LAPD detective Alex Holmes has been on the force for years, with an impeccable record of service…and an absolutely terrible track record of getting his partners injured in the line of duty. As he awaits word on who his next partner will be, his boss, Chief Sedford, gets a visit from the Police Commissioner with an offer of a technological breakthrough: a 400+ pound robotic police officer virtually indistinguishable from a human being. Named after its creator, roboticist Gregory Yoyonovich, “Yoyo” is nearly indestructible…prompting the Chief to make him Holmes’ new partner.
Yoyo finds himself immediately thrust into the investigation into the theft of a valuable car, the same case that led to the injury of Holmes’ former partner. When the case begins to involve a greater understanding of the mechanics of disassembling the car, Yoyo turns out to be Holmes’ secret weapon in the investigation. But when one of the prime suspects turns up dead, Yoyo discovers he has less of a knack for figuring out why human beings would commit murder. His know-how, and Holmes’ intuition, may yet crack the case, but it’ll mean Holmes putting Yoyo’s “indestructible” status to the test.
written by Jack Sher & Lee Hewitt and Leonard B. Stern
directed by Jackie Cooper
music by Leonard Rosenman
Cast: Richard B. Shull (Detective Alex Holmes), John Schuck (Officer Gregory “Yoyo” Yoyonovich), Bruce Kirby (Captain Harry Sedford), Andrea Howard (Officer Maxine Moon), Allan Miller (Mr. Powers), Larry Hovis (Dr. Babcock), G. Wood (The Police Commissioner), Madison Arnold (Mr. Karl Kincaid), Sarah Jane Miller (Mrs. Powers), Doris Hess (Woman Driver), Bobby Herbeck (Driving Instructor)
Notes: The actor playing Tony, Holmes’ partner in the show’s opening scenes, is uncredited. Guest star Allan Miller has a significant genre TV track record, with appearances in Wonder Woman, Project UFO, Galactica: 1980, Airwolf, and the late ’90s syndicated superhero show, Nightman. His most visible genre role, however, may be as the
alien pilot with whom McCoy tries to secretly book passage to the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (“how can you be deaf with ears like that!?”). Ironically, mere months before Holmes & Yoyo premiered on ABC’s prime time schedule, ABC had piloted Future Cop, a slightly more dramatic take on the “veteran cop discovers his new partner is a robot rookie” plotline at the heart of both shows; Holmes & Yoyo would be cancelled before Future Cop could return for its own short, troubled run as a weekly series, but unaired episodes would crop up in 1977 as Star Wars mania gripped American pop culture, prompting a perhaps misplaced hope that the popularity of the movie’s robots would reignite interest in robot characters on a TV budget.
LogBook entry by Earl Green