
The series focuses on life in Greenwich Village's 12th Precinct station house. Initially, it looks at Capt. Barney Miller and his work and home life, but it gradually becomes about the officers of the precinct, including always-on-the-verge-of-retirement Detective Fish.

Scanlon starts a witch-hunt to root out an anonymous gay officer in the Twelfth Precinct; an angry citizen takes an ax to a department store Muzak machine.

Barney posts the annual vacation schedule; and two brothers feud when one refuses to donate a kidney to his ailing sibling.

The department computer declares Fish dead; a fake detective holds a campaign against the homosexuals' community.

A rat scampers around the precinct while the detectives search for missing bags of confiscated marijuana.