Michael Baselon | 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, Ponch fixes everything.

Episode 4.11 “11-99: Officer Need Help”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on January 18th, 1981)

Three criminals are stealing trucks from a trucking company. One of the criminals works for the company but he gets fired, not for his thievery but because he accidentally put a cate of corrosive chemicals on the wrong truck. Now, the highway patrol has to track down the chemicals and also stop the criminals.

It’s a typical episode of CHiPs. A man loses his job after he’s wrongly accused of being the thief. The man’s son (Greg Bradford) helps Jon and Ponch catch the real criminals. There’s a subplot about all of the members of the high patrol carrying a new device that sends out of a signal whenever an officer’s down. Grossman accidentally pushes the button while chasing a lost dog. The emphasis here is on everyone working together and the Highway Patrol going out of their way to always have the best equipment to do their job. In the end, this is such a typical episode that the whole thing is kind of boring.

Really, for me, the only interesting thing about this episode is that it featured a subplot about a new police dispatcher who spoke with a stammer and who had trouble sending out instructions over the radio. I had a lot of sympathy for Kathie Lark (Katherine Moffat) because I had a pretty pronounced stammer up until I was about twelve years old. (It now only comes out if I’m extremely tired or stressed.) That said, considering just how important the dispatchers are when it comes to the Highway Patrol, I was a bit surprised that Kathie got the job in the first place. Kathie mentioned that she had previously been a dispatcher in a small town and again, I wondered how she got that job. To me, it seemed like the Highway Patrol was basically setting Kathie up for failure.

The good thing is that eventually someone gives Kathie some advice that helps her to overcome her nervousness and become an excellent dispatcher. Do you want to guess who gave her the advice? Seriously, I dare you to guess who, out of the show’s cast of characters, magically knew exactly the right thing to say to help Kathie out. If you’re thinking that Ponch was responsible for Kathie becoming a badass on the airwaves, you are exactly right! Is there no problem that Ponch can’t solve? Ponch’s advice, by the way, was that Kathie should always imagine that she was speaking directly to him. The next time that I find myself tripping over a word that starts with B, I’ll try the same thing.

It’s the Ponch Show! Seriously, there’s nothing that Ponch can’t do! Beyond that, this was a boring episode. The California scenery was nice to look at but otherwise, this episode felt like CHiPs on autopilot.

This week, Ponch and Jon go to the desert!

Episode 3.19 “Off Road”

(Dir by Paul Nuckles, originally aired on February 2nd, 1980)

Though off-duty, Jon and Ponch continue to hang out together. This weekend, they’re taking part in an off-road race at an old military bombing range in the desert. They’re going to have look out for unexploded shells as they drive through the desert and try to make it to the finish line. Since they’re cops, they will also have to deal with two crooks (Ramon Bieri and Michael Baselon) who are using the race as a cover to track down some stolen gold that they hid in the area. Another racer (played by Edd Byrnes) also knows about the gold and he’s determined to get it as well. And, of course, Ponch falls for two female racers who also end up getting involved in the search for the gold.

This is one of those episodes of CHiPs where Ponch and Jon show off the California lifestyle. Whether it’s hang-gliding or sailing or offroad racing or handball, you can be sure that Ponch and Jon will try it at least once. This episode is a bit of a throwback to the first season, in that Jon is the one who knows about off-road racing while Ponch is the one who learns what it’s all about. Jon gets to be a mentor again, explaining the rules of the race while Ponch flashes his smile and leers at every woman who happens to walk by.

This episode actually spent more time with the people looking for the gold than it did with Ponch and Jon. And I guess that’s okay because this is also one of those episodes where you can tell just how much Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada disliked being in the same scene together. Playing co-workers and close personal friends, Wilcox and Estrada have all the chemistry of two high school rivals forced to sit next to each other in summer school. Wilcox barely looks at Estrada while talking to him. Estrada continually flashes the Estrada smile in their scenes together, silently daring Wilcox to try and steal back the scene. I was actually worried that Baker might end up abandoning Ponch in the desert but, fortunately, he didn’t and their adventures can continue.

Anyway, if you’re a car chase person, this was a fun episode. If you’re watching for the stunts, this episode had quite a few. The storyline was needlessly convoluted but the vehicles looked good and that’s what CHiPs is all about.