Paul Marin | 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 episode …. ugh.

Episode 3.24 “Ghost Rider”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on April 1st, 1987)

This episode was …. bad. It was really bad. I know that Highway to Heaven is a show with its own unique style and that it’s necessary to sometimes set aside cynicism and just accept the show in all of its sincere and earnest glory but I just couldn’t do it with this episode.

Birdy Belker (Didi Conn) is a ghost writer. She writes the Roger Bolt spy novels, which are then credited to the glamorous Natasha Gudonov (Victoria Carroll). Roger was a real spy. He died years ago but Birdy still has a bit of a crush on him. Birdy is also Jonathan and Mark’s latest assignment. Jonathan decides to just wait for her outside of her apartment and introduce himself as being an angel.

“RAPE!” Birdy yells before then spraying Mark with a breath freshener that she mistook for mace.

Jonathan brings Birdy’s dead plants to life, proving that he’s an angel. Birdy goes from being terrified to inviting two strangers into her apartment. Birdy is single and her parents are giving a hard time about her lack of a boyfriend. Mark suggests that Birdy buy Roger’s old car, which is set to be auctioned off. Birdy and her father (Bobby Baum) go to the auction with Jonathan and Mark. Uh-oh, shady Boris (Adam Gregor) wants the car as well! However, Boris has to call his boss to see if he should bid more than $20,000. Jonathan stares at the phone until it explodes. Birdy wins the auction! She has the car!

(Destroying someone’s property does not seem like proper angel behavior, to be honest.)

It turns out that the car is haunted by the ghost of Roger Bolt (Warwick Sims). Jonathan insinuates that Roger is actually in Purgatory and helping out Birdy is his final chance to make it into Heaven. That’s …. okay, I guess. The problem is that Roger’s ghost doesn’t show up until 30 minutes into the episode. A ghost is a pretty big plot point to introduce that late in the game. Birdy is in love with Roger, up until she realizes that he’s a cad. Still, Roger redeems himself but helping Birdy outsmart the two spies who want his old car. Birdy becomes a celebrity, Roger goes to Heaven, and Birdy meets her new neighbor, a nerdy guy who seems perfect for her. But then, as Mark and Jonathan are heading to their next assignment, Roger’s car starts and we hear Roger’s voice. “Bolt, Roger Bolt.” Okay, so did he go to Heaven or not? Or is he still a ghost? What’s going on!?

My honest guess is that this was meant to be a backdoor pilot, one that would have featured Birdy and Roger’s ghost getting involved in espionage on a weekly basis. That’s really the only way that this oddly paced episode makes any sort of sense. Tonally, it had nothing in common with any other episode of Highway to Heaven that I’ve seen. It doesn’t work, largely because Birdy is an amazingly annoying character and Roger was a less than interesting take on the Bond stereotype.

This episode was definitely a misfire. Luckily, the season ends next week with an episode featuring Leslie Nielsen. That should be great! It certainly can’t be any worse than this one.

“Turn it off…turn it off…turn it off…TURN IT OFF!” — Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) in Hardcore (1979)

Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) is a businessman who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He’s a deeply religious man, a sincere believer in predestination and the idea that only an elite few has been prelected to go to Heaven. Jake is divorced (though he occasionally tells people that his wife died) and is the father of a teenage girl named Kristen (Ilah Davis).

One of the first things that we notice about Jake is that there appears to be something off about his smile. There’s no warmth or genuine good feeling behind it. Instead, whenever Jake smile, it’s obvious that it’s something he does because that what he’s supposed to do. Indeed, everything Jake does is what he’s supposed to do and he expects his daughter to do the same.

When Kristen goes to a church camp in California, she soon disappears. Jake and his brother-in-law, Wes (Dick Sargent), fly down to Los Angeles and hire a sleazy private investigator, Andy Mast (Peter Boyle), to look for her. A few weeks later, Andy shows Jake a pornographic film. The star? Kristen.

Jake is convinced that Kristen has been kidnapped and is being held captive. Wes tells Jake that he should just accept that this is God’s will. Andy tells Jake that, even if he does find Kristen, Jake might not want her back. Finally, Jake tells off Wes, fires Andy, and ends up in Los Angeles himself. Pretending to be a film producer and recruiting a prostitute named Nikki (Season Hubley) to serve as a guide, Jake searches for his daughter.

The relationship between Jake and Nikki is really the heart of the film. For Jake, Nikki becomes a temporary replacement for his own daughter. For Nikki, Jake appears to be the only man in the world who doesn’t want to use her sexually. But, as Jake gets closer and closer to finding his daughter, Nikki realizes that she’s getting closer and closer to being abandoned.

Hardcore is a pretty good film, one that was shot in location in some of the sleaziest parts of 70s Los Angeles. Plotwise, the film is fairly predictable but George C. Scott, Season Hubley, and Peter Boyle all give excellent performances. (The scenes were Scott pretends to be a porn producer are especially memorable, with Scott perfectly capturing Jake’s discomfort while also subtly suggesting that Jake is enjoying himself more than he wants to admit.) And, even if you see it coming from miles away, the film’s ending will stick with you.