Joe Clarke | 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week …. it’s jet pack time!

Episode 5.21 “The Game of War”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on March 14th, 1982)

While the members of the Highway Patrol try and fail to beat Harlan at chess, Peter J. Stoler (Clu Gulager) plots a prison break. Stoler is one of the leading members of a group of former soldiers. On the weekends, they engage in war games. During the week, they plot to spring their former leader, Rascoe (Johnny Seven), from prison. Peter has just received a jet pack. Unless the Highway Patrol can stop them, Rascoe is going to fly to freedom.

Meanwhile, a process server named Darla Mason (Sandra Kerns) goes to ludicrous lengths to serve her targets. She pretends to have car trouble. She wears old person makeup. She does whatever she needs to do to get her target to lower their defenses so that she can hand them their court papers and say, “You’ve been served.” Process servers are a necessary part of our legal system but I’ve never cared much for any of the ones that I’ve known. It takes a certain amount of cruelty to get close to someone just so you can give them a summons. Darla is a fairly annoying character and I certainly wasn’t upset when Rascoe’s militia abducted her. And when the episode ended with her getting served, it felt like poetic justice.

This episode was nothing special but it held my attention. I mean, how can you not enjoy a little jet pack action? Clu Gulager was actually somewhat sympathetic as the main bad guy. Personally, I think Ponch and Baker should have let him go. Just give him his jet pack and let him fly away. He didn’t mean any harm!

Seriously, they should have given Clu his own show.

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, Mark and Jonathan become narcs!

Episode 3.21 “Parents’ Day”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 25th, 1987)

Robert Culp plays one of the worst characters ever in this week’s episode of Highway to Heaven.

Culp plays Ronald James, a news anchor who is known for his fiery anti-drug editorials. His teenage son, David (Lance Wilson-White), is a student at an exclusive boarding school. When a joint is found in David’s dorm room, Ronald comes down hard on his son. Ronald says David should be ashamed of himself. Ronald says that David has brought dishonor to the family. Ronald grounds David for four weeks.

After attending an anti-drug lecture delivered by newly hired narcotics detective Mark Gordon, David decides to call the police and tell them about the cocaine that is hidden in his family’s garage. The cocaine belongs to Ronald but, when Ronald is confronted by the police, he announces that it must belong to David. When it becomes obvious that Ronald’s job is at risk, he tells David to take the blame. David says he’ll do it if Ronald promises to stop using. Ronald agrees.

David takes the blame….

….and Ronald keeps on using!

Seriously, what a scumbag!

While Ronald is disappointing everyone, Jonathan — who is also working as a narcotics detective — pressures the local boarding school drug dealer, Brad Dietrich (Bill Calvert), to stop dealing. Brad laughs off Jonathan’s threat. Come back with a warrant, Brad says. Then Brad’s girlfriend overdoses on the cocaine that Brad gave her.

Finally, after David nearly drinks himself to death, Ronald goes on the news and admits that he’s a drug addict. He then says that parents have to step up and do a better job. That’s fine, Ronald, but you know what? YOU’RE A DRUG ADDICT WHO FRAMED YOUR OWN SON! You don’t get to be a moral authority!

As you can probably guess, there was not a subtle moment to be found in this episode. On the one hand, the message was obviously heartfelt. That’s kind of a given when it comes to Highway to Heaven. With every episode, it’s obvious that Michael Landon was sincerely trying to make the world a better place. On the other hand, this episode was so heavy-handed that it sometimes verged on camp. Culp was very believable as someone who was totally coked up. The kid playing his son, on the other hand, was considerably less convincing. It also doesn’t help that there’s a massive hole in the middle of the plot. If the police were really unsure about who had brought the cocaine into Ronald’s house, they could have just drug-tested both Ronald and David to see who was snorting. As well, seen from a modern perspective, it’s hard to really buy into the show’s argument that parents and children should be constantly calling the police on each other. Today we know that the attempt at a zero tolerance war on drugs made the situation even worse. This episode’s suggestion that snitching on loved ones is the answer reminded me of the worst excesses of the COVID era.

As I mentioned earlier, the episode ends with Ronald making an impassioned plea to parents to get serious about teenage drug use. Hopefully, he was arrested as soon as the cameras were turned off.