Kojak - Season One

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre television series Starring Telly Savalas, Kevin J. Dobson Publisher Universal Studios Home Video External Links

I won't start this review with the phrase, "Who loves ya baby!" But I will say that Kojak was simply the coolest of his breed. Beyond the ubiquitous lolli-prop and unmentioned catch phrase, Telly Savalas oozed cool. His toughness balanced out by a gentle charm was put to powerful use in big screen villainy. Prior to Kojak he was best known as a screen psychotic his most notable performance being that of the Blofeld in the Bond film In Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Guest star appearances by Harvey Keitel, James Woods, Richard Jordan, Hector Elizondo, a young John Ritter, Paul Michael Glaser, Dabney Coleman, and Tina Louise, make Kojak a fun show to star gaze, but the real star was Savalas who brought exactly the sort of dangerous quality the show needed to bridge the gap between the way cops need to act and the way we all wish they could act. Lesser programs attempted to ape the tough guy image but lost the rest- the real heart and soul, that the show breathed back into what had become a pretty tired formula.

You get 22 Episodes on 3 discs, but you don't get some other things. No extras. None. You don't even get the TV movie that introduced Theo Kojak, "The Marcus-Nelson Murders," which is almost unforgiveable. Add on some unimaginative packaging and it' pretty clear that Universal simply wants a quick cash in. Still for fans, it's on DVD and you do get the entire first season.