21 Jump Street (2004)

Overuse of the word narc. Delinquents perennially in leather. Lines such as ''he's gonna sing like a bird.'' 21 Jump Street: The Complete First Season was hardly Shakespeare; still, revisiting the old precinct — where cops go undercover in high schools to foil crime — does rekindle midsummer night's daydreams. The reason to watch Jump, one of the first police dramas to assemble a hip, young cast: chiseled rookie Johnny Depp. And yet the show started out unarrestingly, with overacting (by otherwise fine actor Frederic Forrest, playing the cheesy hippie captain) and flat plots (the kid with a crush on...a teacher). But the sting picked up speed when the appropriately deadpan Steven Williams replaced the cartoonish Forrest and a hokey yet amusing repartee grew between pretty-boy Depp and lug-head partner Peter DeLuise. It's hard to deny the Afterschool Special appeal of Depp slumming it in an ep featuring, say, Blair Underwood as a student who holds hostages in exchange for pizza.

EXTRAS Dry chats with actors Holly Robinson Peete and Dustin Nguyen and a lively, self-deprecating commentary from DeLuise.

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