Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.5 “Death Watch”

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.1 “Peaks and Valleys”

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the second season begins.

Episode 2.1 “Peaks and Valleys”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on Sept. 16th, 1977)

The second season premiere of CHiPs brings some changes.

Most noticeably, the theme song has been redone and now, instead of being driven by the horn section, it now features a bass-driven disco beat. From the minute the new version of theme song begin, you know that you’re watching a show that was filmed in the heart of the 70s.

Secondly, the second season premiere is considerably less gritty than any of the episodes that aired during the first season. If the first season concerned itself with showing the day-to-day duties of the members of the California Highway Patrol, from the mundane to the occasionally exciting, the second season announces from the start that it’s about fast cars, fast motorcycles, and slow motion crash footage.

Ponch is considerably more competent in this episode than he ever was during the first season. For his part, Getraer no longer seems to dislike Ponch as much as he did just a few months ago. No mention is made of Ponch being on any sort of departmental probation. Now, Ponch is as professional and competent as Jon Baker.

Finally, the California High Patrol now has a new chief mechanic. Harlan Arliss (played by Lou Wagner) is short, sarcastic, and wears a tie along with his white mechanic coat. Arliss is not impressed with the way Baker and Ponch treat their motorcycles, though he seems to reserve most of his ire for Baker. (“Your tire pressure is low!”) Arliss may seem like he is overly critical but he also keeps a really cute dog at the garage.

That said, some things remain the same. As always, Baker finds himself feeling unappreciated. The episode opens with a camper the crashes in slow motion. The driver, Bob Niles (a bearded Troy Donahue), suffers a spinal injury as the result of someone moving him after the accident. Niles can’t remember exactly who moved him and it appears that Baker, Ponch, and the Highway Patrol might get sued.

Then Baker burns his hand saving a man from a burning vehicle. And a little child shoots a toy gun at Baker. And then two rednecks call in a fake emergency so that they can shoot up a police car. Is it any surprise that both Baker and Ponch are tempted to quit the force and take a job selling used cars for Baker’s high school friend, Stan Bosca (Richard Gates)?

Fortunately, Bob does get his memory back and remember that it was a bunch of construction workers who moved him. So, it sucks for those well-intentioned workers (hello, lawsuit!) but at least Baker and Ponch are off the hook. And, after seeing how sleazy the used car business is, Baker and Ponch decide to remain on the force and go disco dancing instead!

Actually, Ponch dances. Baker watches and smile awkwardly. It’s interesting that the majority of the episode is centered around Baker having an existential crisis but it all ends by highlighting Ponch on the dance floor. If nothing else, it proves that the people behind the show understood that Wilcox was the actor while Estrada was the one with the big personality.

I enjoyed this episode. The scenery was nice. The show made good use of slo mo of doom when Niles crashed his vehicle. The dog was cute. And the opening theme song was so catchy that I’m still hearing it hours after watching the show. With this episode, the second season got off to a good start.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.13 “El Kid/The Last Hundred Bucks/Isosceles Triangle”

Posted on May 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Welcome aboard! Get ready for tonal whiplash on this week’s episode of The Love Boat!

Episode 2.13 “El Kid/The Last Hundred Bucks/Isosceles Triangle”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on December 9th, 1978)

Wes (David Madden) and Renee Larson (Dena Dietrich) are happy to be setting sail with their friend and business partner, April (Rue McClanahan). They’re even more excited when the widowed April meets Van Milner (Dabney Coleman), a recently divorced businessman. Not only is April falling in love with Van but it also appears that Van might even be willing to join the board of April’s hospital and invest some of his money into fixing the place up. Except, of course, Van lost his job over a year ago and he really doesn’t have that much money left. April is crestfallen to discover that Van is not the wealthy man that she believed him to be. Was he just romancing her for her money? When Van wins a few thousand dollars at the craps table, he donates the money to the hospital and April realizes that he was being honest about his feelings towards her.

This was a pretty predictable story and April was way too quick to forgive Van for his dishonesty but it was interesting to see an actor like Dabney Coleman, someone who brought a naturally cynical edge to any character that he played, on a show like The Love Boat. As played by Coleman, Van seemed to be suffering from very real inner pain. For once, the emotional drama on The Love Boat felt, if not quite real, then at least credible.

Speaking of pain, that’s what Larry (Robert Urich) and Cybill Hartman (Heather Menzies) had waiting for them when they took the Love Boat to Mexico so they could adopt a baby. Upon arriving at the local orphanage, they were told that the mother of their baby had changed her mind and would not be giving up her baby after all. Instead, Larry and Cybill left with 12 year-old Pepito (Gabriel Melgar), a little brat who steals Larry’s watch and sells it on the boat. When Larry gets upset, Pepito grabs an inflatable lifeboat and prepares to jump overboard. Fortunately, Larry and Cybill talk him out of it and he agrees to be their son and to stop stealing stuff. This was an annoying story, largely because Pepito was so whiny. It was hard not to feel that Larry and Cybill deserved better than having to raise Pepito.

Finally, Julie’s friend, Karen Maynard (Connie Stevens), boards the boat and both Captain Stubing and Doc Bricker spend the entire voyage pursuing her because it’s not like the Captain and the ship’s doctor would actually be expected do their job while the ship is floating in the middle of the ocean. Gopher, Ike, and Julie take bets on who Karen will choose but, in the end, Karen chooses neither because both Doc and Stubing decide to respect the other’s feelings and stop pursuing Karen. This whole storyline was silly because there was really no doubt about who Karen would have picked. Seriously, anyone who is a passenger on a cruise is automatically going to fall for the captain because the captain is the most powerful person on the boat. But, on the plus side, the storyline showed off the chemistry between all of the show’s regulars. It was likable, even if it never quite felt plausible.

This was an episode about which I had mixed feelings. The three storylines were so tonally dissimilar that they didn’t really seem that they all should have been happening on the same cruise. Plus, Pepito was the most obnoxious orphan since the kids on One World. I’m glad things worked out for Dabney Coleman, though.