Douglas Dirksen | 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, Ponch is back!

Episode 5.10 “Fast Money”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on December 5th, 1981)

This is getting weird.

After being either absent or only appearing in one or two scenes over the past few episodes, Ponch returns this week. He’s once again on active duty, patrolling the California highways with Baker. As much as I notice and joke about the obvious disdain that Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox held for each other, they do make a surprisingly good team. They just seem to belong together. If I’ve learned anything over the past few weeks, it’s that Larry Wilcox needed Estrada’s flamboyance and that Erik Estrada needed Wilcox’s cool professionalism. They balanced each other out.

With Ponch (and Estrada) back, there’s really no reason for Steve McLeish to stick around. And yet, during this episode — there he was!

He didn’t really have anything to do. Ponch and Baker were after some van-driving engineers who were using a hydraulic lift to hijack other cars. When they figured out which company had developed the hydraulics being used in the crime wave, Steve called the company’s chairman. (Steve says the chairman of the board is an old friend and no one acts surprise. I’m guessing maybe that was an inside joke or some sort of reference to the Olympics.) Later, Steve showed them a mansion that was fixing up so he could flip it. The scenes felt awkward and not just because of the Caitlyn Jenner’s total lack of acting ability. There really wasn’t any reason for them to be in the episode. There was no reason for Steve to be around. Ponch and Baker should have been out there, taking down those nerdy engineers and warning people about the dangers of technology. Instead, they were having to make time to hang out with Steve.

As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that maybe Caitlyn Jenner just refused to go home. Maybe Jenner showed up on set and wouldn’t leave until the writers wrote Steve a few scenes. That theory is really the only one that makes sense.

Anyway, this episode had a few good car crashes. The hydraulic lift was incredibly silly and so was Harlan’s suggestion that they could catch the thieves by tricking them into trying to lift a car that was weighted down with rocks. There was also a big subplot that was centered around Ponch trying to get the shower fixed in his apartment. I always like it whenever the show finds an excuse to show us either Ponch or Jon’s apartment. The wood paneling and the shag carpeting amuses me. They should have called this show Disco Cops.

According to the imdb, next week will be Jenner’s final episode. So, we’ll see how the saga of Steve McLeish comes to an end. I think he’s going to get arrested for taking payoffs from the mob. We’ll see if I’m right!

It’s Tax Day, which means that it’s a good day to remember that the IRS is not your friend.

That can sometimes be hard to forget, with all the talk of making people “pay their fair share” and all the drama that seems to accompany any suggestion that federal bureaucracy should be reduced. Back in 2003, there was a big story about how the IRS was going to hire 3,000 new employees and it amazed me how the media tried to frame this as being a good thing to which no one could possibly object. Whenever I turned on the news, I would see government official bragging about how they were going to bring in even more IRS agents to make “the billionaires” pay their fair share. (They may say “billionaires” but one can be sure that those 3,000 IRS agents weren’t going to anyone near anyone who donated to the right people.) In the recent election, I was always amused by analysts who were shocked to discover that many voters, especially those were struggling to pay their bills, weren’t enthusiastic about the idea of a supercharged IRS.

The fact of the matter is that people hate the IRS. The IRS exists to make people’s live difficult. The IRS exists to take our money away from us, money that we earned but which we are apparently not worthy of keeping. The IRS is an agency that demands that you do you own taxes but then threatens to throw you in jail if you make a mistake. When people hear 3,000 new IRS agents, they imagine 3,000 more people looking to take their money and toss them in prison for forgetting to carry the one. I often think that if the IRS simply sent people a bill every year, people would actually get a lot less upset about having to pay taxes. I get a property tax bill from the country and I have no problem paying it because it gives me an exact amount. Instead, the IRS says, “We know how much you owe but we’re not going to tell you. If you pay too much, you won’t get a refund and if you pay too little, we’ll destroy your life.”

On days like this, watching a film like 1981’s Harry’s War can be a cathartic experience. The film stars Edward Herrmann (yes, the History channel guy) as Harry, a postman who was raised by Beverly Payne (Geraldine Page), an eccentric woman who collects military memorabilia and whose property is listed as being a church and is therefore tax exempt. In her will, Beverly has named Harry as her heir. Arrogant IRS district director Ernie Scelera (David Ogden Stiers) is convinced that Beverly is hiding a fortune from the IRS and he proceeds to harass both her and Harry in court until Beverly drops dead of a heart attack. Harry inherits Beverly’s property and also her tax bill. However, Harry has also inherited all of her military stuff and soon, he’s crashing Ernie’s press conference with a tank and then engaging in a lengthy stand-off with the government. The film is a dramedy and you never really doubt that Harry will somehow triumph (even if his victory is ultimately a symbolic one) but the film still reminds us of how quickly the government will turn on its citizens when it’s being defied and the final few moments bring to mind some of the worst ATF and FBI excesses of the past 30 years. That said, Harry is quick to point out that he’s not waging war on the government. He’s waging war on the unelected bureaucrats who have forgotten that civil servants are supposed to work for the people and not against them. “All that power in one place,” Harry says scornfully about the IRS and it’s hard to deny that he has a point. It’s hardly a perfect film but, in this day and age, it’s a film that will leave you cheering.