounded in hospital and the daughter held in custody, the two sons take the hospital wing with their father on siege, holding Hooker's ex-wife Fran, Stacy, a little girl urgently needing heart surgery, and a whole floor of patients hostage...

Hooker and Romano, with Stacy and Corrigan, catch the thief of a freshly stolen car, but in the car's trunk, they find the body of a teenage girl. With the coroner's report revealing that the girl was a heavy cocaine user and had had a recent, crudely-operated abortion, they find themselves uncovering a racket that is getting young girls hooked on drugs and then leading them into making underage porn movies to pay for their addiction...

Hooker is on a date with Lisa Jericho, an infamous ""muck-raking"" reporter, when the restaurant they're in comes under gun-fire. A man whom Lisa had previously done an article on is killed in the shooting, but Hooker begins to theorise that Lisa was in fact the intended target when later her life once again is endangered. Unbeknown to them, the crooked head of a construction company that the reporter is investigating, is determined to see that she isn't around to print an up-coming article revealing his corruption...

When an undercover armed robbery stake-out is bungled, leaving a cop wounded in hospital, Hooker becomes concerned that a veteran cop's heavy drinking was the cause of the stake-out's failure. As he hunts for the armed robbers who are targeting night-clubs, Hooker becomes more and more worried that his fellow officer is an alcoholic, and is not only endangering police operations, but himself and everyone around him...

A diamond thief and his partner trick a young boy and abduct him, in an act to spite and distress the boy's mother, who is the man's former wife. Hooker follows the trail to Mexico, where an eccentric local detective helps him to track down the thief and the missing boy...

Responding to the alert of an armed super-market robbery, Romano and another Officer are wounded when one of the robbers opens fire at them. Romano blames a female Officer on the scene, who he believes to be guilty of cowardice in stopping the shooting, but with contradicting accounts of just what happened in the incident, Hooker angers Romano and several Officers when he announces he is to act as defence for the Officer in the upcoming trial. The move jeopardises both Hooker and Romano's partnership and their friendship, and the fact that the Officer had previously been brought up on a similar charge does not help her case; but was she actually the one to blame on this occasion?...

A planned bust on crime lord Frank Dio results in an informant of Corrigan's being shot dead, and Dio facing getting off charge after he manages to discard the gun, but held in custody for 72 hours, giving Hooker time to try and dig up enough evidence to put him behind bars. Following up the lead of Dio's former girlfriend, a prostitute, Hooker promises to put her in protective custody until the hearing and to be given a new identity after if she agrees to testify against Dio. The girl reluctantly agrees to testify, and while Stacy takes care of her young sister, Hooker must go all out to keep her alive, shielding her from the attempts on her life by Dio's men, but a security leak within the force makes keeping the girl's whereabouts a secret impossible...

A worker from the Police precinct is attacked and raped, the latest in a series of rapes and robberies where none of the victims are able to identify their attacker. Investigating, Hooker and co. find that all the victims had prior been visited by a telephone repair man, information which enables them to track down the prime suspect, who ends up being killed as the result of pursuit. But Hooker fears that the dead man was actually the attacker's apprentice and not the actual attacker – a fear that is proven when the attacks continue...

While Hooker is investigating a violent supermarket robbery, his father, himself a retired police officer, arrives unexpectedly. Hooker is surprised at sudden arrival, and his father, who is in somewhat shaky health, ends up helping track down the supermarket robbery gang – but the one last case has a deadly outcome for the senior Hooker...