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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarky Oracle!" data-source="post: 81472" data-attributes="member: 57984">Night of The Full Moon. In one of those '70s serial-killer-hung-up-on-his-mama entries, a series of elderly women are being strangled around the city and Pepper dons a grey wig to become one of them. After a close call with the killer, she eventually intuits that her female attacker may really be a dude in drag (fragile John David Carson, pretty as a woman already, and the highschool student Angie Dickinson earlier molested in Roger Vadim's PRETTY GIRLS ALL IN A ROW). And, yes, he's still mad at his mother for dressing him up as a girl until he got out of college. Once his girlfriend, KNOTS LANDING's Lisa Hartman so green she's yet to ungarble her on-screen elocution, catches wind that he may have an alternative identity, he takes her to the mountains to asphyxiate her there. (It's all very John Davidson, he of the similar name, from that infamous STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO episode, but less embarrassing somehow). The squad catches up with them and pull Carson off of Hartman without Pepper even given the opportunity to choke him in return. Back at the station, Pepper makes an unconvincing statement about the failures of rehabilition and Crowley tells her not to sweat it. She makes a weird face, perhaps basking in irony, and the episode ends.<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Angie_Dickinson_in_Police_Woman_1976.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 699px" />Despite a dreadful timeslot change by NBC which pushed POLICE WOMAN's ratings way down, this episode was #3 for the week in the Nielsens -- so I guess M*A*S*H must have been preempted. Or perhaps people just like pretty men dressed as ugly women."You have the right to remain silent -- while I choke this chicken..."<img src="https://monstergirl.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/poncethesoup.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 762px" />Bankers Hours. A kind of sequel to Season 1's highly-rated "Sidewinder" episode in which a battalion of army buddies kept knocking off armories for their weapon stash, now that those men are in prison, their wives start dressing up as men in cycle suits and begin knocking off savings and loans, the group led by fresh-faced Mariette Hartley (credited here as "Marietta" because ever since Columbia Pictures cancelled their contract with MGM Optics to do their post-production work and titles lettering, there've been a lot of sloppy errors, including misspelled names, now that Columbia is doing this stuff in-house). Being a woman, Pepper soon realizes these dudes are dames because one of them keeps adjusting her undergarments in the bank's security footage, and the jig is up. The episode ends with the gang around a bar table making a joke about feminists not wearing brassieres.It's all watchable enough.<img src="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b78/Marky888/43f47ee4-37fe-41f5-a436-a6cd11a07bfd_zpsh948n5bu.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 804px" />Disco Killer. After a blonde club singer is shot and injured over crooked business issues, Pepper poses as the girl and hangs out with her meddling mom (Ruth Roman) when the two women are whisked off by mobsters. There is little attempt to make Pepper look like the daughter, and the mother even tries to blow Pepper's cover -- which doesn't prevent Pep from rushing up and nonsensically hugging her immediately after the police confrontation which frees them. Crowley calls Pepper a "spoiled sport" when she pretends to reject his pass in the final scene and the frame freezes... Meh.Shadow of a Doubt.  Joe Styles comes under suspicion for having a role in his ex-girlfriend's murder in an alley, which winds up endangering he and his family. By episode's end, Crowley and Pepper agree to never reveal that Joe's old flame had essentially committed suicide because her hubby was a druggie... Pedestrian at best, although Brian Dennehy is on site to sneer appropriately.Richard Markowitz, who never wrote a single note for POLICE WOMAN, is inexplicably credited on this stock score episode.The Killer Cowboys. Although I think I'd have simply entitled this "Cowboys," and the flimsy gas station crime plot which plays out in the background is a rehash of the S2 "Blaze of Glory" redneck trio dynamic, this is otherwise arguably the best love story episode the show ever did... After turning down Crowley's nocturnal invitation for a drink because she wants to watch a music special on TV (is it Sinatra??), Pepper gets a call from an old boyfriend (Frank Converse) who nudges her into meeting him instead. He's a test pilot, taking her up in gliders to court her, revealing that his wife died a terrible death from cancer a couple of years ago -- they even put Pepper's theme song to words (and got an Emmy nom for their efforts!) "Leave Me Tomorrow..." And it's also apparent to both Pepper and Crowley that Converse has come back to reclaim Pepper... Quietly directed by Alexander Singer, the episode develops nicely, the melancholy romance which can only be revisited briefly as Pepper, whose relationship to Crowley is always fuzzily non-specific, realizes her airplane inamorato is still in love with his dead wife; Sergeant Anderson's choice is made more clear once Crowley is shot, his arm badly injured, during a gas station stake-out... For some reason, this organic, wistful little installment always feels like exactly when it was shot -- the winter of '76/'77 (well, southern California's winter) and, one suspects, most like Angie. And there is a hushed closing scene I like.It's so strange how a series could seem so reverential of its star, and yet so dismissively contemptuous of her at the same time.<img src="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b78/Marky888/62c76513-b9fc-409f-bf84-2f5a4c586ba4_zpspodc8mxy.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 773px" />Shark. Dead-in-the-water entry which typifies every listless problem with mid-to-late Season 3. Angie's okay, but it's a strictly by rote entry, blandly directed by John Newland, a story about loan sharks shaking down their terrified customers, with singer Jack Jones in his best Peter Lawford hairdo making a cameo. Pepper takes out a short term loan and then participates in a pointless car ramming showdown, followed by the unit giggling over Royster's vegetarianism in a bistro.This program sure doesn't feel like it used to... The episodes by mid-season, with rare exception, have become so bored with themselves, so  lacking in focus or energy, Angie suppressed into a near perpetual whisper and blank expression, it's almost impossible to believe that it isn't deliberate.<img src="http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server4900/364bb/products/204689/images/155779/O042913-84__76115.1410782027.380.500.jpg?c=2" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?