Kojak: Season 05 (1977)

The fifth and final season of Kojak (the original version, that is) begins with a typically brutal entry, "The Queen of Hearts Is Wild," in which smooth, cynical New York police detective Lt. Theo Kojak (Telly Savalas) tries convince the girlfriend of one of his old enemies to provide eyewitness testimony concerning a cop killing. In subsequent episodes, Kojak goes after a psycho who believes himself to be under the influence of a bombastic talk show host (yes, they had those back in 1977 too!); Theo's loyal assistant Lt. Crocker (Kevin Dobson) falls in love with the daughter of a murdered mobster, and in a later episode is taken hostage by a prisoner he is escorting back to New York; Kojak impersonates a murdered private eye to solve the dead man's murder; the sister of Kojak's boss, Captain McNeill (Dan Frazer), is victimized by gamblers; and in the two-part "The Summer of '69," Kojak unearths evidence that the serial killer whom he thought he eliminated eight years earlier is still at large -- and that he might have shot down the wrong man. Appearing as guest stars in Kojak's terminal CBS season are such well-known performers as Armand Assante, Antoinette Bower, Danny Thomas, Priscilla Barnes, Sam Jaffe, and former ABC news anchorman Alex Dreier. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi