User Reviews

Well done episode was on tV again 4/20/20. If you get a chance, look it up and watch it. Couldn't believe what the suspect said to Malloy when finally apprehended.

Even though people got shot, beaten, and/or killed sometimes, Adam-12 was normally a "family" show and probably most popular with pre-teen boys. The crime in this episode is not suitable for all audiences by a long shot.

Although the episode opens with a typical Adam-12 "comedy" situation - a man stuck in the storm drain - it quickly descends into potential darkness when a six-year-old girl is nowhere to be found. A house-to-house search is well underway when keen-eyed Malloy finds the perp.

I can only imagine Milner's reaction to how much running the script called for. Normally McCord did all the athletic legwork. Notice they don't always show the running officer's face!

Once Malloy has hold of the sleaze, the perp says some truly horrible things about his crime. Did I just hear that on a 1974 TV show with children watching? Who wouldn't react like Malloy does!

For all the seasons when Reed wouldn't be able to stop thinking about the bad things they'd dealt with and Malloy would tell him to let it go, now it's Malloy's turn to be reminded an officer can't get emotionally involved.

Despite what he's done to this innocent little girl, the perp is more concerned with pressing charges against Malloy for the rough treatment. The rest of the episode is Malloy going through the disciplinary process.

Definitely one of the series' more serious and shocking episodes.

... and a particularly hideous kind of criminal, one who sexually molests children.

Reed and Malloy are canvasing the neighborhood looking for anybody who might have seen a missing little girl. When they do locate a suspect he turns out to have done extreme harm to the girl and he runs and when caught says that she asked for it. Malloy, who actually apprehends this pond scum, has a visceral reaction to this guy's attitude and roughs him up some. Reed shows up and gets Malloy to calm down. But the perp has an attitude and presses charges against Malloy for the roughing up. Malloy makes no excuses for himself and is prepared to face discipline. What happens? Watch and find out.

This show spanned the years 1968-1975, and in the beginning lots of the crime was between people who knew each other, including one especially memorable episode that was like I Love Lucy meets film noir where two neighbors get into a feud over a boat that was jointly bought and things escalate to the point of the macabre.

By this last season, the crime is starting to come from strangers, and that is particularly frightening, mirroring the shooting gallery that LA will become in the 70s and into the 80s.

As an aside, Reed's wife and child have resurfaced after several seasons of them seeming to have ceased to exist or maybe never existed at all. Since the hippies have all gone back to college, no longer under the threat of the draft, apparently family is starting to come back into style.

I've always particularly admired this episode of Adam 12. Cops are people too - a point Jack Webb always tried to drive home. But between Dragnet and Adam 12, that theory is seldom tested in a convincing way. Sure we occasionally see dirty cops, but they are always the "other guy." By the end of the episode the good guys root out the bad apple and all is well.

In this episode, Malloy is confronted with a real monster. That usually impervious professionalism is allowed to slip. In short, we get to see him behave as perhaps a real person on the job would. Child molesters are beneath contempt, and the one portrayed in this episode is terrifyingly convincing. Adam 12 was going for something real this time and I like it.

But to be real, this was 1974. I come from a family of cops. What Malloy did is of course against department policy. But in reality this scumbag would have lost teeth and NOBODY would have cared. From fellow officers to IA to the DA's office, not a peep. My grandfather worked Narcotics for many years as a detective. If he caught someone dumb enough to sell hard drugs to kids, he'd usually break their hand. Dope pushers were petrified of him. But back then nobody really cared what dirtbags had to say about anything. Things are of course different now. But right or wrong that's just how things were.

(*Officer Jim Reed to Officer Pete Malloy quote*) - "Hey, Pete! Cool it!!"

Yep. It sure looks like senior officer, Pete Malloy doesn't always practice what he preaches when it comes to being "a professional" when one is in the line of duty as a police officer.

And, here in "Excessive Force" Malloy definitely loses his "professional cool" when he clearly roughs up a criminal suspect after an extended foot chase.

Oh, well - It's all in a day's work when you're a devoted cop on the L.A. police force.