Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, it’s another courtroom drama on Highway to Heaven.

Episode 4.15 “Time In A Bottle”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on January 20th, 1988)

A homeless man who goes by the name of Humphrey Bogart (Henry Bal) is arrested for trying to steal a bottle of cheap wine from a liquor store.  The hard-nosed assistant D.A. (Robin Strasser) charges him with a felony.  Jonathan and Mark recruit Humphrey’s friend, Matthew (John Rubinstein), to defend him in court.  Matthew may be homeless but he’s also a lawyer!

It turns out that a corrupt city councilman (Alan Fudge) wants to crack down on the homeless because he wants to turn the homeless district into a commercial area.  If you already guessed that this episode ends with Matthew leading a march of homeless people into a city council meeting while they chant “We will be heard,” then you’ve obviously seen quite a few episodes of Highway to Heaven.

Highway to Heaven frequently did stories about the homeless and I really can’t criticize the show for that.  This was an issue that Michael Landon obviously cared a lot about and the show was usually so earnest and sincere that you could overlook just how heavy-handed it often was.  The homeless people on Highway to Heaven are always a lot more clean-cut and polite than the ones that I used to yell at me when I worked in downtown Dallas.  On Highway to Heaven, the homeless are always funny and philosophical and they have wonderful lessons to teach everyone.  In Dallas, they come up to your car window while you’re stuck in traffic.  In order to visit my aunt when she was dying at Medical City last month, I had to endure being shouted at and occasionally threatened by all sorts of people.  By the end of it, I was running red lights because paying a fine was less annoying than having that guy whole lived at the Forest/Central intersection calling me the C-word while I was waiting for the light to change.

(That’s not say that the homeless should not be treated with compassion or helped because they certainly should.  I’m just saying that this habit that some people have of idealizing and infantilizing anyone living on the streets is, in many ways, as destructive as just ignoring the problem.)

As for this episode, it was a bit too preachy for its own good.  And I know what you’re going to say.  “It’s Highway to Heaven, it’s always preachy.”  That’s true to an extent but the first three seasons were also a bit less self-righteous than the fourth season has been.  The first three seasons featured characters who were often misguided but who were also capable of being redeemed.  In the past, this episode would have been about the city councilman seeing the error of his ways.  This season, though, the city councilman is just evil because he is.  It’s a far more heavy-handed approach to take and, as a result, far less effective.

This is another episode where one impassioned speech manages to change everyone’s mind.  If only things were as simple in the real world.