Strike Force (TV series)
| Strike Force | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Starring |
Robert Stack Dorian Harewood Herb Edelman Michael Goodwin Richard Romanus Trisha Noble |
| Composer(s) |
Dominic Frontiere (also theme) Mark Snow |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 20 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
Aaron Spelling Douglas S. Cramer |
| Producer(s) | E. Duke Vincent Elaine Rich |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Aaron Spelling Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Original release | April 2, 1981 – May 21, 1982 |
Strike Force is an American action-adventure/police procedural television series that aired on ABC during the 1981–1982 television season, and was produced by Aaron Spelling Productions. The program starred Robert Stack as Capt. Frank Murphy, the leader of a special unit of specialized detectives and police officers whose job is to stop violent criminals at any cost (usually with a hail of gunfire). Mixing elements of Stack's classic TV series The Untouchables from 20 years earlier with doses of Mission: Impossible and Dirty Harry, the series immediately provoked controversy over its violence – at one point the series was labeled the most violent in American TV history – though the series attempted to interject liberal amounts of humor into its regular characters and balanced the violence by focusing on the detectives' personal lives.
Although initially popular, the novelty of the series quickly wore off; only 19 episodes were produced, plus the 90-minute pilot. According to Todd Gitlin's 1983 book Inside Prime Time, Strike Force finished a dismal 76 out of 105 shows in the Nielsen ratings for the 1981–82 season. The first episode was released on video in North America in the late 1980s. Another factor in the series' demise was the competition: Strike Force was pitted by ABC against the successful CBS soap-opera Falcon Crest, which had, as its lead in, the then # 1 show on television, "Dallas".
As of 2015 there has been no official DVD release of this series, though there have been several requests for its release and bootleg copies have circulated in the "collectors market" for the last three decades since its cancellation.
Composers (incomplete listing): Dominic Frontiere (1.1, and series theme), John E. Davis,Allyn Ferguson, Mark Snow, Nelson Riddle (1.15).
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