Cliff Osmond | Through the Shattered Lens

Kemp Spicer (Warren Oates) rides into town and runs into Marian Starett (Jill Ireland) and her father-in-law Tom Starett (Tom Tully) who are there visiting the local blacksmith. Spicer likes what he sees when he looks at Marian, and proceeds to make some creepy advances. He then asks if they know a guy named Shane. When they ask Spicer why he wants to know, he says that him and his family are going to kill him. After Marian and Tom tell Shane (David Carradine) about what they were told, Shane heads into town. He wants to know why they want to kill him, as well as keep the Spicers away from the Starett ranch. When he arrives at Sam Grafton’s saloon, Boon Spicer (Charles Kuenstie) tells him that they are there to get vengeance for Shane killing their brother Joey four years earlier in Abilene. Shane never killed anyone in Abilene so he knows that someone is mistaken, or just flat out lying. Soon other members of the Spicer family arrive in town, led by their Bible-quoting uncle Joshua Spicer (Cliff Osmond). Shane knows he’s going to have to take on these men even though he’s innocent of their family member’s death. He just wants to make sure they don’t go out to the Starett ranch and put the family in danger.

Episode 4 of Shane has our biggest co-star yet, in Warren Oates. It’s fun seeing his Kemp Spicer creep around making threats against Shane, making advances towards Marian, and then questioning whether or not they’re even after the right guy. Cliff Osmond is memorable and interesting as Uncle Joshua Spicer who puts their family honor above everything else. This episode also sees Shane getting some help as he takes on the Spicer clan in the final shootout. This help comes from Tom Starett and Rufe Ryker (Bert Freed), the local foe of the family. I don’t expect this means Ryker has turned good, but he definitely prefers Shane over those “hillbillies” he ran out of the area years earlier. Finally, we continue to learn of Marian’s feelings for Shane in this episode. At one point, she’s willing to leave the entire ranch behind if it keeps Shane safe. Shane doesn’t hear her say this, but her father-in-law remarks that he never realized she loved Shane that much.

I found episode 4 to be an entertaining episode. It features good performances from interesting co-stars. It also makes a good point about how an innocent lie can take on a life of its own and lead to unintended consequences. I’ll be looking forward to Episode 5!

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 Freevee!

This week, Ponch attacks a reporter …. or does he?

Episode 2.4 “Disaster Squad”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on October 7th, 1978)

In a change-of-pace for this show, it’s Officer Jon Baker who gets a girlfriend in this week’s episode. Ellen Roberts (Liberty Godshall) is a recently divorced woman with an annoying 4 year-old named Chris (Christian Zika). Because Baker doesn’t want any kids around to ruin his action, he gets Ponch to hang out with Chris. Fortunately, it turns out that Chris loves motorcycle and even owns his own mini-bike.

Impressed by how well Chris can handle his bike, Ponch enters Chris in a children’s dirt bike race. When one of the other racers knocks Chris down in the middle of the race, an angry Chris says that he’s going to hit the other racer. Ponch tells Chris to never hit anyone and he says that he’s ashamed to hear Chris speak like that. Chris promises not to ever fight.

But then, the next morning, Chris turns on the TV and sees a report about Ponch punching out an obnoxious news reporter (Harvey Jason) who got in the way while Ponch and Jon were dealing with a suicidal motorist. The anchorman (played by Regis Philbin!) then comes on TV and basically says that Ponch is the epitome of everything bad about the police. Chris starts sobbing. Ponch lied about not fighting! Chris hops on his mini-bike and, still crying, drives away.

What Chris doesn’t know is that Ponch was set up. Lee and the members of “the Disaster Squad” have been following Ponch and Baker around, filming accidents, and getting in the way. (At one point, one of Lee’s men event tosses a road flair under a car that’s leaking oil, causing an explosion.) Lee doctored the tape of an earlier confrontation with Ponch to make it appear the Ponch threatened and hit him.

But that doesn’t matter to Chris. With tears flowing down his cheeks, he drives his little motorcycle into the Los Angeles river. Fortunately, Ponch and Baker find him in time to save his life and teach him an important lesson about fake news.

This episode …. where to begin? It opened with a good chase scene and it featured a truck flipping over so that was good. But then bratty little Chris showed up and the whole episode went downhill. The child playing Chris was, to be charitable, not exactly the world’s best actor and his over-the-top reaction to seeing Ponch hit someone was bit too silly to inspire anything other than a chuckle. “Ponch said never to hit anyone!” Chris wails. Well, kid, Ponch is a damn hypocrite. Sorry.

It was all pretty silly. Baker finally got to do something other than gaze at Ponch in amazement but, in the end, the story was still pretty much Ponch-centered. One thing I noticed about this episode is that Getraer had absolutely no sympathy for Ponch, even though he believed Ponch was being set up. Seriously, I get that Getraer has a lot to deal with but does he have to be a jerk all the time?

Next week …. Ponch and Baker continue to keep California safe!