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 help out a vet.

Episode 5.7 “The Squeaky Wheel”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on June 16th, 1989)

Jonathan and Mark attempt to turn Wayne Secret (Robert David Hall) into a disability activist.  Having lost his legs in Vietnam, Wayne wants to live a quiet life with his wife (Deborah Benson) but, while staying at a recently renovated hotel, he is woken up by a fire alarm.  With the the elevators not working and no ramps, Wayne is forced to depend on the kindness of a stranger who carries him down a flight of stairs.  The fire turns out to be a false alarm but the experience leads to Wayne protesting the fact that the hotel is not wheelchair accessible.

The owner of the hotel not only agrees to make changes to the building but he also offers Wayne a job.  Things are looking up for Wayne!  But, when a gang of young men harass him and his wife at a drive-in movie, Wayne snaps.  He buys an Uzi and then heads down to their clubhouse to take them out.  Luckily, Jonathan appears and talks Wayne out of becoming a mass murderer.  Wayne goes on to receive a “man of the year” award while Jonathan beats up the leader of the gang.

This episode felt very familiar.  In the past, this episode would have featured Mark’s brother-in-law, Scotty.  Instead, it features Wayne, who is not a particularly compelling character.  I think that this episode would have worked if it had just focused on Wayne advocating for wheelchair accessible buildings.  I also think it would have worked if it had just focused on Wayne’s anger to the gang and his struggle to let go of his bitterness over his war experiences.  Unfortunately, trying to cram both those storylines into one 45-minute show led to the whole thing feeling half-baked.

There was one poignant scene in this episode.  It opened with Mark and Jonathan visiting the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Mark got excited when he came across Michael Landon’s star. “Never heard of him,” Jonathan shrugged.  “I forget you’ve been dead for forty years,” Mark replies.  It captured Jonathan and Mark’s friendship, which was always been one of the more underrated aspects of Highway to Heaven.  That said, it was also a bit of a sad scene as the episode itself aired a day after the death of Victor French and Landon himself would pass away nearly two years later.