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 Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark become cops!

Episode 2.3 “Bless The Boys In Blue”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on October 2nd, 1985)

Well, here’s an episode that would never be made today.

While driving through Los Angeles, Mark talks about a story that has been in the news.  A police sergeant shot a young black teenager outside of a crack house.  The teenager was holding a gun but it was subsequently discovered that the gun was unloaded.  The policeman has been suspended from the force.  Mark, a former cop, is on the sergeant’s side.  Jonathan argues that the sergeant could have tried to talk to the teenager instead of shooting him.  Mark claims that Jonathan has no idea what it’s like to be a cop because he’s an angel.  Mark makes the mistake of saying that he wishes Jonathan could experience what it’s actually like to be a cop.

God — or “The Boss” as the show calls him — hears Mark’s wish and makes it come true.  Mark and Jonathan’s assignment is to become cops and, just to make things interesting, God takes away Jonathan’s special powers.  Jonathan becomes human, once again.  If Jonathan gets shot, he’ll actually get wounded.  One gets the feeling that Jonathan is being punished for his pride, though the show never comes out and says it.

On the first day on the job, Jonathan tries to talk a burglar into putting down his gun and it doesn’t go well.  If not for Mark surprising the burglar, Jonathan probably would have gotten shot.  Having learned his lesson, Jonathan is given back his powers so that he can convince the dead teenager’s father to forgive the cop who shot him….

If any show aired an episode like this today, it would be greeted with howls of protest and those howls wouldn’t necessarily be unjustified.  The episode is unabashedly pro-cop, to the extent that it doesn’t even seem to consider the countless number of police shootings that have been ruled unjustified over the years.  As well, asking the teenager’s father to forgive the man who shot his son so that the man himself can work through his guilt feels incredibly selfish on the part of Jonathan.

Then again, the police that we see in this 1985 show have little in common with the police we see in 2024.  For the most part, the cops in this episode walk a beat or drive around in their squad cars.  They’re normal, blue collar folks who are doing their job and who do their best to be polite to everyone.  There’s no body armor.  No one looks like they’ve spent weeks in the gym.  There’s no shaved heads or terse military-style lingo.  There’s no dismissive talk of “bad guys” and “good guys.”  There are no tanks rolling down the city streets.  In many way, this episode feels like it’s taking place in a different reality and, to an extent, I guess it is.  This episode is 39 years old but it feels like a work of ancient lore.