Frank Birney | 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 Freevee and several other services!

This week, Highway to Heaven moved me to tears.

Episode 2.13 “Alone”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on January 8th, 1986)

Arnie (played by John Franklin, the head little baddie in the original version of Children of the Corn) is a developmentally challenged boy who ran away from home because his father was abusive. Now, he lives in a box in an alley and his only companion is an adorable calico kitty that he’s named Thomas. (Some, I know, will be tempted to point out that almost all calico cats are female but it should also be remembered that cats also don’t care what we name them as long as we remember to pet and feed them.) On his birthday, he steals a muffin, a candle, and a can of tuna. While Thomas eats, Arnie wishes that he could have just one friend.

*sniff* Sorry, got something in my eye….

Suddenly, Jonathan and Mark are standing in front of him. Jonathan introduces himself as an angel and says that he’s here to make Arnie’s wish come true.

Sorry, I’m getting teary-eyed here.

Jonathan and Mark have gotten a job as construction workers for a rancher named Morgan (Gerald Gordon). Morgan’s son, Larry (Danny McMurphy), spends all of his time in bed because he never feels well enough to go outside. There’s nothing physically wrong with Larry. Instead, his illness is a result of his depression over his parents splitting up.

As you can probably guess, Arnie does meet Larry. And they do become friends. And Arnie does give his birthday wish to Larry so that Larry can be healthy and so his parents will get back together. And yes, Morgan and Larry do end up adopting both Arnie and Thomas.

I’ll admit that I cried while watching this episode. Make no mistake, there was a part of me that realized just how heavy-handed the episode was. I knew I was being manipulated and occasionally, I did resent how blatant it all was. But I still cried, because it was a sweet story and Thomas the Calico was such a sweet kitty. It was manipulative (there’s that word again, I know) but the themes of the story — friendship, loneliness, sadness, and the joy of taking care of an animal — were all universal and the manner that they were dealt with was almost achingly sincere. When Jonathan admonished a store owner for wanting to call the police just because Arnie stole some cat food to feed his only companion, it’s obvious that Landon was speaking from the heart. This episode was the epitome of Highway to Heaven — unashamedly sentimental, not at all subtle, and far more effective than it perhaps had any right to be.

Welcome to 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 Jennifer Slept Here, which aired on NBC in 1983 and 1984. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, the afterlife of film star Jennifer Farrell continues as a Hollywood production company comes to the house to shoot a scene for their Jennifer biopic!

Episode 1.2 “Jennifer: The Movie”

(Dir by John Bowab, originally aired on October 28th, 1983)

The second episode of Jennifer Slept Here opens with ghostly Jennifer in a good mood. A movie is being made about her life and Joey has somehow gotten a hold of the script. Jennifer reads the script and announces that the movie is going to be the “great biopic since Gandhi! And I look a lot better under a sheet!”

(The audience loves that line.)

Jennifer’s main concern is who is going to be play her in the movie and, at her insistence, Joey asks his parents. Since his parents are wacky sitcom parents, it takes them forever to finally reveal that not only is Jennifer going to be played by Sheila Drake (Lynnda Ferguson) but that a scene from the movie is going to be filmed at the house. Jennifer is not a fan of Sheila Drake’s and she takes out her annoyance by playing the piano. When his mother comes in the room to see who is so beautifully playing the piano, Joey is forced to pretend to be a talented musical prodigy.

Later, Jennifer is super-excited when the film crew shows up at the house to shoot a scene in which she talks to a producer. This actually leads to a rather poignant moment in which Jennifer tries to talk to a few familiar members of the crew, just to be reminded that she’s dead and they can no longer hear her. (When I say that the scene is poignant, it’s almost all totally due to the performance of Ann Jillian.)

However, Jennifer is not amused when she discovers that Sheila is planning on playing her as a “cheap tramp” who slept her way to the top. Jennifer goes out of her way to disrupt filming, first by unplugging a power chord and then, after Sheila has gone up to Joey’s room to wait while the next scene is set up, spraying Sheila with water and then ripping off Sheila’s skirt. Because Joey is in the room at the time, he gets blamed for both of these incidents. So, I guess Joey’s going to jail and get booked on assault charges now, right? Nope. Instead, Sheila just walks off the picture.

The director (Luis Avalos) is freaking out because he’s got “a six million dollar picture” and no star when suddenly, Joey’s mom announces that there’s someone that the director should see. The director says he doesn’t want to see anyone but then, Jennifer comes walking down the stairs. AND EVERYONE CAN SEE HER!

It turns out that Jennifer has the ability to be seen when she wants to be seen. She convinces the crew that she’s Sheila’s stand-in and then she shoots the scene the way that it really happened, revealing that she was a hard-worker who earned her roles with her talent. Unfortunately, when the scene is later watched by the family, it turns out that the stand-in does not appear on camera. (Instead, just as in The Invisible Man, the camera just picks up Jennifer’s dress moving around on its own.) The family assumes that it was a problem with the camera while only Joey knows that it’s because Jennifer’s a ghost.

Accompanied by Jennifer (who is once again invisible to everyone but him), Joey heads down to a snooty restaurant where he confronts Sheila and, with Jennifer’s help, blackmails her to return to the film. Joey threatens to reveal that Sheila steals her wardrobe from her movies and that she once spent a night in Madrid with a soccer team. If I was Sheila, I would reply by calling the police and telling them that Joey was in the room when I was sprayed with water and had my skirt ripped off. But apparently, everyone’s moved on from that.

Sheila returns to the film and shoots the scene, this time the way that it actually happened. Jennifer wipes away a tear. Awwwww!

Hey, this isn’t actually was not a bad episode. It was certainly an improvement over the pilot and Ann Jillian did a great job playing up both Jennifer’s pride in her career and her anger that her accomplishments were being denigrated by a lesser actress. The supporting characters continue to be the show’s biggest weakness but this episode largely worked, even if it never really made sense for the director to be okay with the family hanging out at the house while they were shooting the film.

Next week: Joey and his loser friend Marc both want to date the same girl!