Hardcastle and McCormick

Milton C. Hardcastle was Judge in Los Angeles. Mark McCormick, a racing motorist, convicted for robbery, was Hardcastles last case. McCormick was set under supervision of Hardcastle and they start to inspect two hundred cases that were never closed totally during Miltons judgeship.

As the series begins, ex-race car driver Mark McCormick accepts a job driving the Coyote X, an experimental car designed by a friend of his named Flip Johnson. Mark loses his job, however, after Flip is killed in a car accident and ownership of the car is granted to industrialist Martin Cody. Eventually, Mark is brought before Hardcastle, who is presiding over his last case, Mark is given a choice: help the judge round-up two hundred men who walked out of the judge's courtroom on technicalities or go back to prison.

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Hardcastle is quite upset when he is criticized in “Without Sin,” the autobiography of retired mobster Joseph Cadillac. Figuring that the mob, also the subject of Cadillac's criticism, will be angered as well, Hardcastle has Mark follow the author. Later, Hardcastle is surprised when Cadillac comes to him for help.

Hardcastle and McCormick must help protect a famous race car driver who is in danger of losing his claim to fame as well as his life.

After breaking into the official records, Mark identifies his long-lost biological father as a lounge singer in Atlantic City and goes to see him. But the man turns out to be sought by a mobster who kidnaps Mark to force him to steal some incriminating tapes from a government safe.

After telling his poker buddies to clean up the house before he gets back from the airport with the judge, McCormick returns with Hardcastle to discover that everything valuable on the estate has been stolen, including all of the judge's files on past cases.

In the third season opener, Hardcastle and McCormick go on a photo exhibition with Buzz Bird, one of the judge's old friends. To their regret, Buzz, who is a pilot, has a heart attack while flying them over a stretch of Oregon wilderness. While Hardcastle and McCormick survive the crash landing, they are stranded miles from civilization and unknowingly attract the attention of Taylor Walsh, a mountain "pirate" who has made his living by robbing tourists. After suffering through a horrible rain storm, Hardcastle decides to tell Mark how much he appreciates their friendship. Although Mark pretends to be asleep, he actually hears everything the judge has to say. The next day, the two men come across the dead body of a murdered man. Realizing that they are being tracked, they decide to speed up their journey by white water rafting. Once the two men are in the water, Taylor and his men attack. Fleeing to land, Hardcastle and McCormick manage to evade the pirates. Turning the tables, the two men capture Taylor and his men. A month later, the judge and Mark, with their prisoners in tow, finally return to civilization.

After race car driver Kiki Cutter is injured during a race, Mark, knowing her from his own racing days, decides to pay her a visit. Fortunately for Kiki, Mark arrives just as someone tries to kill her. Although the killer manages to escape, Mark does manage to get his license plate number. Believing that the attempted assassination may be tied into Kiki's crash, Mark sneaks a look at the car. Confirming his suspicions, Mark finds evidence that Kiki's car was sabotaged. Meanwhile, Hardcastle traces the assassin's license plate to Hal Jenkins, an insurance broker. Some of the pieces of the puzzle are tied together when a recovering Kiki reveals that she has been secretly planning on divorcing Sammy "Sidewinder" O'Connell, her race driver husband. Once, Hardcastle has stopped Jake Thomas, the man who tried to kill Kiki, as well as arrested Jenkins, Mark, with some financial backing from the judge, decides to challenge O'Connell in a major car race. Thanks to his superior driving skills, Mark defeats O'Connell and settles a longstanding rivalry between them. Afterwards, O'Connell, who had selfishly acted out of fear of how the divorce would impact his career, is arrested for his part in the attempts on his wife's life.

When Bill Bauer is declared dead after being MIA from the Marines for 10 years, Mark, the soldier's former best friend, is asked to handle the funeral arrangements. The funeral does have one positive result for it reunites Mark with old friends Patrick Burke, Jeff Steffan and Peter Trigg. To Mark's surprise, shortly after the funeral, Bauer turns up very much alive. Upon being confronted by his angered friend, Bauer explains that he had been in charge of destroying cash when the United States pulled out of Vietnam in 1975. Instead of following orders, however, he had waited for an opportunity to smuggle the money into the country. Continuing, Bauer relays how he used "his" casket as a way of transporting the cash. Bauer realizes that his plan is falling apart when someone tries to kill him. Seeing no alternative, Bauer decides to go after the men chasing him. Following Bauer, Hardcastle and McCormick discover that Peter Trigg, secretly the leader of a group of terrorists, is trying to get a hold of Bauer's money in order to buy weapons. Although Trigg temporarily manages to capture Hardcastle and McCormick, the two men are able to turn the tables thanks to Bauer's intervention. Later, the police are all set to take Bauer into custody when the ex-soldier decides to disappear again.