[1] Toward the end of the show's second season, James Darren became a regular cast member as Officer Jim Corrigan.
In "The Protectors," the series' pilot/TV movie, Hooker, back in uniform, trains a group of police academy recruits, including those played by Richard Lawson, Brian Patrick Clarke, Kelly Harmon, and Adrian Zmed.
Hal Williams plays a senior officer, and Richard Herd makes a brief appearance as Captain Dennis Sheridan, Hooker's tough but understanding superior.
During most of the series, Hooker is partnered with brash, sometimes hot-headed young rookie Vince Romano (played by Zmed).
The age difference generally being the key hook of the partnership, the pair quickly became fast friends and a good team.
Hooker's tough, no-nonsense demeanor has him often clashing with station Captain Sheridan (Richard Herd), but he always got the job done and was highly respected as a result.
Working behind the desk at the police precinct, Vicki Taylor (April Clough) is a female officer who continually dodges pick-up attempts by Vince Romano.
Initially brought in to replace Vicki, by the end of the season she had progressed to patrolling with Jim Corrigan (James Darren), another veteran cop much in the mold of Hooker.
During the period between the show being cancelled by ABC and picked up by CBS, Adrian Zmed had accepted the job as host of Dance Fever and was unable to return for the final season, leaving Hooker to patrol alone or to generally work as more of a trio with Stacy and Jim, often on undercover work.
The third season saw a slight revamp (including the theme music being rearranged into a more pop-driven version), with Corrigan set into place as Stacy's partner, and Captain Sheridan being dropped into the background (appearing as 'Special Guest Star' in just a few third and fourth-season episodes).
The recurring character of Hooker's new boss, Lieutenant Pete O'Brien, portrayed by Hugh Farrington, was added.
The series initially set out to give a more "hands on", procedure-based view of police work than some of the more stylized cop shows of the 1970s and 1980s, evident in the very early episodes.
Though the series itself was produced in Burbank and filmed in the Los Angeles area, the setting was not disclosed throughout the show's entire run.
T. J. Hooker was canceled by ABC in the summer of 1985 (the final episode was a proposed reworking of the series set in Chicago) but the series survived when CBS picked up the show and produced new episodes (still produced in Los Angeles) and one two-hour TV movie titled "Blood Sport".
In September 2014, FamilyNet cable channel began carrying the series, which was remastered in the mid-2000s with a high definition version that originally aired on Universal HD.
In 2009, digital channel Quest aired the series on a daily basis,[5] although they only hold the rights to show the first three seasons.
On August 27, 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment announced that it had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library, including T. J.