Rizzoli & Isles is an American crime drama television series starring Angie Harmon as Jane Rizzoli and Sasha Alexander as Maura Isles. Based on the series of Rizzoli & Isles novels by Tess Gerritsen, the plot follows Boston Homicide police detective Jane Rizzoli and Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Maura Isles combining their experiences and strikingly different personalities to solve cases. It premiered on TNT on July 12, 2010 and aired 105 episodes in seven seasons, concluding on September 5, 2016. Premise The series' backstory is inspired by the Maura Isles/Jane Rizzoli series of novels by Tess Gerritsen. Rizzoli appears in the series' first novel, The Surgeon, and Isles is introduced in the second, The Apprentice, which serves as the basis for the television series. Boston detective Jane Rizzoli has been investigating a serial killer named Charles Hoyt, a former medical student banned from medical school for fondling a corpse. He uses his medical knowledge to systematically torture and kill people, usually choosing couples to force one partner (usually the female) to watch the torture and murder of the other. Jane ascertains Hoyt's location, but as she is searching for him, she is hit in the back of the head and knocked unconscious. She is pinned to the floor by scalpels and awakes as Hoyt prepares to cut her throat, but Vince Korsak, Jane's partner, locates her and shoots Hoyt, unfortunately not killing him, saving her life. Jane, reasoning that Korsak would never trust her as his partner after seeing her so vulnerable, applies for a new partner. The series pilot, "See One. Do One. Teach One", is largely based on the novel The Apprentice. Jane and medical examiner Maura Isles investigate a killer with Hoyt's modus operandi plus an interest in necrophilia. Jane and Maura discover that the copycat was John Stark (Brendan McCarthy), a soldier who met Hoyt in medical school, had his identity erased for CIA black operations, and mimicked Hoyt's MO in a killing spree during said operations. Meanwhile, Hoyt escapes from prison and rejoins his apprentice to continue in killing. Later, Jane's home is broken into, and she is told by Stark, posing as part of BPD, that her neighbor had been killed. She rushes into the van to see the body but finds Hoyt instead. Hoyt and Stark knock her out and kidnap her. When she wakes up they attempt to kill her, but she