California Cops

Let's face it, the hippest, toughest and sexiest lawmen (and women) in TV history were the ones from the 1970s, and this super-cool collection includes the pilot episodes to "Charlie's Angels," "Police Woman," "The Rookies," "Starsky & Hutch," and "S.W.A.T." 4 1/4 hrs. total. Standard; Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital stereo; biographies; trailers.It may sound like a gimmick--The Greatest '70s Cop Shows is a compilation of first episodes from Starsky and Hutch, Police Woman, S.W.A.T., The Rookies, and Charlie's Angels--but this DVD anthology really opens one's eyes to the look and feel of dramatic television during the so-called Me Decade. Except for Angels, which never wavered from its self-mocking, glossy action/stiff exposition playbook, these cop-program debuts (four of them from Aaron Spelling) import much of their fluid camera movement, multiple points-of-view, and dynamic, often wordless storytelling from the era's rough-and-tumble action movies (e.g., The French Connection). Which is to say these shows may be dumb but not necessarily cheesy (except Angels' post-modern cheese). There is a lot to admire about the opening ambush in S.W.A.T.'s "The Killing Ground," the hard-boiled camaraderie of Police Woman's "The End Game," and especially the reckless physicality and ironic jokes of Starsky and Hutch's "Savage Sunday." --Tom Keogh