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 a special two-hour episode of CHiPs!
Episodes 3.9 and 3.10 “Drive, Lady, Drive”
(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on November 10, 1979)
The police at nearby Palma Vista are on strike and the state of California has agreed to allow some members of the Highway Patrol to patrol the town until the strike is over. Getraer assigns Baker, Ponch, Bear, and some new guy named Lenny (Leon Isaac Kennedy) to head over to the town, Baker is named the OIC, which I eventually figured out stood for “Officer in Charge.” Getraer knows better than to give the job to Ponch.
Ponch, by the way, is back! After being absent for two episodes due to Erik Estrada actually injuring himself in a motorcycle crash, Ponch returns in this episode and he goes through the entire episode with this huge grin on his face as if he’s saying, “You know you missed me.” Ponch’s return means that Baker is once again relegated to being the strong, silent partner who doesn’t really get to do anything. In fact, Baker crashes his motorcycle early on in this episode, as if the show was trying to tell us, “See? It could happen to anyone!”
The striking cops accuse Baker, Ponch, Bear, and Lenny of being scabs and strike breakers. I’m not really a fan of public sector unions. (When it comes to the police striking, my hero is Calvin Coolidge, who came to fame when he broke up a policeman’s strike in Massachusetts.) Still, it felt strange to watch the show’s heroes cross that picket line. That would definitely not happen on television today.
There’s a lot going on in Palma Vista. There’s some rich kids who keep joyriding in a dune buggy and who think they can escape prosecution by crossing the city limits. (Joke’s on them! The Highway Patrol has jurisdiction everywhere!) There’s some truck hijackers who are setting up a headquarters in town. There’s an angry city councilman (Michael Conrad) who doesn’t feel his children should be held accountable for their actions.
That said, the majority of this two-hour episode centered on a stock car race and one of the racers, Candi Wright (Kelly Harmon). Will Candi win the big race or will she lose to her friendly rival (and possible future romantic partner) Don Croyden (Jordan Clarke)? Will Ponch be able to both date her and do his job? And most importantly, will she be able to adopt a traumatized little girl (played by Tracey Gold) who Candi discovered outside of a burning house? That’s a lot of storylines for someone who wasn’t even a regular cast member and a part of me wonders if maybe this episode was meant to be a secret pilot for a Candi Wright television series. It would explain a lot.
This really was a basic episode of CHiPs, with the only real difference being that it was two-hours long for some reason. A lot of what happened in the episode, especially the racing footage, felt like filler. There was really no need for this to be a double-sized episode. It also doesn’t help that, as opposed to the lovely Los Angeles scenery that we usually see, this episode took place in a rather ugly town. There was some appropriately spectacular crashes but, in the end, this episode ran too long and felt a bit pointless. Get the Highway Patrol back on the highways!
When his little sister falls ill with sickle-cell anemia, Leon Johnson (Leon Isaac Kennedy) has to make a decision. He can either finish his education, graduate from medical school, and treat her as a doctor or he can drop out of school, reinvent himself as “Leon the Lover,” and make a fortune as a professional boxer! At first, Leon’s career goes perfectly. He is winning fights. He is making money. He has a foxy new girlfriend (played Leon Isaac Kennedy’s then-wife, Jayne Kennedy.) But then the fame starts to go to Leon’s head. He forgets where he came from. He’s no longer fighting just to help his sister. Now, he’s fighting for his own personal glory. When Leon finally gets a title shot, a crooked boxing promoter known as Big Man (former JFK in-law Peter Lawford, looking coked up) orders Leon to take a dive. Will Leon intentionally lose the biggest fight of his life or will he stay in the ring and battle Ricardo (Al Denava), a boxer so evil that he literally throws children to the ground? More importantly, will he make his trainer (Muhammad Ali, playing himself!) proud?
Chuck Norris is J.J. McQuade, Texas Ranger!
Through the Shattered Lens 