Chet Walker – 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, Bobby learns a lesson and the Getraer family has a crisis!

Episode 6.10 “Fallout”

(Dir by Nicholas Sgarro, originally aired on December 19th, 1982)

Ellen Getraer (Lynn-Holly Johnson), the never-before-mentioned daughter of Sgt. Getraer, has fallen in with a bunch of Episcopalians and is planning to protest a nuclear plant with them. The only problem is that the church bus has bad brakes, and it keeps causing accidents on the highway. Personally, I would have thrown that smarmy Rev. Porter (John Elerick) in prison, but instead the Highway Patrol just gives him a ticket at the first accident and, at the second, they help him and the protesters escape from their burning bus. (Ellen helps too.) At the end of the episode, both Porter and Ellen do get arrested while sitting in front of the nuclear plant, but they’re released soon afterwards. Sgt. Getraer is proud of his daughter for sticking up for what she believes in. And I’m sure he’ll probably remove the arrest from her record when no one’s watching.

This episode was actually more about Bobby Nelson learning how to control his temper while performing crowd control. At a training exercise, for instance, he throws a fit when Bruce brings up the name of his ex-girlfriend. All of this probably would have been more effective if we had previously seen any evidence of Bobby having any sort of temper. Ever since he was first introduced, Bobby has come across as something of a mellow airhead. Anyway, Bobby learns how to control that supposedly fearsome temper, and he does a good job at the nuclear protest. He makes his arrests politely and courteously. As a result, the plant workers (one of whom is played by a young Dennis “Mr. Belding” Haskins) can go to work.

The other big storyline was Ponch and Nelson arriving at the scene after young Louis Hindall (Adam Rich) is hit by a car. You would think this would be especially difficult for Ponch, seeing as how his fiancée was hit and killed by a drunk driver just two weeks ago. But Ponch never mentions her. Instead, he gets upset when he sees the bruises on Louis’s back and realizes that the boy is being abused by his mom’s new boyfriend, Hal (Paul Tulley).

Later, at the hospital, Hal overhears Ponch and Bobby talking about how Hal is an abuser, and he promptly takes off in his car. This leads to a high-speed chase and a fairly impressive stunt where Hal’s car somehow goes airborne and rolls across the top of a trailer. It’s kind of amazing that, while being chased by the cops, Hal’s first instinct was to turn into a lot full of cars that he could crash into.

Finally, upon learning that the LAPD has changed their height requirements, mechanic Harlan Arliss (played by 5’2″ Lou Wagner) puts in for a transfer. Unfortunately, he fails the physical because his eyesight isn’t 20/20. Ponch tells him that with the LAPD, he would have just been another cop. But with the Highway Patrol, he’s the world’s greatest mechanic. Awwww!

At one point, Ponch opens his locker and the inside of it is covered with pictures of women. But there’s no picture of his dead fiancée. Have you no heart, Ponch!?

This week, we meet the future of the Highway Patrol.

Episode 6.5 “Speedway Fever”

(Dir by Chuck Bail, originally aired on November 7th, 1982)

This week, we meet Bobby’s younger brother, Bruce Nelson (Bruce Penhall). Bruce is both a world motorcycle speedway champion and a student at the Highway Patrol Academy. He hopes soon to be riding a motorcycle in the name of the law, just like Bobby and Ponch.

Unfortunately, Bruce has a hard time following orders. He likes to show off when he’s riding his motorcycle. He’s a good driver and a good shooter, but he’s struggling at the Academy. And when things start to get too tough for him, he decides to walk away from it. It’s an impulsive decision that he regrets. Can Ponch and Bobby talk the head of the Academy into giving Bruce a second chance? Of course they can! Ponch and Bobby can do anything.

Bruce Penhall was a real-life speedway champion. The footage of Bruce Nelson winning his race is actually taken from one of Penhall’s actual races. Judging from this episode, Penhall was a likable, if somewhat stiff, actor. In fact, watching this episode, I couldn’t help but notice that Bruce Penhall had better chemistry with Erik Estrada than Tom Reilly did. One gets the feeling that the purpose of this episode was to introduce Penhall as a potential replacement for Reilly. If nothing else, Penhall brought a good deal of earnest energy to his performance and provided quite a contrast to Tom Reilly’s rather spacey acting style.

This episode wasn’t entirely taken up with scenes of Penhall racing. There were two storylines. The more annoying one featured three 16-year-old girls (one of whom was played by Moon Unit Zappa) who would hitchhike and then use a water pistol to rob whoever picked them up. The girls introduced themselves as being from the Valley and spent the entire episode saying stuff like “For sure!” and “Gag me with a spoon!” (I’m not kidding; they said that more than once.) Frank Zappa’s “Valley Girl” played on the soundtrack whenever the girls showed up. It was kind of embarrassing all around. Between this episode, the Moloch episode, and the UFO episode, this season appears to have found CHiPs desperately struggling to stay culturally relevant.

As for the other storyline, it featured two motorcycle-riding thieves who were robbing couriers on the highway. One of the thieves was Bruce’s best friend, Ray (Robert Romanus). What a coincidence! Romanus, of course, played Mike Damone in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which was probably still in theaters when this episode aired. He gives pretty much the same performance here that he gave in Amy Heckerling’s film. In the end, this episode left you wondering just how Mike Damone eventually ended up going so bad.

The episode ends with Bruce not only winning the world speedway championship but also returning to the Academy. It looks like the Highway Patrol is getting some new blood, and not a minute too soon!