Caitlyn Jenner | Through the Shattered Lens

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, Baker has a new partner!

Episode 5.4 “The Killer Indy”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on October 25th, 1981)

When a group of bikers start holding illegal street races, Getraer wants it stopped before someone is seriously hurt! Jon Baker and his partner Steve McLeish decide to end the races by any means necessary, especially since Steve’s brothers are involved….

Wait, who?

Played by a pre-transition Caitlyn Jenner, Steve McLeish serves as Baker’s partner in this episode. We don’t really get much of an introduction as to who Steve is or why he’s even riding with Baker. Everyone just acts as if Steve has always been there. Ponch is not even mentioned and it’s difficult not to notice that Larry Wilcox seems a bit more cheerful than usual in this episode. For once, he’s the one who gets to do all of the cool stuff while everyone else watches.

This was the first of several episodes that Erik Estrada missed during the fifth season, the result of being injured during a stunt gone wrong. Jenner, who was then best-known as an Olympian, was brought in to play Steve McLeish. Judging from this episode, Jenner was a remarkably bad actor. Compared to everyone else in the episode, Jenner comes across as being awkward and stiff. Like many nonprofessional actors, it’s obvious that Jenner was not sure what do when not delivering dialogue. Jenner stands there, hands awkwardly positioned and occasionally trying to react to the other actors. It’s really almost painful to watch.

It’s obvious that this episode was written with Ponch in mind. Like Ponch, Steve has two brothers and used to be a motorcycle-racing delinquent when he was younger. His older brother (who is played by the legendary character actor Robert F. Lyons) is named Toro, which might make sense if he was Ponch’s brother but, as it is, you really do have to wonder about the parents who would name one son Toro and the other sons Steve and Ted. Ted, incidentally, is played by Kevyn Major Howard. Howard, Lyons and Jenner have next to no features in common, leading one to wonder how they could possibly all be members of the same family?

There was some good motorcycle chase action in this episode. There was also so much dialogue about the importance of wearing a helmet that, as soon as the gang’s leader announced he didn’t need a helmet, the most viewers had to know that he was doomed to ultimately be thrown from his motorcycle and crash headfirst into the pavement. “He hit his head,” Getraer says and that’s the last we hear about the guy.

As for this episodes comedic subplot, Grossman begged his fellow patrol people to join him and his nieces at the waterpark. While Baker, Steve, and everyone else took care of his nieces, Grossman hung out with his two bikini-clad neighbors. Grossman winked at the camera as the CHiPs theme music started to play.

And so, it’s another day in L.A….

The year is 1968 and Jim Gregory (played by Caitlyn Jenner, back when she was still credited as Bruce) is a hotshot high school quarterback who has just been offered a scholarship to play at Grambling University. With their star quarterback in his final year, Grambling needs a good backup. Meanwhile, Jim dreams of playing in the NFL and is excited to play for a program that’s known for producing professional football players. Grambling’s legendary head coach, Eddie Robinson (Harry Belafonte), is eager for Jim to join the team.

The only problem is that Grambling is a historically black college and Jim Gregory is very much white. In fact, Jim will not only be the first white player to ever join the Grambling Tigers but he will also be the only white student enrolled at the school. From the minute that Jim arrives on campus, he discovers that he’s not wanted. The rest of the team sees him as an interloper and they resent that he took a scholarship that could have gone to a black player. Meanwhile, the local whites distrust Jim because he’s a student at a black college.

Based on a true story, this is a football film that doesn’t feature much football. Jim doesn’t get to play in a game until the very end of the season and, even then, he’s only on the field for a few minutes. He doesn’t win the game or even lead a scoring drive. Instead of focusing on the usual sports movie clichés, Grambling’s White Tiger instead explores Jim experiencing, for the first time, what it’s like to be a minority. Jim eventually wins over his teammates through his hard work but he still remains an outsider for the entire film. When he goes into town, a saleswoman and her boss initially offer him a discount on a pair of boots until they discover that he plays football not for Louisiana Tech but instead for Grambling. When he first meets the parents of his new girlfriend, he’s told that an interracial relationship will never last and is advised to move on. When the funeral of Martin Luther King is broadcast on television, all Jim’s teammates walk out of the room one-by-one until Jim is left sitting alone.

In typical made-for-network-TV fashion, Grambling’s White Tiger explores important issues without delving into them too deeply. (For instance, the fact that Jim’s spot on the team is potentially coming at the expense of a black student is an intriguing issue that is mentioned at the start of the film but never really dwelled upon.) Harry Belafonte is perfect as the stern but compassionate Coach Robinson while LeVar Burton is likable as the only member of the team to initially welcome Jim. Jenner, however, is thoroughly miscast and several years too old to play a college freshman. As an actor, Jenner is stiff and awkward but the true story of Jim Gregory is interesting enough that the film will hold the attention of any football fans in the audience.