Kate Williamson | 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, we start season 3 of Highway to Heaven!

Episodes 3.1 and 3.2 “A Special Love”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on September 24th and October 1st, 1986)

The third season of Highway to Heaven opens with a two-parter.

A Special Love is centered around Jonathan and Mark working at the Special Olympics and meeting a developmentally disabled child named Todd Bryant (played by a 15 year-old Paul Walker …. yes, that Paul Walker). Given up by his parents (who only did so when told by their doctors that they would never be able to give Todd the care that he needed), Todd lives in a group home and desperately wants to be a part of a family. Can Mark and Jonathan help Todd find the confidence to compete in the Special Olympics? Can they reunite Todd with his older brother (played by none other than Josh Brolin), who just happens to be a coach with the Special Olympics? And can they make his dream of being adopted come true? You already know the answers. This is Highway to Heaven, after all.

This is also a Scotty episode. Scotty (played by James Troesh) is a paraplegic attorney who is married to Mark’s cousin, Diane (Margie Impert). Scotty and Diane appeared in several episodes during the first three seasons of Highway to Heaven. Every Scotty episode follows the same basic pattern. Mark and Jonathan drop in on Scotty and Diane. Scotty is feeling happy and optimistic about his future. Then, something happens that derails whatever Scotty’s latest plan is. Scotty gets upset and tells everyone to leave him alone. Diane says that she can’t deal with him anymore. While Mark comforts Diane, Jonathan tells Scotty to stop feeling for himself. Scotty eventually apologizes. Everything works out in the end.

Though the Scotty episodes were always predictable, I do think that Highway to Heaven deserved some credit for never turning Scotty into a saint. Too many films and television shows tend to use disabled characters as idealized props who exists only to impress everyone with their upbeat attitude and homespun wisdom. They show up. They say a few words of wisdom that serve to inspire the lead character. And then they’re never seen again. They often exist only to help the star and their lives are never explored beyond how the lead character relates to them. Scotty, on the other hand, was frequently angry about being a paraplegic. Even when his life was going well, Scotty would get understandably frustrated. Scotty was not always perfect. He made mistakes, just like anyone else would have. What’s important is that, in the end, he always tried to do the right thing. James Troesch, a real-life paraplegic, was not the best actor in the world but, as was so often the case with Highway to Heaven, he played the role with such sincerity that it didn’t matter that he often sounded stiff while delivering his lines. He brought a lot of humanity to the role.

In this episode, Scotty is upset because he has just learned that he and Diane will never be able to have children. When both Jonathan and Diane suggest adopting Todd, Scotty bitterly refuses. Scotty claims that, due to his disability, he wouldn’t be able to properly take care of Todd. However, when Todd announces that he’s going to win a race at the Special Olympics to prove that he’s worthy of being adopted, Scotty realizes that he’s just using his disability as an excuse to not face up to his own fears. Scotty and Diane decide to adopt Todd. Unfortunately, Todd’s parents suddenly decide that they don’t want another family to adopt Todd. They want Todd to say in the group home where he is currently living. It leads to a teary-eyed courtroom showdown. It also leads to a happy ending. Again, was there ever any doubt?

The story may have been melodramatic but this was still a touching episode and a good example of how Highway to Heaven‘s earnest sincerity helped the show overcome plot twists that could have been mawkish in the wrong hangs. The first hour is especially touching, as it’s largely a tribute to the Special Olympics and the athletes involved. There’s a lot of negative things that can be said about the Kennedy family and their impact on American political culture but Eunice Kennedy Shriver deserves all of the credit and praise in the world for founding the Special Olympics. This episode did make me cry and it earned every tear.

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

On Tuesday, if you were having trouble getting to sleep around one in the morning, you could have turned over to Cinemax and watched the 1994 film, Disclosure.

The majority of Disclosure takes place at DigiCorp, which is some sort of technology company that Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland) founded because, as the movie explains it, he only has $100 million dollars but still dreams of being a billionaire someday. With a huge merger approaching, Garvin announces that he will be promoting Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore) to run the new CD-ROM division. This shocks a lot of people, as everyone was expecting the promotion to go to Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas). However, Garvin explains that, ever since his daughter died, he’s wanted to promote a woman.

(Presumably, if a male relative had died, Tom would have gotten the promotion. I have to admit that I kept waiting for the film to get back to the subject of Garvin’s dead daughter but, apparently, that was just an odd throw-away line.)

Tom and Meredith have a history. They were once lovers, though Tom is now happily married to Susan (Caroline Goodall) and has a family. Meredith takes one look at a picture of Susan and says that Tom must miss being able to take his lover from behind whenever he felt like it. Tom says, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.” No, actually, he says, “No, no, no, no, no, no…..” It all ends with Tom fleeing Meredith’s office while Meredith, in her bra, chases after him, shouting threats all the way. The only witness to this is a cleaning lady who sadly shakes her head before returning to her dusting.

Tom is so traumatized by the experience that he has a bizarre nightmare in which Donald Sutherland says that he likes his suit and then attempts to lick his face. Tom’s trauma continues when he goes to work the next day and discovers that Meredith has accused him of sexual harassment! Tom responds by suing the company and it’s time for an epic courtroom battle, one that will deal with one of the most important issues of our time….

….except that never happens. Here’s what is weird. For all the talk about abuse of power and all the scenes of a remorseful Tom apologizing to both his wife and his secretary for his past behavior, the whole sexual harassment plot turns out to be a red herring.

Instead, the film turns into this weird techno thriller, one that involves Tom trying to figure out how to make a better CD-ROM. That may have been a big deal back in 1994 but today, you watch the film and you think, “Who cares?” (Even better is a scene where Garvin brags about how his company is on the cutting edge of fax technology.) Once Tom realizes that Meredith only accused him of sexual harassment to keep him from building the perfect CD-ROM, we get a scene of him using a virtual reality headset to search through the companies files. At one point, he spots a bot with Demi Moore’s face destroying files and he shouts out, “She’s in the system!” It’s just strange.

The film’s plot is often incoherent but the cast keeps things amusing. Michael Douglas spends the first half of the movie looking either annoyed or terrified. Things pick up for him in the 2nd half of the movie. Whenever he gets good news from his lawyer, he jumps up in the air and goes, “Yessssssss!” and it’s so dorky that it’s kind of endearing. Meanwhile, Demi Moore doesn’t even try to make Meredith into a credible character, which is actually just the right approach to take to this material. There’s no room for subtlety in a film as melodramatic as this. Finally, Donald Sutherland is his usual avuncular self, smirking at all the right moments and suggesting that he finds the movie to be just as amusing as we do. For all of its plot holes and problematic subtext, Disclosure is an entertainingly stupid film. A lot of the credit for the entertaining part has to go to the cast.

As I said, Disclosure is just strange.. As with most films from the 90s, its sexual politics are all over the place. On the one hand, Tom learns that even inadvertent sexism can make the women who wok with him feel unsafe. On the other hand, the only woman with any hint of a personality is portrayed as being pure evil. In no way, shape, or form is this a movie to be taken seriously. Instead, this is just a weird film that cries out, “1994!”