Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, someone dies!  OH MY GOD!

Episode 3.5 “Death Watch”

(Dir by Barry Crane, originally aired on October 13th, 1979)

Dennis (Christopher Stone) is a veteran movie stunt driver who has never gotten over the tragic death of his child and the way he was treated by a heartless insurance company.  He now drives up and down the freeway, looking for drivers who look like they have good insurance.  Using his stunt skills, he causes accidents and then, under one of many assumed names, he files an insurance claim.  Dennis’s wife (played by Dee Wallace, who was married to Stone at the time) thinks that Dennis is taking things too far but Dennis is convinced that he’s earned the right to commit insurance fraud.  As he puts it, the companies have enough money that it’s not going to hurt them if he steals some of it.

Unfortunately, his latest attempt to cause an accident results in a delivery van swerving to the side of the road and striking two policemen who have pulled over a drunk driver.  One of the policeman is series regular Bear (played by Brodie Greer).  The other is a guy named Steve (Stephen Parr) who we’ve never seen before but who is quickly established as being everyone’s best friend.  Or, I guess, he was everyone’s best friend as he dies shortly after being taken to the hospital.  I have to admit that Steve dying was a bit jarring.  It’s rare that anyone on CHiPs is seriously injured, much less killed.

The highway patrol officers are shaken by Steve’s death.  Ponch and Baker go to the station’s gym and work off their frustration.  Jon lifts weights.  Ponch takes off his shirt and starts hitting a punching bag and, despite the tragedy of the situation, it was hard not to laugh at the show using it as an excuse for Erik Estrada to once again take off his shirt.

The members of the highway patrol attend Steve’s funeral.  It’s pretty somber until Bear rolls into the church in his wheelchair and everyone breaks out into a huge smile.  They’re happy that Bear survived but I do have to wonder how Steve’s family felt when they saw all those smiles and heard the officers joking amongst themselves.  I guess they should have been happy that Ponch actually wore pants and a shirt to the funeral as opposed to showing up in a speedo.  Seriously, if anyone would do that, it would be Ponch.

All of the bad drivers are brought to justice.  The driver of the delivery van loses his job.  Dennis goes to prison.  By the end of the episode, everyone’s in a good mood again.  Rest in peace, Steve!

This episode deserves some credit for trying to deal with a serious issue.  Death is a big deal.  Unfortunately, CHiPs really isn’t the best format for heart-rendering drama.  Even after Steve was killed, the show still teased the audience with the promise of another crash.  In the end, the main message seemed to be that it was better to lose Steve than Bear …. or, God forbid, Ponch!