Michael Francis 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 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, Jonathan and Mark are once again teaching high school.

Episode 5.6 “The Source”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on June 9th, 1989)

This week, Jonathan and Mark are back in high school …. again!

This time, Mark is teaching sex ed. (Ha ha, the Boss sure does love embarrassing Mark!) Meanwhile, Jonathan is the faculty advisor to the school newspaper. When a school bus crashes, two enterprising student journalists — Doug (Scott Fults) and Colin (Andy Lauer) — decide that they’re going to get to the bottom of what happened. All the evidence shows that it was just a freak accident and that bus driver Larry Nichols (Dack Rambo) is not to blame. However, a student on the bus named Ellen (Kim Walker) tells Doug and Colin that, before the crash, Larry was flirting with her and not watching the road. After Doug and Colin agree to protect Ellen’s identity, they write a story about Larry, the adult bus driver who was too busy flirting with an underage girl to take that curve.

Doug and Colin think that they’re going to win a Pulitzer but Jonathan says, “Hold on, we can’t publish this!” However, the school’s principal (Alan Fudge) disagrees because Colin just happens to be his son. The story is published and Larry loses his job. Doug and Colin are feeling pretty proud of themselves but then they just happen to come across Ellen’s notebook in the school’s copy room. (Jonathan, using “the Stuff,” switched out his notebook for Ellen’s.) Doug and Colin read the notebook and discover that Ellen has a crush on Larry and that Ellen lied about him flirting with her.

Doug and Colin retract the story and learn a lesson about journalistic responsibility. Ellen, even though Colin and Doug continue to protect her identity, leaves with Jonathan so that she can apologize to Larry face-to-face. (We don’t actually see the apology. I have a feeling that it probably didn’t go well.) As the episode ends, two women look at the newspaper and agree that, retraction or no retraction, Larry was definitely guilty. We then hear Jonathan’s voice telling us that the first amendment is too important to be abused.

That’s an important message and a timely one. Watching this episode, it was hard not to consider that, for the past few weeks, people in this country have been arguing about whether or not the first amendment applies more to a self-employed YouTuber who stormed a church service or the people in the church who were worshipping at the time. There’s a lot of earnest sincerity to be found in this episode of Highway to Heaven but, that said, the execution is pretty heavy-handed. Even by the standards of this show, there’s not much subtlety to be found here.

An even bigger problem is that this episode can’t seem to decide whether Ellen is meant to be a shy teenager who made a mistake or a full-blown sociopath. I think this episode would have worked better if Colin and Doug heard rumors that they reported as fact as opposed to Ellen just flat-out lying to them. Once Ellen lies, it’s hard not to feel that the focus should be less on Colin and Doug learning a lesson and more on Ellen getting some sort of psychiatric help.

This episode was typical of season 5. It was sincere but just a bit too on-the-nose.

This week, Jonathan and Mark are in Hollywood …. again!

Episode 3.5 “That’s Our Dad”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on October 29th, 1986)

Two orphans, Sarah (Kelley Parker) and Joey (R.J. Williams), are upset because they’re about to be split up. A family wants to adopt Sarah but they don’t feel like bringing along her best friend, Joey. Joey and Sarah wish that they could live with Bill Cassidy (Ned Beatty), the star of America’s favorite sitcom, That’s My Dad!

Sarah and Joey run away from the orphanage and end up at the studio at the exact same time that Bill is holding auditions to find a new co-star for That’s My Dad. Sarah and Joey tell Bill about their tragic backgrounds and how they each lost their parents. Bill, thinking that the kids are doing audition pieces, is so impressed that he tells his producer that he wants the kids to be hired immediately. The kids think that this mean they’re being adopted! Yay!

Unfortunately, Bill is a bitter man who, in private, doesn’t behave like the perfect father that he plays on television. Adopt two kids? Why would Bill want to do that!? Fortunately, Jonathan and Mark just happen to be installing a new security system at Bill’s home. Jonathan helps Bill to see that, even though he’s bitter, he could still redeem himself by adopting two random children. The end result is an episode that pretty much epitome of Highway To Heaven, shamelessly sentimental but heartfelt enough to be effective.

This was not Ned Beatty’s first appearance on Highway to Heaven. During the first season, he played two roles in The Banker and the Bum. Beatty does a pretty good job in this episode, playing Bill Cassidy as someone who can be unpleasant but not so unpleasant that his later change of heart doesn’t feel credible. From the first minute we meet Bill, we know he’s going to turn out to be not such a bad guy, if just because that’s what always happens on Highway to Heaven. On this show, even the most unlikable of characters usually achieve some sort of redemption. The main theme is the no one is bad as they originally seem. That’s actually a pretty sweet message when you think about it.

Highway to Heaven did quite a few shows about show business. I’ve read that Michael Landon was something of a workaholic and, as a result, he later felt that he missed out on spending time with his children. Certainly, that would explain why almost every Hollywood episode of Highway to Heaven seems to feature an actor or director who needs to learn to make time for the people in their lives.

Speaking of making time for the people in your life, it’s the holidays. This is going to be my final Highway to Heaven review for 2024. These reviews will return on January 2nd!