Harriet Sansom Harris | 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 Tubi and several other services!

This week, we finish up Highway to Heaven.

Episode 5.13 “Merry Christmas from Grandpa”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on August 4th, 1989)

The final episode of Highway to Heaven is a sad one for a number of reasons.

First off, it’s a Christmas episode but, because NBC never really gave the final season a regular spot on the schedule and instead of just aired the final 13 episodes whenever they needed to fill a hole, the finale didn’t air until August.

Secondly, the episode features Mark and Jonathan going “thirty years into the future,” — in this case to 2018. Mark is stunned to discover that he’s still alive in 2018. Jonathan tells him that it’s because he finally stopped smoking. In real life, Victor French died of lung cancer six months after filming this episode. Again, because of the way NBC handled the final season, French did not live to see the final episode aired.

Finally, the final episode of Highway to Heaven is not one of its strongest episodes. The strength of Highway to Heaven was that Jonathan and Mark spent their time helping ordinary people. Even if you didn’t agree with the show’s theology, it was hard not be touched by the earnest sincerity that lay at the heart of the majority of the episodes. Jonathan and Mark were do-gooders, in the best sense of the term.

That said, there were more than a few episodes that could be a bit preachy and that’s the case with this episode. As was often the case with Highway to Heaven‘s weaker episodes, this episode was inspired by Landon’s own environmentalism. On Christmas Eve, Jonathan and Mark visit three men — a businessman, a farmer, and the President (seriously!) — and bring with them visions of the future. The businessman sees that he has to stop promoting nuclear power. The farmer sees that he has to stop using insecticides. And the President watches as all of his future grandchildren and great-grandchildren vanish from existence as a result of him not doing something to protect the environment.

It’s heartfelt, yes. I don’t doubt Landon’s sincerity. But I just wish the final episode had been a bit more of a traditional episode. I wish that it had featured more of heart and the humor and the Landon/French chemistry that marked the show’s best moments. Of course, again, Landon had no way of knowing that Victor French was going to die. (Apparently, even though French does look noticeable thinner, he did not learn that he had lung cancer until after he filmed his last episode.) If the show had been renewed for another season, it’s doubtful it would have worked without the chemistry between Landon and French.

I’ve enjoyed reviewing this show. Originally, I didn’t think I would. I expected this show would bring out my cynical side with a vengeance and there were a few episodes that did just that. For the most part, though, this show won me over. Watching it, one gets the feeling that Michael Landon truly did want to make the world a better place. Who can’t be touched by that?

Next week, a new show will premiere here.

Remember Magazine Dreams?

Though Magazine Dreams did not get a brief theatrical release until 2025, the film first made an impression two years earlier. At the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Magazine Dreams was one of the most buzzed about entries. A film about a mentally unbalanced body-building fanatic, the film starred Jonathan Majors. Majors was on top of the world at that time. Not only was he being groomed to be the new center of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but he was also just a few months away from playing the antagonist in the highly anticipated Creed III. The U.S. Army was using Majors in recruitment commercials. Both Magazine Dreams and Majors’s performance were lauded at Sundance. Some critics started to say that Majors had, at the very least, an Oscar nomination in his future.

Then, on March 25th, 2023, Jonathan Majors was arrested and charged with assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Several other women came forward and said that they had also been abused physically and emotionally by Majors. The Army stopped airing his commercials. Marvel announced that Majors would no longer be appearing in their films and that the storyline around his character would simply be abandoned. (Indeed, the fallout over Majors’s arrest was so much a problem for Marvel that they eventually resorted to bringing back Robert Downey, Jr. to try to staunch the bleeding.) Creed III took on a whole new meaning as the relatively likable Michael B. Jordan beat the hell out of Jonathan Majors’s snarling ex-con.

As for Magazine Dreams, it fell into limbo. Fox Searchlight had acquired the film at Sundance and had given it an Oscar-friendly December release date. After Majors’s arrest, Searchlight removed the film from its schedule and, eventually, the rights were sold back to the film’s producers. Eventually, Briarcliff Entertainment released the film on March 21st, 2025. The film made barely a million at the box office.

With all of the behind the scenes drama, it’s tempting to overlook the most important question. Was the film itself any good?

It’s …. okay. Jonathan Majors plays Killian Maddox, a grocery store worker who, as a child, was traumatized by the murder-suicide of his mother and father. Maddox is obsessed with body building. He studies body building magazines the way that some people study ancient texts. One gets the impression that Maddox feels that having the perfect body will make up for all of the imperfections in his life. He shoots steroids. He uploads painfully earnest videos to YouTube. He doesn’t know how to express his emotions, allowing his anger to come out at inappropriate times. He wants to connect with someone but he doesn’t know how to do it.

To the film’s credit, it understands just how intimidating Killian Maddox can be. A scene in which Maddox confronts the nephew of his boss initially seems as if it’s going to be about Maddox standing up for himself but instead becomes increasingly disturbing as Maddox upsets the man’s family. Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver was obviously an influence on the film but Magazine Dreams doesn’t have that film’s wit or its subversive edge. There are scenes that work. The scene where a bloody Killian Maddox tries to compete despite being seriously injured is effective, even if it does owe a debt to Whiplash. Another scene, in which Killian reads the trolling comments that have been left on one of his YouTube videos, actually does make you feel a bit of sympathy for him. Ultimately, though, the film is so downbeat and unpleasant that you start to wonder why it was made in the first place. Was Killian Maddox really so interesting a character that the audience needed to spend two hours with him? Is there really anything to be learned from Killian Maddox and his experiences?

As for Jonathan Majors, he gives a believable performance. He was a good actor, even if he couldn’t quite make Killian Maddox into a truly compelling character.