SLEDGE HAMMER!

A reporter spends a day with Hammer and gets more than he bargained for, and Hammer gets fired. Guest Stars Ronnie Schell as Phil Gumm

After a mobster puts out a “one week only” million-dollar contract on Hammer, every killer in the city, and some financially strapped cops, tries to claim the prize. After an attempted hit takes place in Capt. Trunk' s office, Hammer is ordered to spend the week in a small "Hamish” village. Hammer proceeds to disrupt the lives of this pacifistic community. By the time the hired gunmen arrive, the formerly peaceful farmers, who Hammer corrupted into the ways of violence, assist him.

An escaped convict wrecks havoc in the city, promising even more destruction unless Hammer agrees to meet him in an old west style showdown. The convict is John Kogan, Hammer's childhood rival as well as former partner in the police department. Kogan is also the only man faster on the draw than Hammer… a fact that Sledge is well aware of.

When Hammer and Dori make a trip to the bank they become involved in an armed robbery. The detectives are taken hostage and the robbers demand a plane to take them to Rio. Dori tries to convince Hammer to let her use her training in terrorist psychology and persuasion before he starts blowing everyone away.

Hammer is asked to straighten out some young hoods that have taken over their high school. He discovers that the gang is working for a local car theft ring. Hammer convinces the teens to put their violent nature to good use by training them to become cops.

Hammer and Dori are assigned to locate a serial killer who is bumping off Elvis impersonators. In order to flush out the killer Hammer attends The Famous School For Elvis Impersonators where all the victims were once students. Complete with sequins and pompadour, Hammer enters an Elvis contest and sings The Battle Hymn of the Republic… setting himself up as bait.

When the press reveals that Capt. Trunk is scheduled to testify against a mob boss, Hammer is assigned as his bodyguard. In an attempt on his life Trunk is wounded and taken to the hospital. Sledge decides to make a bogus report that the captain’s been killed, but an assassin learns Trunk is still alive and infiltrates the tightly secured hospital posing as a physician.

When a group of vigilante cops begin killing criminals who have gotten off due to legal technicalities, Hammer is assigned to infiltrate the group. To test his loyalty the rogues assign him the task of killing a female district attorney who is out to stop them. While this same D.A. tries to seduce Hammer in her home, Sledge learns that she is really the leader of the vigilantes and plans to kill him.

Hammer and Dori pose as a couple wanting to adopt a baby in order to discover who is kidnapping infants from a hospital maternity ward. They learn that the hospital’s head nurse and her brother are behind the abductions, which lead to an incongruous shootout in a baby supply warehouse.

After a winning game show contestant is murdered, Hammer investigates. He learns that the show’s host did the killing, obscuring the fact that he’d also embezzled the prize money. Hammer signs on as a contestant to make the host try to kill again.

Hammer is poisoned by a mysterious woman and learns that he has only twelve hours to live. Hammer learns that the only cure for the poison is held by a group of monks in the Andes who have taken a vow of silence. Severely weakened, Hammer must hunt down the perpetrators before it’s too late… made worse by the fact that it’s also daylight savings time.