User Reviews

A veteran cop, driving with a rookie, has a hunch about a guy driving ahead of him. He plays the hunch and stops the guy. It was a smart hunch, but he was a very good cop. I say "was" because moments later, the vet and the kid get ambushed by the driver of that car and two more guys who enter the scene. The kid isn't hurt, but now it is up to Kojak and his crew to figure this one out.

It's quickly deduced that these aren't "repo" guys they are dealing with, but a pretty smart car theft group.

Watching this now in 2012, it was kind of weird seeing the leader of the group played by David Ogden Stiers, whom I was used to see playing a snobbish nerd-type on "MASH" for so long ("Major Charles Winchester"). In here, he doesn't sound like that at all, in the role of "Mr. Roberts." Well.....that's called acting. At the time, nobody had much heard of Stiers, who went on to have a long and successful career, and is still working.

Overall, another good episode worth watching.

This is a good Kojak episode with all the old familiar elements.

But they nabbed the ringleader (David Ogden Stiers) in a way that put me in mind of the Rockford Files episode called "White on White and Nearly Perfect," where Tom Selleck plays a private detective for whom clues fall out of thin air. He even tells Rockford not to worry, something will turn up to put them back on the case.

That's what happens in this episode when Kojak and company chase one of Major Winchester's henchmen in two cars. The henchman's car crashes, catches fire, and the fire department come to put it out. He's dead, of course, but a firefighter brings the henchman's wallet to Kojak, who opens it and sees a picture of said henchman with one of three bank employees they already had under surveillance.

Kojak already had a man at the bank, and he follows the woman to an apartment, calls Kojak and waits.

Kojak, Crocker and Stavros show up, pretend to be a cat scratching on the apartment door and capture Major Winchester, who happened to be the woman's main squeeze.

I can't help but wonder if the writers got themselves in a corner on time and invented this bit of business to wrap up the episode in the allotted time.