Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.6 “Playing for Keeps”

Posted on July 24, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, Highway to Heaven makes a mockery of legitimate theater.

Episode 4.6 “Playing for Keeps”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 4th, 1987)

Jonathan and Mark are directing a play!

The play stars movie star Rhett Clark (Eric Douglas, the least talented son of Kirk Douglas). Rhett plays a young man who is struggling to come to terms with the impending death of his father. In the play, Rhett’s father is played by his actual father, Jackie Clark (Donald O’Connor), a old-time comedian who can’t get work anymore.

It’s not an easy rehearsal process. Rhett resents his father. Jackie wants to tell jokes. He wants to put on a dress and a wig because, according to him, all of his fans will want to see him play “Aunt Jackie.” Rhett explains that the play is not a comedy. There’s no room for Aunt Jackie. Really, explaining all of that should have been Jonathan’s job. He’s the director!

The problem with this episode is that we’re supposed to be angry at Rhett for not supporting his father’s attempts to turn the play into a vaudeville comedy but actually, Jackie’s a jerk. Rhett’s a jerk too but he’s a jerk who understands that, when you’re doing a dramatic play, the actor playing a dying man can’t suddenly get out of his hospital bed, duck into a closet, and then come out as Aunt Jackie. An actor ad-libbing dialogue and then turning the play into a comedy because he’s petulant and insecure is not the type of behavior that would be tolerated in all-volunteer community theater, much less on a professional stage. The fact that Jackie is getting paid to appear in the show makes his unprofessional conduct all the more annoying.

This episode puts on the blame on Rhett. We’re meant to see Rhett as the ungrateful son who refuses to see things from his father’s point of view. Because Rhett is being played by Eric Douglas, an actor who did not exactly have the most likable screen presence, it’s easy to blame him. I mean, everyone loves Donald O’Connor, But honestly, Jackie is the jerk here.

How big of a jerk is Jackie? On opening night, he gets mad at his son and does his Aunt Jackie schtick. Somehow, this leads to Rhett and Jackie reconciling and hugging it out while the audience applauds. Honestly, though, it should have led to Jackie being fired. If you’re not going to be professional, you have to go. This episode would have been far more touching if Jackie had been willing to put his ego aside and actually allow his son to have the spotlight for once.

This episode will definitely not be remembered as one of my favorites of the series. In the past, I’ve defended this show’s tendency to go for sentimentality over realism but this episode just pushed things a little too far.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.4 “The People Next Door”

Posted on July 10, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Jonathan and Mark take on prejudice.

Episode 4.4 “The People Next Door”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on October 21st, 1987)

Dr. William Martin (David Spielberg) is living a double life. His family and his neighbors know him as a white doctor who lives in a suburban community and who is a part of the homeowner’s community. He’s told his wife and his son that his parents died before he met them.

His mother knows him as Dr. Guillermo Martinez, who works at the free clinic in the economically disadvantaged area of town. Anna Martinez (Mariam Colon) works as a maid and has no idea that her son is married and that she’s a grandmother.

Guillermo changed his name and lied about his ethnicity so that he could get ahead as a doctor and it’s worked for him. His best friend is Brad Bowman (John Lawlor), the real estate agent who is dedicated to making sure that only “the right people” move into the neighborhood. But when Jonathan and Mark show up as rival real estate agents and hire Anna to help them clean up the house next door, William/Guillermo is forced to face the truth about who he is.

At the start of this episode, Jonathan tells Mark that their assignment is not only to show William the foolishness of denying his heritage but to also help William’s neighbors become more tolerant. They definitely help out William but they don’t really seem to have much luck with the neighbors. Brad Bowman (no relation!) is as much of a bigot at the end of the show as he was at the start. Jonathan and Mark do arrange for a black family to move into the empty house and then Jonathan and Mark promptly leave the neighborhood. So, I guess the responsibility for teaching everyone else tolerance is going to be on the new homeowners. This is one of those episodes where you wish Jonathan had actually gone to extremes to make his point, instead of just arranging for people to run into each other while wandering around the neighborhood. I know that some people would say, “Well, Brad’s just a bad person,” but wasn’t one the original themes of this show that everyone had the potential to see the light, learn the errors of their ways, and be redeemed?

While the show suggested that there was no hope for Brad to see the error of his ways, it also let Guillermo off way too easy. His wife was surprisingly understanding about her husband lying to her for years. And, in the end, his mother was surprisingly forgiving about him lying about the fact that she had a grandson. Jonathan scolded him briefly but that was pretty much it. My grandmother, who came to this country from Franco’s Spain, would not have been as forgiving.

This episode was well-intentioned but didn’t quite work.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.3 “Fight For Your Life”

Posted on July 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s a boxing episode.

Episode 4.3 “Fight For Your Life”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on September 30th, 1987)

I’m just going to say it. This episode is pretty bad.

The plot is simple enough. Jonathan and Mark are working as cornermen for boxer Morty “Sailor” Zadan (Michael Shaner). Morty coulda been a contendah, but instead his brother Jerry (Robert Miranda) always arranges for Morty to throw his fights. When Morty meets and trains a young fighter named Billy Ryan (Nick Garfield), he also starts an unlikely romance with Billy’s sister, Julia (Jennifer Parsons). The mob demands that Morty to fight Billy. They offer Billy money to throw the fight and Morty has to decide if he wants Billy to follow his example and become a bum.

As I said, it’s a simple plot but the execution is just terrible. Even by the admittedly generous standards of Highway to Heaven, the story and the dialogue is often corny and the performances are pretty much uniformly bad. At no point did I buy the romance between Morty and Julia. For that matter, I really didn’t buy the idea that Julia would be so excited about her younger brother pursuing a career that would mean getting beaten up every few weeks. By it’s nature, Highway to Heaven tends to be an old-fashioned show. But this episode really did feel like one of those old Warner Bros. B-movies from the 30s. Those movies, of course, hold up well as long as they star James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, or George Raft. Unfortunately, none of those folks show up in this episode. Instead, we just got Micahel Shaner portraying a boxer who seems like he’d lose a game of tic tac toe against Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

Jonathan and Mark don’t do much in this episode. They spend most of the story as just observers. That said, this episode does end with Jonathan beating up a bunch of gangsters, smiling because they don’t have the same powers that he has. Keeping in mind that most gangsters probably do deserve to get beaten up, it still didn’t feel like proper angel behavior.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.2 “Man’s Best Friend, Part 2”

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the fourth season premiere concludes.

Episode 4.2 “Man’s Best Friend Part 2”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on September 23rd, 1987)

Picking up where last week’s episode, this episode opens with Alex (Danny Pintauro) visiting Jake the Siberian Husky at the big home that Jake shares with Jenny (Elisabeth Harnois), her grandfather (William Schallert), and her parents, Paul (Stan Ivar) and Michelle Raines (Laurie Walters).

Yay!

Alex’s attitude improves so much that it’s decided to move him into a foster home.

Uhmm….what about the Raines family?

The surrogate hired to carry Paul and Michelle’s baby loses the baby. Paul and Michelle are heartbroken.

Uhmm….hey, I think Alex needs a family….

Jenny gives Jake to Alex.

Awwww!

Alex’s foster family lives in a building that doesn’t allow pets.

Oh no!

Alex and Jake run away and, after nearly dying in the desert, they end up with the Raines family’s home.

I see where this is going….

If you guessed that Paul and Michelle announce that they’re going to adopt Alex and that Jake is going to continue to live with them on the ranch, congratulations! You could have been a Highway to Heaven writer!

This episode didn’t make me cry as much as last week’s, mostly because it was pretty easy to see where things were heading from the beginning. Even when Alex and Jake were lost in the desert, I knew they would be okay because this is Highway to Heaven. Children and their adorable dogs don’t die on this show. (Except, of course, for those two times that they did. Actually, three times, now that I think about it.) That said, I was still relieved when Jake was rescued because seriously, that dog was adorable!

This was a good conclusion to last week’s episode. Everything worked out for the best. At the end of the episode, Mark said that he understood why “they call them man’s best friend.” Michael nodded and then said, a little sadly, “Shouldn’t man’s best friend be …. man?”

You tell ’em, Hippie Angel!

You tell them.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.1 “Man’s Best Friend Part One”

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we start the fourth season of Highway to Heaven. This episode features orphans and dogs! I feel the tears coming….

Episode 4.1 “Man’s Best Friend Part One”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on September 16th, 1987)

Oh, this episode made me cry and cry.

Why? Well, for a couple of reasons….

First off, Jonathan and Mark got new jobs working at a kennel. Many of the dogs at the kennel had been abandoned by their owners and Ms. Lil (Fran Ryan) took care of them all, rather than taking them to the pound. And listen, I’m not a dog person. I’m a cat person. We all know this. But seriously, those dogs were adorable!

A Siberian husky named Jake gets lost. After running across the interstate (gasp!), he finds himself alone at night. Coyotes approach. (OH NO!) Suddenly, Jonathan appears and turns into a lion, scaring the coyotes off. (*sniff* *sniff* I’m okay.)

Every few days, Lil takes the dogs down to the local orphanage — (OH MY GOD!) — and lets them play with the orphans. Jake, now a part of the kennel crew, begs young Alex (Danny Pintauro, who had a much worse experience with a dog in Cujo) to play with him. Alex is shy and introverted but Jake quickly becomes his best friend. Alex starts to come out of his shell and says that he knows he’ll never be separated from Jake. For the first time in his young life, Alex is happy.

(Oh dear.)

The local media does a story on Lil and her dogs. They take a picture of Alex and Jake. The next morning, a young girl named Jenny (Elisabeth Harnois) sees the picture and recognizes Jake. For the past month, she’s been desperately looking for Jake!

(This isn’t good….)

Jenny and her grandfather (William Schallert) pick Jake up from the kennel. Jonathan has to go to the orphanage and tell Alex that his best friend is no longer going to be visiting him.

(Sorry, give me a minute.)

Alex is depressed. Jake is depressed. Jonathan shows at Jenny’s home and asks if Alex can come and visit Jake. Jenny and grandpa say yes. (YAY!)

Suddenly, three dreaded words appear on the screen: “TO BE CONTINUED”

What!? No, there’s no need to continue. Alex and Jake have been reunited, let’s end the story here….

This episode was Highway to Heaven at its most earnest, manipulative, and effective. Not only did it feature orphans but also an adorable dog and William Schallert as a genial authority figure. There was also a subplot about Jenny’s parents trying to have another child with a surrogate and I’m sure that has something to do with that promise of “TO BE CONTINUED.”

Nothing better happen to the dog!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.25 “The Gift of Life”

Posted on June 12, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the third season comes to a close.

Episode 3.25 “The Gift Of Life”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on May 6th,1987)

Jonathan and Mark’s new assignment finds them working as bodyguards for a businessman named Richard Benson (Leslie Nielsen). Richard is in charge of a company that pollutes the ocean. He owns an apartment building were people people are forced to live with rats. He makes no apologies for being greedy. He has Jonathan and Mark accompany him to a parking garage so he can offer someone a bribe.

Eventually, Jonathan just comes straight out and says, “I’m angel.” Jonathan did that a lot over the course of season 3 and it always kind of bothered me. It was as if Jonathan decided he couldn’t be bothered to maintain his cover story. Richard doesn’t believe in angels, though he does accept the Bible that Jonathan gives him. Jonathan instructs him to read it before going to sleep.

That night, someone shoots Richard while he’s reading his Bible. Jonathan and Mark appear to him and give Richard a tour of all the misery that he’s caused by being greedy and selfish. Jonathan forces Richard to look at a dead seagull. Richard is then allowed to relive the past seven days of his life so that he can do some good and have a chance to get into heaven.

Wow, that sounds intense, right?

And I guess it would be, except for the fact that it’s now impossible to watch Leslie Nielsen without laughing. Before everyone rushes off to comment, I am fully aware that Nielsen spent decades as a dramatic actor before emerging as a comedy superstar. I’ve reviewed a few of his serious films here on the site. But the fact of the matter is that Nielsen’s comedy was so built around his deadpan delivery of absurd lines that even his serious performances leave you feeling as if everything’s building up to a punchline. That’s the case here. Jonathan, Mark, and Richard might be talking about environmental pollution and poverty but every scene leaves you wondering when Nielsen is going to say, “And don’t call me Shirley.”

Would the episode have worked better with someone else in the role of Richard? Yes and no. Another actor would not have left us waiting for punch lines that were destined to never come but the episode’s script would have still been incredibly heavy-handed. Richard Benson has just died and Jonathan and Mark immediately show up and start yelling at him. They make it clear that they don’t care if he goes to Hell or not. That’s not a very good attitude for an angel to have.

Fortunately, Richard gets his second chance and he manages to survive a redo of the assassination attempt. (Fortunately, he falls asleep with his Bible over his heart. The Bible is thick and strong enough to stop the bullet so I’m going to guess that Richard was given a Catholic Bible as opposed to a wimpy Protestant one.) And so, Richard goes on to be a better person and I imagine his company will end up going bankrupt as a result.

That’s it for Season 3! Season 3 had some good episodes, like Codename: Freak. It also had the worst episode of the show so far, Ghost Rider. Next week, we’ll start Season 4!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.24 “Ghost Rider”

Posted on May 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Wild Rovers (1971, directed by Blake Edwards)

Posted on May 16, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In Montana, Walter Buckman (Karl Malden) runs his ranch with an iron hand, warning his neighbor, Hansen (Sam Gilman) not to even think of allowing his sheep to graze on his land. Walter has two sons, hot-headed John (Tom Skerritt) and the laid back and good-natured Paul (Joe Don Baker). When Walter learns that two of his ranch hands — aging Ross Bodine (William Holden) and young Frank Post (Ryan O’Neal) — have robbed a bank and are heading down to Mexico, he sends John and Paul to bring them back. Walter is a big believer in the law and he’s not going to allow any of his people to get away with breaking it.

Ross is a veteran cowboy, who only robbed the bank after Walter withheld his pay to cover the damage of a saloon fight between Ross and Hansen’s men. Frank is the wilder of the two. He looks up to Ross and Ross is protective of Frank, even if he has a hard time admitting it. Ross and Frank are heading down to Mexico so Ross can retire in peace. Instead of going straight to Mexico, though, they make the mistake of stopping by a small town so Frank can play a little poker and visit the town’s brothel.

Wild Rovers was Blake Edwards’s attempt to make an epic, revisionist western and he includes plenty of shots of the sun setting over the mountains as well as several violent shoot-outs that are shot in Peckinpah-style slow motion. Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t really strong enough to support Edwards’s ambitions and all of the shots of the countryside, while nice to look at, don’t really add up too much. Wild Rovers was also a troubled production, with MGM slashing Edwards’s original three-hour film down to 106 minutes and advertising it with a poster featuring O’Neal hugging Edwards from behind, making the film look like a buddy comedy in the style of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (or an early version of Brokeback Mountain) as opposed to a violent and elegiac western. (In 1986, a director’s cut was released, which ran for 136 minutes.) If you only know Blake Edwards from his Pink Panther movies, the grim and tragedy-filled Wild Rovers will come as a surprise.

One thing that Wild Rovers does have going for it is a good cast. William Holden and an energetic Ryan O’Neal are a solid team and Karl Malden, Tom Skerritt, Rachel Roberts, James Olson, and Moses Gunn all give good performances too. This movie also provides Joe Don Baker with a sympathetic role and he’s very likable as the laid back Paul Buckman. It’s not the type of role that Baker often got to play and it’s obvious that a lot of scenes between John and Paul were cut from the film but, in the truncated version, Joe Don Baker’s Paul Buckman becomes the moral center of the film’s story.

Wild Rovers was a disappointment at the box office, one of many that Edwards suffered in the 70s before he and Peter Sellers brought back Inspector Clouseau.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.23 “Heavy Date”

Posted on May 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Jonathan and Mark are back in Los Angeles.

Episode 3.23 “Heavy Date”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on March 18th, 1987)

Jonathan and Mark’s latest assignment finds them in Los Angeles, where they share an apartment in a building that is managed by Marge Davis (Peggy Pope). Marge, a widow, is upset that her son, Gary (Patrick O’Bryan), doesn’t seem to have any direction in life. When Gary loses his job, Marge kneels down and puts her head in the oven. Uhmm …. okay. Suicide humor, that’s great, I guess.

Alice Hartman (Lorie Griffin) shows up in Los Angeles and takes an apartment in the building. Alice is seven months pregnant. Her mother has created a cover story, that Alice has gone to Europe for the summer. Instead, Alice has gone to Los Angeles so she can have the baby and give it up for adoption without her father finding out. Jonathan works his magic and manipulates Gary and Alice into falling in love. When Alice has her baby, Gary asks her to marry him and says that he wants to help her raise the baby. So, I guess the nice couple who wanted to adopt the baby are just out of luck.

This episode was a bit odd. When Alice first comes to Los Angeles, she says she’s seven months pregnant. The episode takes place over a longer period of time than usual and Alice eventually has the baby. At no point does Alice ever appear to be pregnant. She wears baggy clothes but still, there’s only so much that an extra-large sweater can conceal when you’re that pregnant. There was also a weird scene where Gary, pretending to be the baby’s biological father, lied to the adoptive parents and claimed that he was on probation and that his mother was in a mental institution. The show played it for laughs but again, the couple seemed so nice and happy about the idea of adopting that Gary’s lies just felt cruel. And, for a show that was all about an angel on a mission from God, it’s interesting that Gary’s actions went unpunished. If anything, he was rewarded for them.

(Seriously, the couple that wanted to adopt Alice baby, they were so nice! That the episode just kind of pushed them aside really didn’t feel right. I get that Jonathan and Mark’s assignment was to help Alice and Gary but Gary is kind of a jerk and Alice is kind of immature. Whose going to help the Wallaces, who sincerely wanted to give the baby a good home?)

This episode was obviously heartfelt. For once, Michael Landon is the sole credited writer so one gets the feeling that this episode’s story and message both meant a lot to him. (That said, Landon’s approach to the story makes the message come across as being less pro-family and more anti-adoption.) In the end, the main problem is that neither Gary nor Alice really seem worthy of all of the effort that Jonathan is putting into the assignment. It’s hard not to feel that maybe Jonathan and Mark needed to help everyone out and not just Alice and Gary.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.22 “A Father’s Faith”

Posted on May 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week brings us a touching episode.

Episode 3.22 “A Father’s Faith”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on March 4th, 1987)

Jonathan and Mark visit an old friend of Mark’s, a fisherman named Gene Malloy (Eli Wallach). The Malloy family has been struggling ever since Gene’s son slipped into a coma after risking his life to save Gene’s daughter, Michele (Katherine Wallach), from drowning. Gene neglects his business and his family to spend all of his time visiting his comatose son. Gene’s wife (Anne Jackson) is feeling neglected and, because she blames herself for the accident, Michele has never visited her brother. Everyone tells Gene that his son is never going to wake up but Gene has faith.

This was a simple but effective episode, one that worked largely because of the cast. Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson were married in real life and Katherine Wallach was their daughter. Watching this family drama being played out by a real family made it all the more touching. In the end, Gene’s faith is rewarded. It’s a little bit implausible but it doesn’t matter. I still teared up a little. For that matter, so did Michael Landon and Victor French and I’m pretty sure those tears were real. Eli Wallach really poured his emotions into his performance as Gene. This was a very heart-felt episode where the sincerity of the emotions carried the viewer over any rough spots in the narrative.

As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that, if it was made today, the story would probably be used to promote assisted suicide or euthanasia. For whatever reason, there’s a lot of people who have really fallen in love with the idea of killing people who are sick or disabled. Personally, I prefer this episode’s approach. Sometimes, good things do happen.