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 Freevee!

This week, it’s helicopter time!

Episode 2.7 “High Flyer”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on November 4th, 1978)

Ponch in the air?

Not if Ponch has anything to say about it!  All of the members of the Highway Patrol are apparently required to spend one day on helicopter patrol but Ponch is scared of heights.  First, he pretends to have a cold.  Then, he pretends to have an earache, just to discover that the helicopter has been grounded due to bad weather.  Finally, the day comes when Ponch has no more excuses and the weather is clear.  Ponch goes up in the air but, fortunately, being in the helicopter allows Ponch to spot the van that’s being driven by a bunch of car thieves that he and Baker have spent the entire episode chasing.  To give credit where credit is due, the scene where the helicopter chases a thief in a stolen car is genuinely well-shot and exciting to watch.  Fortunately, the thief managed to drive some place where no one else was around so the helicopter could then fly way too close to the ground and do a whole bunch of ludicrously dangerous stunts.  I’m kind of surprised no one died to be honest.

While Ponch dealt with his fear of flying, Baker dealt with Kim (Cynthia Bain), the teenage daughter of his neighbor, Carol (Mary Louise Weller).  After having a fight with her mother, Kim decided to just move into Baker’s apartment.  Realizing that Kim had a bit of a crush, Ponch and Baker recruited Sindy Cahill — the only female member of the Highway Patrol who has spent the entire season demanding to be taken seriously — to pretend to be Baker’s girlfriend.  Heart-broken, Kim returned home.  That was a really terrible ending for what, until that point, had actually been a well-acted look at teen angst and first crushes.  Weller, Bain, and Larry Wilcox were all giving sensitive performances so it’s a bit unfortunate that it was all just a set-up for another “Let’s-Demean-Cahill” moment.

So, this episode was not so great when it came to the human drama but it was redeemed by the helicopter action.  When in doubt, toss in a helicopter.