Dennis Robertson | 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 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, Mark and Jonathan become narcs!

Episode 3.21 “Parents’ Day”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 25th, 1987)

Robert Culp plays one of the worst characters ever in this week’s episode of Highway to Heaven.

Culp plays Ronald James, a news anchor who is known for his fiery anti-drug editorials. His teenage son, David (Lance Wilson-White), is a student at an exclusive boarding school. When a joint is found in David’s dorm room, Ronald comes down hard on his son. Ronald says David should be ashamed of himself. Ronald says that David has brought dishonor to the family. Ronald grounds David for four weeks.

After attending an anti-drug lecture delivered by newly hired narcotics detective Mark Gordon, David decides to call the police and tell them about the cocaine that is hidden in his family’s garage. The cocaine belongs to Ronald but, when Ronald is confronted by the police, he announces that it must belong to David. When it becomes obvious that Ronald’s job is at risk, he tells David to take the blame. David says he’ll do it if Ronald promises to stop using. Ronald agrees.

David takes the blame….

….and Ronald keeps on using!

Seriously, what a scumbag!

While Ronald is disappointing everyone, Jonathan — who is also working as a narcotics detective — pressures the local boarding school drug dealer, Brad Dietrich (Bill Calvert), to stop dealing. Brad laughs off Jonathan’s threat. Come back with a warrant, Brad says. Then Brad’s girlfriend overdoses on the cocaine that Brad gave her.

Finally, after David nearly drinks himself to death, Ronald goes on the news and admits that he’s a drug addict. He then says that parents have to step up and do a better job. That’s fine, Ronald, but you know what? YOU’RE A DRUG ADDICT WHO FRAMED YOUR OWN SON! You don’t get to be a moral authority!

As you can probably guess, there was not a subtle moment to be found in this episode. On the one hand, the message was obviously heartfelt. That’s kind of a given when it comes to Highway to Heaven. With every episode, it’s obvious that Michael Landon was sincerely trying to make the world a better place. On the other hand, this episode was so heavy-handed that it sometimes verged on camp. Culp was very believable as someone who was totally coked up. The kid playing his son, on the other hand, was considerably less convincing. It also doesn’t help that there’s a massive hole in the middle of the plot. If the police were really unsure about who had brought the cocaine into Ronald’s house, they could have just drug-tested both Ronald and David to see who was snorting. As well, seen from a modern perspective, it’s hard to really buy into the show’s argument that parents and children should be constantly calling the police on each other. Today we know that the attempt at a zero tolerance war on drugs made the situation even worse. This episode’s suggestion that snitching on loved ones is the answer reminded me of the worst excesses of the COVID era.

As I mentioned earlier, the episode ends with Ronald making an impassioned plea to parents to get serious about teenage drug use. Hopefully, he was arrested as soon as the cameras were turned off.

Now, I originally saw the 1983 made-for-TV movie Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction on Netflix so I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of how this film was advertised. However, I have it on very good authority (i.e., I read it on another blog) that the image above is from the film’s VHS packaging.

Just looking at this image, you would be justified in thinking that Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction was an early David Cronenberg film. Seriously, it looks like a deleted scene from Scanners and Dennis Weaver’s head is about to explode.

But no! There are no scanners in Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction. David Cronenberg did not direct this film. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t even filmed in Canada. Instead, Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction is about one man who gets seduced cocaine.

You may have noticed that I enjoy reminding you that this film is called Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction. That’s because that’s a great title. If the film had just been called Cocaine, you might watch the film expecting it to be set on a 1970s film set. And if the film had just been called One Man’s Seduction, viewers may have watched the film expecting a Double Indemnity–style film noir. But Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction leaves no doubt about what we’re about to see.

Add to that, it’s a very melodramatic title and the name of this series of reviews is, after all, Embracing the Melodrama Part 2!

Anyway, Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction is about a real estate agent named Eddie Grant (Dennis Weaver). He’s the type of semi-successful white-collar suburban guy who you just know is going to have a really over-the-top midlife crisis. He has a wife (Karen Grassle) who loves him. He has a son (James Spader — yes, that James Spader!) who wants to put off going to college for a year. Eddie also has a job where he’s viewed as being an over-the-hill relic. People looking to buy a new home simply are not impressed with Eddie’s cheap suits, mild manner, and old-fashioned scotch-after-work style.

What Eddie needs is a new wardrobe and aviator sunglasses. And, as we all know from watching movies set in the 70s and 80s, nothing gets you into aviator sunglasses faster than snorting a line of coke.

Soon, Eddie is driving a fast car, he’s wearing nicer suits, and he’s keeping a lot of secrets. Then, one day, his son — JAMES SPADER! — happens to look inside Eddie’s shave kit and discovers where dad has been hiding his cocaine.

Now, this is where I was expecting Jeff VanVondern to show up and say, ” I see a bunch of people that love you like crazy and they feel like they are losing you. And they wanna fight to get you back.” But apparently, people in the 80s did not need an intervention to get them to go to rehab. Instead, they just needed to have a dramatic nose bleed at work and nearly overdose on someone else’s kitchen floor. They also needed to be called out by James Spader.

Of course, it also helps that Eddie is friends with a recovering cocaine addict who is played by a very thin-but-already-bald Jeffrey Tambor. Jeffrey Tambor is already something of a hyperactive actor (and that’s why we love him!) so when you combine that natural tendency with a character who is supposed to be coked up, it’s something that simply has to be seen.

Anyway, Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction is a fairly good example of the-worst-that-can-happen-will-happen cinema. If nothing else, it has some worth as a time capsule and it’s undeniably interesting to see James Spader play a role that one would normally never associate with James Spader.

Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction is currently seducing viewers on Netflix.