Walker, Texas Ranger: Season 05 (1997) Reviews

Season five of Walker, Texas Ranger finds unsmiling, karate-kicking Cord Walker (Chuck Norris) settling accounts with all manner of criminals and lowlifes, aided and abetted by his partner, Ranger Jimmy Trivette (Clarence Gilyard Jr.). While Walker's girlfriend, Assistant D.A. Alex Cahill (Sheree J. Wilson), cannot entirely approve of his methods, she cannot entirely disapprove of them either -- especially in light of how many times Walker has saved her life in past seasons! This year, in addition to the standard, garden-variety crooks, Walker must go after his own when a renegade trio of vigilante cops begin taking down the innocent as well as the guilty. In another episode, Walker's prey is the world's most dangerous assassin, who has seemingly had a hand in every major political killing in the past thirty years (he might even been that "second gunman" on the Grassy Knoll). Later on, Walker goes on a personal crusade to destroy the man who shot his fiancée a decade earlier, and who intends to take advantage of an early pardon by killing off Trivette and Alex -- to say nothing of Walker's best friend C.D. Parker (Noble Willingham). One two-part story, "Sons of Thunder," serves to establish the personalities of two recurring characters: Walker's friend, Dallas detective Carlos Sandoval (Marco Sanchez), and Walker's former karate student Trent Malloy (Jimmy Wlcek), now the owner of a martial arts school. This two-parter was planned as a pilot for a spin-off series which was to have featured Sandoval and Malloy as partners in a private eye agency. As it turned out, Carlos and Trent remained on Walker, Texas Ranger as semi-regulars for the next two seasons -- at least until the series version of Sons of Thunder was finally launched in the spring of 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi