Los Angeles cop Detective Sergeant Dee Dee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) is deployed undercover as a prostitute and busts a guy (Robert Reed) for solicitation after he tries to hire her to attend an orgy as an active participant. He turns out to be Warrick Unger - a very affluent and powerful superior court judge.
Unger is indignant when McCall dares to arrest him and, citing his status in the community, he threatens to put in some calls to influential friends who will punish the officer for entrapment.
Upon processing the arrest McCall joins partner Detective Sergeant Rick Hunter (Fred Dryer) at the scene of a home invasion & rape which resulted in the accidental death of the victim.
The assailant is suspected to be a serial rapist dubbed 'Bigfoot' by the press. Hunter and McCall are ordered to work with colleagues Sgt. Brad Navarro (Erik Estrada) and Sgt. Kitty O'Hearn (Shelley Taylor Morgan) on the case. McCall speaks to media about the case. 'Bigfoot' watches McCall doing her news conference on TV and likes what he sees.
The same evening Hunter takes the statement of Stacey (Lezlie Deane) an underage prostitute who wants to report a murder and she details a grisly Satanic ritual she was hired to be a part of.
She claims another girl who went with her was killed. Though she might lack credibility in the court of public opinion Hunter believes her. He suggests she go in to protective custody but she refuses. The next day she is tracked down by a henchman (Hank Stone) of the Satanic cult and barely escapes.
Judge Unger makes good on his threat to call friends to attempt to quash the arrest. This filters down to police Commander Cain (Arthur Rosenberg) who hates his subordinate McCall anyway and he tries to pressure her to drop the charge against Unger.
Cain tries the same tactic with McCall's Captain (Charles Hallahan) and the vice squad lieutenant (Raye Birk) hoping to make the charge disappear without having to intervene in a way which can be traced to him.
These different events could each have made for individual episodes on this show. If the writing were anything less than great and if the acting performances were anything less than great these different story lines would not appear to meld together as naturally as they seem to.
The 'City of Passion' storyline trilogy could have elevated 'Hunter' beyond highly rated cop show in to highly entertaining miniseries over three weeks in Fall 1987. This first portion of the trilogy set the stage perfectly for the two which followed. But neither of those two lived up to the promise of this one.
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