#Lipstick bounty hunters series#

As he drives his captive to the police station, he asks for their life story, gives his own testimonial, and offers help in the form of job contacts and character references. After the arrest, the tone quickly shifts, from aggression to compassion. These careful preparations build dramatic tension that climaxes in the final chase, as the team suits up in tightly edited action sequences. In each episode, Dog and his team gather information on the fugitive by staking out neighborhoods and talking to the felon’s friends and family. His parenting and criminal rehabilitation philosophies intertwine noting his own checkered past, he laughs “I say to all fathers: be as good as you can be because your sons and daughters will definitely follow in your footsteps.” He sees himself in every perp he brings in. After four marriages and 12 kids, he’s had to bail his own children out of trouble more than once. His warden challenged him to “contribute to society,” so he flipped over into law enforcement. As part of a motorcycle gang, he went to jail in the ’70s for his involvement in a failed drug deal where a fellow gang member murdered someone. The narrative arcs include Dog’s background and family.

#Lipstick bounty hunters series#

The series amps up the raw material of Dog’s experiences for maximum drama. That means sunglasses and black leather, a tank top (sometimes mesh), bullet-proof vest, custom-made cowboy boots with four-inch heels, and a long blond mullet with some upfront pompadour action. He tells us he has to “dress the part” in order to terrify bail jumpers into submission and avoid hazardous confrontations. Set mostly in Hawaii but sometimes in Denver, the series makes clear that the hunter with over 6,000 captures to his name has an innate sense of the theatrical. A comparison reveals only that the new series is more slickly edited and packaged. The Dog the Bounty Hunter: The Best of Season 1 DVD case announces, “Go on the prowl with this real-life Billy the Kid,” while quoting one of Dog’s many efforts to inflate his mystique: “Born on a mountain, raised in a cave, arresting fugitives is all I crave.” The set features 11 episodes (the ones Dog liked best) and the installment of A&E’s Take This Job… that landed Duane “Dog” Chapman his own show. And as the series reveals the seedy world of bounty hunting, it also humanizes desperate drug addicts and petty criminals, making for episodes that are both entertaining and deeply moving.

The high-octane pursuits are followed by redemption scenes, because, as born-again Christian Dog puts it, he wants to “arrest them and fix them.” He’s brutal and honest, not sappy.

The show uses COPS‘ chase-and-catch format, then goes that longtime series better. In Dog the Bounty Hunter, the self-proclaimed “world’s most famous bounty hunter” tracks his “human prey,” bail jumpers. He pops off the screen with brash charisma and a Rottweilerish energy.