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, a new boss gets on everyone’s nerves!

Episode 3.11 “The Watch Commander”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on November 17th, 1979)

There’s a new watch commander and he’s not making any friends.  Lt. Harold Bates (Granville Van Dusen) previously worked in the PR Department at Sacramento and he sets out to make a bad impression from the minute that Sgt. Getraer first introduces him to the cops working out of the Los Angeles precinct.  Lt. Bates is all about following the book.  He notes every flaw, from a missed button to poor gas mileage.  Getraer tries to get him to understand that there’s more to being a cop than just following regulations and that being a member of the Highway Patrol means having to make split-second decisions.  Bates wants to know why Ponch isn’t wearing a regulation shirt.

In some ways, this is as close as CHiPs will ever get to The Caine Mutiny.  Nobody removes Bates from command but Bates still struggles to recover from making a terrible first impression and his own Queeg-like personality doesn’t help things.  His attempts to call out the members of the Highway Patrol who get the worst gas mileage backfires when Officer Grossman siphons gas out of Bates’s car, leading to Bates appearing at the bottom of the list.  Bates has no idea how to talk to or trust people.  Jon Baker tries to offer a helping hand, especially since both he and Bates served in Vietnam.  He invites Bates to go skydiving with him over the weekend.  Bates assumes it’s a set-up and turns him down.

We do get the usual car crashes and a subplot about a bunch of thieves who are stealing trucks from loading docks but the majority of this episode takes place at headquarters.  Ponch, who is said to still be on limited duty, is recovering from his accident and one gets the feeling that this episode was developed so Erik Estrada could be a part of the story without actually having to spend too much time on his bike.  (Estrada actually did injure himself during filming and those injuries were written into the show.)  In some ways, this is CHiPs at its most realistic because everyone always hates the new boss, especially one who thinks that he knows everything.

Going back to The Caine Mutiny, it was impossible not to feel sorry for Queeg, who was not a bad guy but instead just someone who wasn’t good at talking to people and who ultimately was let down by the people who should have been supporting him.  I never felt that type of sympathy for Bates, who really did just come across as being a jerk.  Thank goodness for Robert Pine, whose steadiness as Sgt. Getraer is well-used by this episode.  Pine is there to support Bates but he also protects his men.  This episode features Getraer at his most likable.  Everyone should be so lucky as to have a Getraer in their life.