The Mod Squad: Season 1, Volume 1

Revisiting this groovy, groundbreaking 1968-73 series is anything but a bum trip! The Mod Squad—a hip makeover of the traditional cop show—featured three "lonely, angry kids," one black, one white, one blonde: "Linc" Hayes (Clarence Williams III), a soul brother from Watts; privileged rebel Pete Cochran (Michael Cole), who split from his 14-room home in Beverly Hills; and runaway Julie Barnes (quintessential hippie chick Peggy Lipton), described as "a canary with a broken wing." Their mentor is Capt. Adam Greer (the late Tige Andrews), who bucks his superiors to form the squad. “They can get into places we can't," he argues—such as a high school to solve a teacher's murder, an underground newspaper plagued by a bomber, and an acting class in order to flush out a strangler who preys on blonde actresses. The trio are perfectly matched, with Cole doing his tortured James Dean bit, Williams simply being the coolest cat on TV, and Lipton often serving as damsel in distress (when she's not being used as bait). The Mod Squad bridged the generation gap. Kids dug that the squad walked the walk and talked the talk, didn't carry heat, and didn't bust their own. Adults dug Capt. Greer, who played "Mr. Tough Cop," but was more like a father figure, and was anything but square. "What do I have to do to win your trust?" he thunders in one episode, "wear beads?" It's also fun to spot future stars, such as Oscar-winner Louis Gossett Jr. as a falsely accused Vietnam vet in "When Smitty Comes Marching Home." And that uniformed cop who gets the drop on Pete in the pilot episode? An unbilled Harrison Ford! Compiling the first half (13 episodes) of the 1968-69 season, DVD extras include three featurettes: one a retrospective look with new interviews (of Cole and Lipton; Williams is notably missing), the second full of 1968 factoids, and the last bringing together guest stars such as Gossett, Tyne Daly, and Leslie Ann Warren. Recommended. (D. Liebenson)