Summary:
An hour long '70s TV series about a trio of attractive crime-fighters from producer Aaron Spelling - No, it's not the Angels. Before Charlie's Angels, uber-producer Spelling introduced us to the less campy police drama The Rookies. Centered on officers new to the Southern California Police Department and the situations they faced in the line of duty such as kidnapping, teen runaways, gang violence and racism. They may be young and (sometimes) naive but they are always professional. Not only produced by Aaron Spelling but the show also came to us courtesy of Leonard Goldberg, who produced the big-screen version of Charlie's Angels, and also introduced us to future Angel Kate Jackson who plays the show's only female star Nurse Jill Danko. Before the series, The Rookies were first introduced in a full-length movie from ABC which served as the pilot. The original movie introduced us to the characters but featured a couple of different actors. The Rookies themselves were the same but in the movie Ryker was originally played by none other than "The Night Stalker" himself Darrin McGavin and Kate Jackson's role as Jill was first played by Jennifer Billingsley, probably best known as the female hoodlum who terrorized Olivia de Havilland in the 1964 shocker Lady in a Cage.The movie did well enough that ABC decided to pick it up as a series. When it finally premiered it became so popular that it eventually served as a jumping off point for a lot of great young actors of the time. Besides Kate and Twin Peaks' Micheal Ontkean you could also catch early glimpses of other future stars such as John Travolta, Sissy Spacek, Martin Sheen, Nick Nolte, Tyne Daly and many more.TriviaWilliam Blinn, the co-creator of the show, also created Starsky and Hutch, another Spelling/Goldberg production. The Rookies served as a launching pad for the short-lived spin-off S.W.A.T. starring Robert Urich which is now a big-screen film starring Colin Farrell. The opening titles to Charlie's Angels were a little similar to that of The Rookies. In the titles of The Rookies we see the three main characters training at police academy and eventually becoming the Rookies.Where are they now?Georg Stanford Brown After honing his directorial skills directing episodes of The Rookies Georg went on to direct several more shows. His directing efforts on shows such as Hill Street Blues and Cagney & Lacey earned him an Emmy award and several nominations. He has even directed fellow Rookies cast-member...
