Malloy and Reed investigate the death of an old man wearing an unusual belt, which leads to the case being turned over to Frauds Division, who finds that Dr. Gantman, running a clinic, is treating a blind seven-year-old patient with a pituitary gland condition but his "treatment" is worthless and preventing a real treatment (removal of the gland). Later, a TV repairman who makes oscillator belts for Gantman is busted for bookmaking and agrees to testify against the doctor, but Gantman demonstrates his "treatment" in open court and fails miserably. Note: This episode, in which Reed and Malloy appear only briefly, was intended to be the pilot for a new Mark VII series focusing on the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, and was directed by Webb himself. However, no such series came to be.

Officer Malloy pays tribute to Officer Tom Porter, who has recently fallen in the line of duty. Malloy recounts the close friendship they developed while training at the academy, as well as the moments where they crossed paths on duty, including the night of the officer's unfortunate demise.

An 'officer needs help' call comes in with no callsign or location. The dispatcher starts a division wide radio "roll-call" in order to account for every officer on patrol. While the roll-call is going on, calls for service from the public still needs to be handled. When a motorcycle officer fails to check in when prompted, a division wide search is instituted to look for him, which Malloy & Reed are assigned to assist in.

Malloy and Reed search for a six-year-old girl in a red sweater who was kidnapped. Malloy finds the girl in a neighbor's house – the neighbor has kidnapped and raped the girl, and she is unconscious. The perp attempts to escape, Malloy catches him and loses his cool when the suspect claims that the girl was "asking for it." The suspect files excessive force charges against Malloy, which he admits to; he knows he will be punished by his old mentor, Capt. Moore which may derail his ambition to become sergeant. Moore gives Malloy a four-day suspension for his actions. Other calls include rescuing a man who got stuck in the storm drain system.

Reed spends an evening on the firing range, then stops by an all-night grocery store. When Reed leaves, a man approaches him as if he knew him, then points out another man in a green Beetle holding a gun on the officer. Reed drops his groceries, shoves the man, jumps and fires at the Beetle driver, hitting the car, but the man in the Beetle shoots his accomplice. The grocer swears he only heard one shot, and the accomplice gives a dying declaration that Reed was trigger-happy and shot him, leading to Reed's suspension. Malloy and his by-the-book replacement partner locate the green Beetle (now yellow) after going through numerous DMV checks and locate the other man, exonerating Reed.

Officer Charlie Burnside pulls a prank on Officer Albert Porter, a friend of Reed's. Porter, who does not find the prank funny, informs Reed that Burnside is frequently "badge-heavy" (rough) with his suspects. After dealing with an inept would-be robber, Malloy and Reed observe Burnside choking a suspect. Reed reports the incident, but nothing is done by the Captain because the victim would not admit Burnside was the aggressor. Burnside turns cocky on Reed saying he has "an ace in the hole" and that Reed was mad about the prank he pulled on Porter, but it is later revealed that Burnside got to one of the robbers, placing him under investigation. At the end of watch, Burnside tries intimidating Reed, then tries brushing his intimidation off as a joke when he realizes the other officers are against him; when they all walk out, Burnside resigns.

Malloy and Reed are given an older cruiser with 300 miles to go until retirement. They quickly learn the car is extremely unreliable and barely works: the accelerator surges, the glove compartment door constantly drops on Reed's knees, the water hose breaks while they are sneaking up on a prowler suspect (actually just a man who once lived there), their malfunctioning taillights prevent them from writing a ticket to a citizen whose car had the same problem, the distributor cap fails when trying to respond to another call, and finally, after capturing a pursuit suspect, the car's brakes fail and the unmanned car totals itself on a light pole. Another call regarding a truck loading up at a warehouse leads to the arrest of a large group of organized burglars after Malloy notices a slight discrepancy in their otherwise foolproof plan.

Malloy tries to find a way to help a 60-year-old career criminal he arrested 10 years ago, who was recently released and begs to be re-arrested so he can spend his retirement years in the federal penitentiary. Meanwhile, he and Reed become suspicious while investigating an apparent home burglary, and later respond to a bank robbery in progress.

Malloy and Reed are on the lookout for a traveling business man driving a green pinto, who called his wife in Nebraska and told her he was going to commit suicide at 2 PM. Meanwhile, they search for a woman who abandoned her newborn baby in a garbage can, and get a tip from an elderly woman about a group of car strippers.

Malloy's old landlady, Mrs. O'Brien, has her purse stolen and refuses to leave the station until her case is settled. Mrs. O'Brien resorts to other means, including hounding detectives and setting up a picket line to vent her frustrations. Malloy makes connection between her theft and a string of purse snatchings involving social security checks, and a decoy leads to the end of the theft ring. Calls include two suspicious men and a pursuit involving them, and a homicide where candy wrappers and tire tracks from the pursuit suspects are found.

While on second shift, Malloy and Reed take Police Commissioner Dixon on a ride-along. They encounter a bar owner who locked a naked, elderly man inside, a fight with a knife-wielding man and another man with a gun, and a missing 17-year-old deaf boy with mental instabilities, which Reed recognizes as the boy that escaped his foot pursuit in the previous episode.

Malloy and Reed are stunned to discover that the driver who led them on a high-speed chase is the son of Sgt. MacDonald, and Malloy takes it upon himself to help his boss figure out why the young man is acting out. In the meantime, they investigate a possible burglary in progress at an apartment building, mediate a dispute at a park over an elderly woman feeding ducks, respond to a call of two armed men fighting over a woman and deal with a wino who is attempting to direct traffic at a busy intersection.

During their Christmas Eve Patrol, Malloy and Reed contemplate using their patrol car to deliver a Christmas tree to the residents of a soon-to-be-closed retirement home. Meanwhile, an elderly man's bagpipe playing is considered a public nuisance, a couple of teenagers steal a delivery truck containing radioactive material, a nervous man is desperate to cover up the smell of perfume on his clothing and an armed robbery suspect becomes intent on committing suicide-by-cop.

While paying a visit to the laundromat before going into work, Malloy encounters a man using the facilities to dry something much different from clothing. On patrol, he and Reed deal with a minister-in-training who uses a very unorthodox method to get his message across, try to reunite a Finnish-speaking child with her family, mediate a strange dispute between feuding neighbors and engage in a high-speed chase with a well known drug dealer.

Malloy and Reed investigate a large car theft operation that targets older cars, then stages them around the city as abandoned vehicles so they can be towed and scrapped. Meanwhile, they try to figure out why the son of Malloy's girlfriend is getting bad grades, search for a suspect who robbed an elderly woman and attempt to rescue two foolish teenagers who enter a house that is being fumigated.

A World War II survivor and tailor shop owner sets an ambush for an unidentified intruder when Malloy and Reed intervene. R&I determines the owner is clean and emigrated to the U.S. seventeen years earlier from Eastern Europe. The officers speak with a local priest who knows the owner, who complains to Sgt. MacDonald about what he feels is the officers' interference. Later, shots are fired at the shop, and the officers find a wounded intruder with no one else in the shop. Malloy and Reed find the owner with the priest, who informs them that the intruder is a former Nazi soldier who killed his relative during the war.

Malloy and Reed pull over a car on a routine traffic stop and are taken hostage by two robbers escaping from their heist. The officers have to use all their skills to escape the situation.

Reed loses a case against a young car thief in juvenile court, who later dies in high-speed pursuit. A girl's boyfriend dies from a heroin "hot shot", she buys drugs from the supplier and provides the serial number of the $10 bill she used to buy them. An elderly woman insists on being arrested rather than ticketed for a traffic violation.

A burglar is on the loose, and the officers handle a call with a drunk who is nearly a dead-ringer for the burglar, later he ends up falling down at a bar where Officer Woods was handling a call regarding him. Other calls include looking for an antique stove an Asian woman gave away without knowing her husband had hid money inside it, getting an obese woman out of a phone booth, and a stakeout for the burglar mentioned at roll call resulting in his capture; during the pursuit, the charity truck that picked up the antique stove is located, and the money is returned to the family.

Malloy is kidnapped leaving the station by a drug runner and his female accomplice, demanding her boyfriend be released from jail in exchange for Malloy. When the couple has Malloy contact the station to confirm his status, he reveals a clue about where they found a girl with a mannequin (a reference to the episode "Citizen With Gun"). Reed finds Malloy's car and a citizen gives a description of Malloy's kidnappers and their car, which Reed finds abandoned but he locates their hideout from case files, meanwhile Malloy manages to spill gasoline and ignites it, allowing Malloy to be rescued by Reed who notices the gunfire and smoke.

The officers undergo their driver refresher courses to hone their pursuit and driving skills. A rash of car strippers brings about a new approach suggested by Officer Wells: going undercover as paperboys riding bicycles to find the thieves. Hilarity ensues; Wells wrecks his bicycle that belonged to a young girl, Malloy deals with an irate newspaper customer, and Reed and Malloy pull over a VW Microbus on a traffic violation where the driver's parrot chanted "Down with Pigs!", but the tactics work and the officers break up the car stripping ring.

Malloy and Reed encounter an armed private investigator from out of state, who is in Los Angeles to find a bail jumper. Later the PI is in the middle of an altercation with two black men, one of which is injured; the PI claims the men tried to rob him, but the men tell a different story, and Sgt. MacDonald orders the PI arrested. The PI is found roughing up the bail jumper and is arrested. Calls include an elderly man wanting a group of cars driven by hippies ticketed for illegal parking, and a woman who demands the officers ticket her husband's car because he refuses to replace the balding tires on it.

As part of a trial program, Malloy and Reed team with Motor Officer Grant to better combat crime. Out on patrol, they make a safety check at a residence, investigate a suspicious witness at the scene of a traffic accident, deal with a young member of a neighborhood watch, respond to an annoying complaint about illegally parked cars and perform a daylight stakeout to catch a serial burglar.

Sgt. MacDonald is unhappy about two things: his marriage and radio problems among the officers causing delays in response. Mac reaches out to Malloy about his wife opening an antique shop which is taking time away from him and the kids. Mac later realizes his situation during a call with an old married couple where the wife (whom the husband thought had run away) likes to go to the pizza parlor alone and listen to music, and the husband doesn't understand her need for some alone time. Other calls include a woman taken hostage by two robbers who head to the roof of a building; the suspects jump to a different roof but leave the hostage behind, and the robbers are apprehended with the help of Air Ten.

The watch starts with an elderly woman whose TV was stolen and asks why nothing more is done for victims of crime. A silent alarm at a shop results in the owner being shot and critically injured; one suspect is caught, the other escapes when Reed has to save a baby in a runaway carriage. The shooting puts the family in a financial crunch, which can be helped with paperwork from a new program to help victims of violent crimes, but none are available. The officers question the bail bondsman to determine where the second suspect is, obtain the vehicle description and license number from a neighbor, then arrest him after pursuit in vehicle and foot. Another silent alarm finds young men robbing a drive-in, but their car stalls trying to get away. The forms for victims' families finally arrive and are provided to those that need them. Amy Milner, Martin Milner's daughter, appears in the episode as the shop owner's daughter.