Tag Archives: Ed Griffith

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.11 “In With The In Crowd”

Posted on 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 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, Jonathan brings vengeance to a high school.

Episode 4.11 “In With The In Crowd”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on December 9th, 1987)

This week, Jonathan and Mark are cops, assigned to a ritzy private school where a student recently died of an overdose.  They’re working with Denise Kelly (Lar Park Lincoln), an undercover cop who is pretending to be a student in order to uncover the identity of and arrest the school’s main dealer.  Unfortunately, the dealer figures out that Denise is a cop and he orders another student (Tom Hodges) to testify that Denise seduced him to get information.  Suddenly, it looks like Denise might lose her job and even get charged with a crime herself!

Mark, feeling protective of Denise and also guilty that he stopped recording Denise’s conversation with the student who subsequently accused her, decides to go undercover himself.  He tells drug dealing student Ray Russo (Jason Oliver Lipsett) that he’s actually a dealer himself.  Ray, however, sees through the ruse and knocks Mark out before injecting him with pure cocaine.

Mark’s in coma.  Denise feels like there’s no point in fighting crime.  Seeking revenge, Jonathan calls a school assembly and specifically accuses Ray of being the school’s main dealer.  Ray pulls out a gun and then  runs out of the school.  He gets in his car and starts the engine.  As he’s speeding down the street, Ray sees that Jonathan is sitting in the passenger’s seat.  Ray shoots at him, twice.  Jonathan, untouched, says that Ray should look in the back seat.  Ray sees the spirit of the girl who died over an overdose.  The terrified Ray is so distracted that he crashes into a truck and his car explodes.

JONATHAN KILLED A GUY!

WOW!

That’s something I never thought I’d see on Highway to Heaven.

Now, to be clear, Ray was a very, very bad guy.  He tried to murder Mark.  He sold the drugs that killed the student.  He brought a gun to school.  There really wasn’t much hope that Ray would ever reform but still, Jonathan killing him seems to go against everything that Highway to Heaven was usually about.  Highway to Heaven usually emphasized the idea of redemption and that everyone — even the worst among us — could change their ways.  Part of the appeal of the show was that it was so unapologetically earnest.  Ray getting blown up may have been emotionally satisfying but it just seemed to go against everything that the show was about.

In the end, Mark wakes up and Denise is cleared of all the accusations against her.  Jonathan and Mark leave for their next assignment.  Who knows who Jonathan will kill next!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.3 “Valley Go Home!”

Posted on 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, Ponch and Jon go to the beach!

Episode 3.3 “Valley Go Home!”

(Dir by Barry Crane, originally aired September 29th, 1979)

There’s been a string of thefts at the beach.  Someone is stealing radios out of cars and then making a fast getaway.  Somehow, this thief is able to blend in so well with everyone else that no one even notices him breaking into the cars until it’s too late.  Jon and Ponch have been assigned to patrol the beach and keep the radios safe.

Of course, Jon and Ponch don’t just worry about radio thieves.  When two women lose control of their car while towing a sailboat, Jon and Ponch are there to not only help them stop the car but also to ask them out on a windsurfing date.  (Every episodes of CHiPs found a way to promote the so-called “California lifestyle.”  It was probably one of the most effective tourism commercials ever filmed.  I don’t even swim and this episode still made me want to go wind surfing.)  They also get involved in the rivalry between three local white surfers and a group of Latino teenagers from the Valley.  Both groups drive Chevy vans with ornate decals.  One gets the feeling that the blonde surfers call their van the “Second Base Mobile.”

This is an episode of CHiPs that takes place at the beach so you’ve probably already guessed that it doesn’t take long for Ponch to find an excuse to put on a speedo.  Baker and Ponch not only work together but they also hang out together.  On the show, they’re best friends.  (Behind-the-scene, Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada were not quite so close.)  They spend a lot of time at the beach, eating ice cream.  Baker wears modest swim trunks.  Ponch walks around in his speedo and shows off his dazzling smile.  One gets the feeling that, if this episode had been made in 1999 instead of 1979, Ponch would have been handing out AOL CDs to everyone he met and saying, “When you sign up, I get fifteen free minutes to talk to you.”

Ponch has a theory that the radio thief is disguising himself as someone who works at the beach.  (Needless to say, Ponch comes up with the theory while Baker agrees because, on CHiPs, everything was much pretty much about Ponch.)  Ponch suspects that the thief might be the local ice cream man.  Ponch and Baker eat a lot of ice cream in this episode.  Eventually, it turns out to be the local trash collector.  The ice cream man is off the hook!

As far as the surfers and the Valley kids are concerned, it all works out.  Of course, it works out in the most dangerous way possible, with the surfers and the Valley kids chasing each other in their vans and both crashing their vehicles.  After 48 hours in jail, all of them are back on the beach.  The surfers agree to teach the Valley kids how to handle a board.  The Valley kids agree to take the surfers to Mexico.  Ponch and Jon have a good laugh before going windsurfing.  How can you not love California?

This was a pretty silly episode but the beach scenery was nice.  It’s hard for me to not enjoy a show that features not one but two vans.  All hail the 70s!

Scalplock (1966, directed by James Goldstone)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this comedic western, gambler Benjamin Calhoun (Dale Robertson) wins big in a poker game.  Not only does he walk away with several thousand dollars but he also now owns his own railroad, the BP;S&D.  Calhoun celebrates the biggest win of his career by tossing ten dollar bills at the townspeople, recruiting a worshipful young assistant (Bob Random), and commandeering a private railcar that belongs to wealthy Burton Standish (John Anderson).  In the car, he finds Marta Grenier (Diana Hyland), a “working woman,” who has been hired to provide company for Standish.

Calhoun and Marta ride off to check out Calhoun’s new railroad.  What he discovers is that the railroad that he won is not only not completed but the workers are striking because they haven’t been paid in two weeks.  The quick-thinking Calhoun offers to make all of the workers part-owners of the railroad.  With construction once again starting, Calhoun tries to figure out how to keep his new business open.  He also meets a strong-headed storekeeper named Joanna Royce (Sandra Smith).

When Standish finally shows up, it turns out that he was originally planning on buying the BP;S&D.  Will Calhoun hold onto the railroad and honor the promise he made to the workers or will he sell out to Standish?

For all the talk about completing the railroad, Scalplock ends with most of the work undone.  That’s because Scalplock was a pilot for The Iron Horse, a television series that lasted for two seasons in the 60s.  Scalplock (and The Iron Horse) is mostly a showcase for Dale Robertson, a low-key but always convincing actor who specialized in westerns.  Usually, Robertson was cast as an upstanding citizen and law enforcement agent.  In Scalplock, he’s playing the type of genial rogue that James Garner played on Maverick and later in The Rockford Files.  Robertson is likable in Scalplock and even convinces us that Calhoun would choose his workers over a quick payday.  Fan of the genre will enjoy Scalplock, as long as they don’t get too invested in witnessing that last track of rail laid into the ground.

Dale Robertson, who started his career in the 40s, continued to act through the 90s, though usually as a guest star instead of a series lead.  Robertson eventually retired to Oklahoma where he owned a ranch that was home to over 200 horses.  He passed away in 2013 at the age of 89.