Hill Street Blues

When a private plane carrying a massive stash of cocaine crashes, avaricious Sid the Snitch tries to coax Buntz into stealing it as a down payment on an uptown life, a scheme that leaves them praying for their lives.

Buntz tries to help Hunter, who's under fire when his off-duty shooting of an armed teenager marks him as a department scapegoat.

The Blues use discretion in making borderline arrests when the jails overflow with perpetrators because of the public defenders' walkout.

Furillo is asked to help a proud Calletano head off a mutiny when his precinct officers are on the verge of a racial war among themselves, while the Hill street captain has to set a powerful criminal free as the result of female undercover cop Russo's actions.

It's the "Odd Couple" revisited when a grumbling Buntz lets oily Sid the Snitch bunk in his fleabag apartment to hide from a vengeful ex-con; and Hill resents his temporary assignment with a white cop who refused to help a black officer in distress.

Renko worries all day when a gypsy accidentally places the "Hundred-Demon curse" on him, and Larue is giddy about the glory he will get when a suspect he arrests admits to more than a dozen unsolved murders.

Grace Gardner, the highly sexual former flame of Sgt. Esterhaus, returns to the police station as sister chastity, a nun who now seeks Furillo's aid in establishing a counseling center; her return stirs passionate embers in unsuspecting officer Flaherty.

While Sid the Snitch plays mother hen to him, a pained Buntz licks his wounds as he waits to bust the loan shark who clipped his finger the night before.

Furillo's conscience is in knots when he learns that his father's shooting death resulted not from robbery but suicide, and he considers disposing of the handgun.

Furillo is sworn to silence and puts his word on the line in an attempt to placate his restive black officers -- especially Washington -- when a white cop kills his black partner under questionable circumstances while both are under secret investigation.

Public defender Davenport must plea-bargain for her life when she is taken hostage by a desperate suspect who holes up in a market with her and a wounded victim; and Furillo dies a little himself while waiting to see if negotiator Goldblume can save her life.

Some Blues pack their gear for a long-awaited weekend of hunting bear and deer. However, Goldblume's plans to join them fall through when he is kidnapped and forced to dig his own remote grave.

Hill and Renko get down and dirty when they have to pitch in during a sanitation workers' strike -- until an emotional Hill loses control and nearly causes a riot during an infamous drug dealer's funeral.

Goldblume is branded a "subversive" by the press when he appears on television and blames the department's bureaucratic new regulations for allowing a murderer to go free and kill again.

Buntz is king of the Hill for a day when Furillo is away on business and, when the officers' overtime pay hinges on how much dope they can confiscate that day, he turns them loose in a wild spree to ring up $130,000 worth of contraband -- even if it means illegal seizures.

The mass slaying of a sleeping family forces an uneasy Goldblume to ask a young snitch to risk his life by setting up a lethal gang suspect.

After a tragic shooting, former Captain Calletano returns, heading a hispanic coalition threatening to file a civil suit, and the blame may fall on Furillo.

Buntz is a blur as he tries to link a credit card scam to the ambushing of Belker, who lies unconscious with a bullet lodged inoperably close to his spine.

Poor Renko only makes matters worse when he tries to reconcile with his wife, from whom he is separated, while a lonely Jablonski loses more than his pride in a moment of sexual temptation.

The Blues are empathetic toward Thomas Jackson, a famous pro football star who stands to lose lucrative commercial endorsements when he is arrested for soliciting.

After being buried alive for eleven days, Hunter is finally rescued -- and is advised by Furillo to avoid any references to the Donner party.

A nighttime fire sweeps through the station. And Buntz knows fear for the first time when he is suspended on charges of stealing cocaine. He must learn who framed him for swiping evidence or lose the only thing that matters to him -- his job.