YMMV / Hunter (1984)

• Adaptation Displacement: Several of the episodes were adapted from lesser known novels. For instance, the "City of Passion" three-parter was based on the novel of the same name by Dallas Barnes.
• Awesome Music:
  • In "The Shooter", "Sympathy for the Devil" by the The Rolling Stones (Band) is used whenever the Cop Killer in riding his motorcycle.
  • "Fire Man": In an episode about a pyromaniac, the use of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads is rather fitting. The replacement song "Burning Candles" is just as awesome.
  • Likewise in "Avenging Angel", where "Every Breath You Take" (I'll Be Watching You) by the Police plays whenever Hunter is under surveillance by his Loony Fan.
  • "Rich Girl": Besides the title track by Daryl Hall & John Oates, the episode ends with a cover of "Ashes In My Hand" by Marianne Faithfull, which perfectly synchronizes with the episode's Downer Ending.
  • While Mike Post and Pete Carpenter's theme music not as be as iconic as some others of theirs, But it gets the job throughout all its rearrangements over the run.
• Can't Un-Hear It:
  • It is almost impossible to see Ed O'Neill's villainous parole officer character nowadays without thinking of Al Bundy.
  • Same with Don Rickles as a beleaguered owner of a legitimate laundry chain.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: One of the most popular foreign shows in China in the late 1980s and early 1990s, thanks to a nationally aired Chinese dub and being the first of the American cop shows imported into the country. At the height of the show's popularity, several bootleg comics and cassette tapes were produced. Dryer and Kramer are recognized stars there, and there was even an unsuccessful attempt to shoot a special in China in the late 1990s.
• Growing the Beard: During the show's second season, when Roy Huggins took over as executive producer.
• Heartwarming Moments: Sergeant Brad Navarro rekindling his failing marriage at the end of the three-part episode "City of Passion".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "Saturday Night Special" has a reporter engaging in serial killings herself for press coverage. In subsequent years, actual journalists such as Wallace Souza and Valdo Taneski were exposed to have engaged in similar killings for fame.
  • "Flashpoint" shows three Hispanic boys being accidentally shot dead by policemen, which led to citywide riots. This can be harder to take after the subsequent 1992 Los Angeles riots, and similar unrest in the 21th century.
  • "Investment in Death" has a young black man named Michael Brown being shot to death by gangbangers. In 2014, Michael Brown, a young black man, was shot to death in Ferguson, albeit by a policeman under controversial circumstances.
  • "City Under Siege" features the then LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates alongside a "tough on crime", Obstructive Bureaucrat deputy chief (played by Robert Vaughn) who is later busted for abuse of power. Gates himself was known for similarly aggressive attitudes towards drugs and crime, but resigned in 1992 due to accusations of police brutality and racial profiling, alongside controversies in handling the Rodney King riots.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Fred Dryer showed off his acting chops in several episodes dealing with Hunter's personal life, such as the suicide of his Vietnam War buddy and the discovery of his half-Vietnamese son. And to think Dryer started off as a football player who only became an actor in his 40s.
  • Kramer also delivered some emotional performances throughout the series and showed off more vulnerable sides of McCall, such as the episode where McCall gets sexually assaulted by a psychotic diplomat.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Dennis Franz played a visiting NYPD detective in "The Snow Queen", a year before NYPD Blue. Only this time he's a Dirty Cop.
  • Franz also appeared in the same episode as John Amos, years before Die Hard 2. This time, the opposite character is revealed to be corrupt.
  • One 1986 episode featured a Mad Bomber who threatened to blow up a high school named after Chester A. Arthur, which later turned out to be a deliberate hoax. One has to wonder if the writers of Die Hard with a Vengeance took inspiration from this episode.
  • In one Married... with Children episode, Al Bundy mocks Peggy for finding Hunter engrossing. Guess who played a villain of the week in Hunter?
• More Popular Replacement: Captain Charlie Devane was far more well received as Hunter and McCall's captain than his predecessors, to the degree that his actor, Charles Hallahan, shortly received a promotion to the opening credits.
• Narm: Some of Hunter and McCall's undercover disguises can be this, such as when Hunter dresses up as a punk, complete with pink wig.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Dee Dee's sexual assault in her own home at the hands of a psychotic foreign diplomat in the episode "Rape and Revenge" is considered very harrowing. The episode is widely remembered and controversial back in the day for its realistic depiction of a violent rape on television.
  • Dee Dee was almost assaulted again by a serial rapist in "City of Passion", but luckily fights him off.
  • The beginning of the episode "Unacceptable Loss", where a young boy dies of cyanide gas poisoning due to illegally dumped toxic material in a suburban street - a quick spell of dizzyness before he drops dead.
  • "The Nightmare" features a master Torture Technician who kills his victims via slow incisions while he listens to Mozart. After one of his victims recognize him under a new identity, he begins to track down her associates to ensure his real identity never gets revealed. Even his own henchman is freaked out as he performs his "surgery" on an unfortunate victim.
• Once Original, Now Common: By today's standards, Rick Hunter's Cowboy Cop tendencies and the amount of fanservice in the show are pretty tame. Also, while the fight scenes and car chases hold up pretty well, there's rarely any real bloodshed.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Dennis Franz as Dirty Cop Jackie Molinas in the season 1 two-part episode "The Snow Queen". Molinas chews every part of the scenery he gets.
  • Parole officer Dan Colson in "The Garbage Man" is pretty much Al Bundy trying his luck as a parole officer and snapping.
• Replacement Scrappy: Joanne Molenski and Chris Novak were not as well received as Dee Dee McCall and were not in the TV movies or the 2003 revival.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Lauren Lane as Sgt. Chris Novak.
  • Bruce Davison as Captain Wyler
  • Richard C. Okie wrote two episodes. Okie is best known for co-creating Major Dad.
  • Several Star Trek: The Next Generation made early appearances here. Brent Spiner played a police mechanic, Marina Sirtis played an Australian barmaid, and Tim Russ played a security guard, in his acting debut.
  • Tim Thomerson of Trancers fame appears as three different characters.
  • Detective Michael Hitchcock fought with Hunter in the Vietnam War.
  • Sam J. Jones of Flash Gordon (1980) fame as a tennis coach in "The Hot Grounder".
  • Frances McDormand and Ed O'Neill as parole officers, and Christopher McDonald as a wanted parolee, in "The Garbage Man".
  • Billy Drago as an inmate in "Pen Pals".
  • Dennis Farina as a drug lord and Lycia Naff as a dealer in "The Snow Queen".
  • Robert Englund as the police mechanic and Robert Davi as a bank robber in "Million Dollar Misunderstanding".
  • Philece Sampler as a murder suspect in "From San Francisco with Love".
  • Claudia Christian as the girlfriend of a murder victim in "Love, Hate and Sporty James".
  • Anthony LaPaglia as an Australian detective in "Down and Under".
  • Leslie Hope as a woman linked with the death of McCall's husband in "Requiem for Sergeant McCall".
  • George Clooney as the leader of a thief ring in "Double Exposure", in one of his few villainous roles.
  • Lar Park Lincoln as a white supremacist's daughter in "Bad Company", years before her big role as Tina Shepard in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.
  • Chad Allen as a teen accused of murder in "Heir of Neglect".
  • Mark Pellegrino as the brother of a teen drug addict, the latter played by Tim Griffin, in "Brotherly Love".
  • Allison Smith as a teen mother in "A Girl Named Hunter".
  • Wendie Malick as a murder suspect in "Boomerang".
  • Gary Sinise as a British photographer and serial killer in "Lullaby".
  • David DeLuise as a teen thief in "All That Glitters".
• Seasonal Rot: Some fans felt that season 5 is weaker than the previous seasons due to the departure of Roy Huggins as executive producer. From season 5 onward, Hunter and McCall typically worked on separate cases and come together at the end, which limits their chemistry.
• Spiritual Successor: Hunter was ostensibly, the closest thing to a TV adaptation of the Dirty Harry franchise, albeit Hunter was set in Los Angeles instead of San Francisco like the latter. Both Rick Hunter and Harry Callahan were renegade cops who frequently broke the rules and took justice into their own hands. Dee Dee McCall meanwhile, seems to be loosely based on Kate Moore, Callahan's female partner (portrayed by Tyne Daly) in the third Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The little girl in "Crime of Passion" confessing to being sexually abused by her abusive stepfather. Even tough cop Hunter sheds tears.
  • Tough cop Hunter showing off his vulnerable side as he tearfully reminisces about his Vietnam War days, at the funeral of one of his buddies who committed suicide in "Dead on Target".
  • The murder of Hunter and McCall's loved ones, such as Hunter's girlfriend Terri in "Crossfire" and McCall's husband Steve in "Requiem for Sergeant McCall".
  • "Waiting for Mr. Wrong" has Hunter falling for a suspect's girlfriend while trying to track him down undercover. It is one of the few occasions where Hunter is genuinely in love and he is visibly devastated when she dies in a car crash after trying to flee with the stolen goods, as he carries her out from the wreckage and cradles her lifeless body in his arms.
  • "Last Run" has an undercover cop trying to find his missing partner, only to arrive seconds too late as she was tortured to death. He is visibly devastated and shoots the drug lord responsible to death against Hunter's advise, stating "What would you do if someone killed your daughter?" before turning the gun on himself. Hunter throws his gun at a window in disgust.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • This version of The '80s is less garish or glitzy than that of Miami Vice, but there are lots of examples of Eighties style, fashion and music.
  • McCall's clothes, hairdos and colorful makeup are all typical of the Eighties.
• Values Resonance:
  • "Flashpoint" has the son of an influential Puerto Rican man and his friends apparently killed by the police, and the father takes the police department to task for training their officers to be too violent, leading to situations like this. With the wave of deaths of African Americans by police officers that have increased in The New '10s, this is as relevant as ever. Of course, this may lose some of its sting since the boys were actually killed by a sadistic Puerto Rican criminal, who also killed the cops escorting him.
  • "Rape and Revenge" depicts the aftermath of Dee Dee's sexual assault, and manages to depict it in a respectful and realistic light, showing that it's not something that can just be easily brushed off or forgotten the next episode, but the victim's immediate trauma and humiliation, hospital examinations, and months of therapy, which is not common in TV series then. Nowadays with the [MeToo] movement and growing awareness of consent, Dee Dee's ordeal serves as a powerful reminder of what victims of sexual assault can go through.
  • "The Fifth Victim" depicts homosexuality, especially homosexual cops, in a remarkably progressive attitude for the 1980's, as the closeted detective who is investigating a serious of gay killings is depicted as a normal, competent policeman, without resorting to Camp Gay stereotypes common in TV shows of its day. The detective even noted the rampant homophobia in the police force of his era, and his secret could put his career at risk, issues that are still the case today. But when the detective comes out as gay to Captain Devane, the latter shrugs it off as if it's nothing, implying that his sexuality should have no relevance on his competence as a cop.