Disc Reviews

"I'm Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. Everything in here has a story ... and a price. One thing I've learned after 21 years? You never know what is going to come through that door."

Pawn Stars returns with another volume set. It's the 5th, and it features episodes from the 3rd & 4th season. We're still about a year behind the current air schedule, so expect these sets to continue every month or so for a while. This set has two discs with 16 episodes total.

It all started as an ABC television movie about three police officers fresh from the academy. They had their passions and ideals and were ready to take on the world. The telefilm featured Kolchak: The Night Stalker's Darren McGavin as Lt. Ryker, the grizzled veteran police mentor and boss for the three rookies. By the time the show went to series the role was recast with Gerald S. O'Loughlin as a slightly more understanding version of the character. It was obviously decided to make him less harsh and more amicable in personality. The three rookie cops remained the same. Greg Stanford Brown played Officer Terry Webster. Michael Ontkean played the most youthful and idealistic Willie Gillis. He would leave the series after the first two seasons. Sam Melville played the older and married Mike Danko, who was ex-military. He was married to nurse Jill Danko played in the pilot by Jennifer Billingsley, and in the series by future Angel Kate Jackson fresh from her stint on the horror soap opera Dark Shadows. She presented the softer side of the show as well as being the trio's inside "man" at the hospital where many victims and perps ended up.

You see this was an action series all the way. Starsky & Hutch creator William Blinn provided the same kind of action you would later expect from his signature series. There were tons of car chases and shootouts. Pretty much all of the regular characters were shot or seriously wounded before the show ended after four years. That included Ryker and Jill. Both were shot and in critical condition at one point or another. Even though our Rookies were patrol officers they managed to get involved in the investigation of many of the crimes. Ryker kind of took them under his wing and gave them high-profile assignments that would not have really fallen to rookie cops. Often Webster and Gillis rode together on patrol, which never would have happened in reality. There isn't a force in America that's going to partner two rookies. The city was L.A. but it was not really portrayed as such. The force was always represented as SCPD, with SC never really given a name much as Hill Street Blues was never identified as a particular city even though it was filmed as Chicago.