NYPD detective Sam Tyler finds himself walking both sides of the line between delusion and reality, when he is suddenly hurtled back in time to 1973 after being struck in an 2008 car accident. As Sam continues to figure out why he is struck in 1973, he continues to clash with colleagues and superiors over police procedure as they pursue a robbery suspect. A decorated Vietman War vet is beaten to death; a Puerto Rican man is accused of throwing a black girl off the roof of a building; a hostage situation takes place at the psychiatric ward of a hospital; a bank robbery involving the Russian mob starts a turf war; a councilman is shot and killed in the station causing it to go on lockdown.