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 is just a mess.

Episode 5.9 “Finders Keepers”

(Dir by John Peyser, originally aired on November 29th, 1981)

Oh, it’s a Steve McLeish episode!

These episodes are fun because they were so obviously written and re-written to try to cover up the fact that Caitlyn Jenner was a terrible actor.  In this episode, we learn that Steve is into rare flowers and that he drives a pretty snazzy convertible.  And yet, despite these character details, Steve still doesn’t really have a personality beyond being kind of twitchy and always hesitating before delivering his lines.  Jenner seemed to be made out of charisma anti-matter and it’s bizarre to see a public figure with absolutely zero screen presence.

This episode is a mess.  Two teens steal a car and come into possession of some stolen money.  Steve searches for the stolen car.  An eccentric bounty hunter (Noble Willingham) drives from Texas to California in a pink Cadillac and gets in everyone’s way as he chases a fugitive.  Oscar nominee Amy Madigan appears as a country singer who would really like to get it on with Baker but Baker always ends up running late.  Ponch makes three brief appearances in this episode.  It’s explained that he’s preparing to testify in a huge trial and that’s why Baker and Steve are temporary partners.  None of the storylines really feel complete or connected.  One gets the feeling that three different scripts were just randomly crammed together.

This episode had two effective car crashes and it was somewhat amusing to watch as Baker always showed up just a minute or two after Amy Madigan stopped singing.  That said, this episode didn’t add up to much.  The only thing that really made it watchable was Jenner’s bizarre performance.

There’s a part of me that kind of hopes that Ponch never comes back!  Of course, if that happened, it would no longer be….