The Checklist: Booker (S1 Ep8) “Wheels and Deals – Part 1”
When 21 Jump Street debuted it was a hit for the then fledgling Fox Network thanks in part to the growing popularity of Johnny Depp. Depp played Officer Tom Hanson, one of the youthful police officers who was able to go undercover at high school and colleges and stomp out hate crimes and fight the war on drugs.
But in Season 3 of the show another teen heartthrob was introduced to the show in the form of Detective Dennis Booker played by Richard Grieco. The Booker character was a hit and he would appear more often than not in Season 3. So it was probably no surprise that the decision was made to give Grieco his own spin-off series named Booker.
I recall watching and episode of 21 Jump Street here and there during its initial run on Fox, but I don’t believe I ever watched an episode of Booker in my life… that is until I came across the series on Freevee and decided to put an episode to The Checklist test. So I asked Alexa to randomly pick me a number and the result was not something completely expected.
Alexa selected Episode 8 and when the title of the episode came up “Wheels and Deals – Part 1”, I realized I would also have to watch Part 2 and that meant what I intended to be just another Checklist was going to become a Super-Sized Checklist instead… although that isn’t exactly what happened.
#1. Does the show have a quality open?
The open to Booker is soooo MTV. It is a mini music video, complete with a gritty stylized look and Billy Idol’s “Hot in the City” blasting… well unless you watched it on Freevee like I did, then you heard a song that certainly seemed inspired by the Billy Idol classic called “Hot Summer Night”. Since I was in fact watching the show on a hot summer night, it really justified my decision to give Booker a try. 1/1
#2. Does the show’s premise have legs?
Spin-offs have a leg up on the competition because the TV viewing public is already invested in at least one of the characters on the show, in this case Grieco’s Dennis Booker. But now you are taking this established character and putting him in a new environment… the story is Booker lost his badge and has now been recruited as an insurance investigator for a multi-national corporation.
Honestly when I read that I questioned how much action insurance investigators see… it could be a ton and I am completely unaware. But on the surface it seemed like Booker would be really bored and I wondered why they didn’t just make him a private investigator.
It then didn’t help that at the start of the episode, a young boy name Billy (played by Family Ties‘ Brian Bonsall) escapes the daycare facility in the Teshima building where Booker works and shows up with his Freddy Krueger bank and is looking to hire Booker to find his lost dog. Since it is a slow day at the office AND since Billy has a hot aunt who happens to be Teshima’s VP of Finance. 1/2
#3. Were there any notable guest stars?
Billy said the last time he saw Sam, he was being chased away by a bigger dog that lived in the same high rise condos… so Booker pays the owner of the big dog a visit, recording sensation Tina Maxwell played by Bulletproof Action favorite, Vanity of Action Jackson fame.
Tina mistakes Booker for one of the goons who works for her “boyfriend” and sends him on his way. When Booker gets outside he spots the dog on the other side of the road, scoops him up and returns the dog to Billy.
On his way out of the building he notices Tina Maxwell’s door is ajar and he pokes his head in and finds Tina’s place ransacked… he also spots a video tape with the name Crane on it and his curiosity gets the better of him, so he takes it back to the office and finds a sex tape featuring Tina Maxwell and Raymond Crane, a wealthy businessman who owns everything from casinos to football teams and someone Booker knows all too well. 2/3
#4. Did any of the characters from 21 Jump Street appear on the show?
None of the 21 Jump Street regulars appeared on this episode of Booker, however listening to Booker talk about his vendetta with Raymond Crane, I was under the assumption that the Crane character had appeared on 21 Jump Street before…. but that was not the case, apparently Crane was referenced but “Wheels and Deals – Part 1” was the first time Crane actually appeared on screen.
Booker uses the tape to infiltrate Crane’s organization with a plan of taking him down from the inside. This also gets Booker closer to Tina Maxwell… but that ultimately leads to Booker’s downfall. 3/4
#5. Did the show end with a quality cliff hanger?
The sex tape was going to be Tina Maxwell’s way out from under Crane’s thumb… but now Booker has screwed that all up. So it is no surprise Booker feels obligated to help her and late in the episode when it appears that she is going to be killed and buried on the site of Crane’s new football stadium, Booker races to the building site on his motorcycle to save the day… but Raymond Crane outsmarts Booker and when the police show up, they arrest Booker for trespassing.
Booker is bailed out by his co-worker/friend Elaine (Katie Rich). He then calls his boss Chick Sterling (Carmen Argenziano, Knight Rider 2000) and tells him he’s going to get some help and that’s when we see Booker at the police headquarters located on 21 Jump Street. 3/5
- Final Score = 3/5 (60%) Part of me almost wanted to give this episode a perfect score due to Vanity’s inclusion, but 60% is more than fair. This episode was lacking in the action department (rescuing a dog didn’t cut it for me) but maybe all the episodes lack action since Booker is an INSURANCE INVESTIGASTOR!!! But I definitely wanted to check out Part 2, so the episode did something right… I hate to judge the whole series by a single episode (and I plan on watching at least one more this holiday season *hint*, but after watching “Wheels and Deals – Part 1” I wasn’t shocked that the show only lasted one season.
Wait a minute? Why have I already wrapped this Checklist up? Isn’t this supposed to be a super-sized edition of The Checklist with double the questions? Well… when the next episode of Booker started on Freevee, it wasn’t “Wheels and Deals – Part 2”. It was a completely different episode. Was this one of those weird streaming deals where they didn’t get every episode, maybe due to a Vanity musical performance? Well, some quick research answered that question… Part 2 was actually on 21 Jump Street… so join me right here on BulletproofAction.com tomorrow when I put “Wheels and Deals – Part 2” to The Checklist test!
