There’s a first season for any show, and Highway To Heaven got a “probationary” one too. But now, it’s important to have some context.

Overview

The series is about Jonathan Smith (played by Michael Landon), who is a probationary angel sent to Earth to help various people at crossroads in their life.

In his mission, he is assisted by his human friend Mark (played by Victor French), a burly ex cop from Oakland that Jonathan helps recover from his problem with alcohol, and who eventually asks him to join him on this endeavor to help people.

As Mark tells Jonathan in the episode To Touch The Moon: “You said there’s a lot of good people in this world, and we are here to try to help them”; and then he got his car stolen, but that doesn’t matter now.

• Opening

The opening of the first season is the same in each episode, and will remain such for the second and third season as well.

As it’s already been mentioned, it’s been composed by David Rose, frequent collaborator of Michael Landon on Little House too, and this score had already been used on a ninth season Little House episode, which aired in 1983, one year and a half before Highway.

So, Rose kept basically the same composition, although Highway is more engrossing than the Little House version.

Complete Episode List:

* indicates the stand-out of the season.

** indicates the stand-out of the series.

Episode	Assignments
Pilot	First episode of the series.
To Touch The Moon	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help both a boy with a serious illness fulfill his last wish and a runaway kid who has given up on his life.
Return Of The Masked Rider	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help some former western stars and an up-and-coming boxing talent overcome their insecurities and stand up against the illegalities in their neighborhood.
Song Of The Wild West	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help both a girl reconnect with her mother and a woman reclaim her job from a corrupt gambler.
One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade (Part One and Part Two)	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a promising athlete bound to a wheelchair after suffering a severe accident to come to terms with his new condition.
A Divine Madness	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a wealthy businessman convinced to be a mythical character to reconcile with his son.
Catch A Falling Star	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a movie star realize his negligence toward his kids and learn how to make up for it.
**Help Wanted: Angel	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an aging screenwriter fund his own film and assist an entire community along the way.
**Dust Child	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an American family adjust to their new life when a Vietnamese girl moves in with them.
Hotel Of Dreams	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to work at a luxury hotel and help its guests.
Another Song For Christmas	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a corrupt car salesman repent for his actions during Christmastime.
Plane Death	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to investigate the sudden disappearance of Mark’s old friend.
*One Winged Angels	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help both a divorced woman and her ex-husband’s best friend get through their emotional problems.
*Going Home, Going Home	Jonathan and Mark are “assigned” to help Mark’s younger version of himself reconnect with his late grandfather in the past.
As Difficult As ABC	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a recent dropout athlete with a serous heart condition find a new purpose in his life and clean up his neighborhood.
A Child Of God	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a single mother with a serious illness reconnect with her estranged parent before it’s too late.
A Match Made In Heaven	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a quadriplegic lawyer fall in love with a woman.
The Banker And The Bum	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a selfish and corrupt banker and an ill and good-hearted homeless man to live under each other’s identity for a day.
The Brightest Star	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a spoiled child actress and the humble daughter of her maid find their true aspirations and learn how to properly handle fame without being compromised by it.
An Investment In Caring	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an elderly woman rally her neighbors in an effort to prevent a multi corp from establishing in their community.
The Right Thing	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an elderly man reconnect with his son’s family, who had recently placed him in a care facility.
Thoroughbreds (Part One and Part Two)	Jonathan and Mark are assigned to get a rancher’s daughter to fall in love with the son of her wealthy employer in spite of adversities.

Disclaimer: the “*” and “**” episodes are the only personal opinion in the Highway To Heaven Cast, which is meant to be informative (hopefully) and, in that light, those episodes only serve as “guide” to the most outstanding episodes for someone who has never heard of the series. The choice of “*” shows (the best of the season) is made by considering the level of quality of most episodes in the season, and singling out those episodes that stand out the most above that quality. Same with the “**” episodes, chosen by taking the episodes that stand out the most compared to the rest of the episodes in the series; the ** episodes are thus not only among the best of the season, but also among the very best of the series.

Further Distinction: the number of “*” episodes is not arbitrary, but rather determined by the quantity of episodes that are the farthest above from the rest. For this reason, they do not indicate nor signify in any way the quality of a season as a whole: for instance, in a season with mostly very good episodes and a single great episode, only that episode will be a * one, while another season with many good episodes and plenty of very good episodes, all those very good episodes will be * ones, yet the first season of the example will be better than this second one as a whole. Instead, a season with multiple ** episodes is likely a great season as well.

• Season Details

The season span is between early 1984 (with the Pilot) until June 1985, so covering a total of a year and a half. Actually, it could also be that the Pilot were set in late 1983, but, considering this season only has one episode set on Christmastime, it’s plausible to conclude that it’s the 1984 Christmas. It’s also important to remark that the season doesn’t show all the assignments Jonathan and Mark work on, so it can be that Jonathan and Mark had two Christmas episodes and the series only showed one (and actually, the second season doesn’t even have one). However, considering it’s plausible most episodes are set around the same time they were produced (excluding the Holiday Specials), it is more likely it begins around February or March 1984 (when they actually produced the Pilot). More details about it at the “Background and Setting” here, right after “Angels, probation and wings” part.

Anyway, the season begins almost one year before the actual airing and lasted until it eventually coincided with the airing. However, it is quite impossible to date exactly each episode, with very few exceptions. That’s because the episode The Right Thing is set on March 1984, but the episode One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade 1 supposedly takes place at the same time (there’s an upcoming “Spring Dance”, which is usually on March). If it took place on March 1985 instead, then it should be followed by A Match Made In Heaven, and there would be no time left for the Season Finale. Of course, unless the finale weren’t the last episode to take place chronologically in the season, or the “Spring Dance” takes place later than March, or there is a one year gap between the conclusion of this season and the beginning of the next.

Either way, surely the assignments in the first season do not follow the chronological order they aired (one example is here), nor the order in which they were produced (as The Right Thing was one of the last episode they produced, yet it took place as the third or fourth assignment). Also, it is likely some assignments take place at the same time (more about it here, in the “Assignments Schedule” part) and that the season won’t show all the assignments Jonathan and Mark work on.

In the early episodes, Mark has a brown coat and and a blue squared shirt on, but later in the season, (occasionally on A Divine Madness, officially on Help Wanted: Angel), he gets his official blue sweater that he will keep for most of the series.

The early episode of the season typically starts with Jonathan and Mark already working on an assignment. Later (from Help Wanted: Angel), the episodes begin with Jonathan and Mark driving to a place, getting a job (either by resorting to angelic references or by persuading the employer they are somehow the best) and then working on it.

Mostly, when they receive “superior” references, it’s because their employer is somehow part of the assignment too (see Catch A Falling Star for an example). Otherwise, especially in the early season, they either skip that part altogether (see One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade) or they show they are the best for the job (as in the episode Return Of the Masked Rider).

• Season Features

The following is a list of features and tropes from the first season of Highway To Heaven, alongside an episode as example. Further explanations at the Glossary and the Guidelines (which will remain valid for the whole series).

Characters: the recurring characters introduced in the first season:

• Leslie Gordon (played by Mary McCusker, introduced in the Pilot), she is Mark’s younger sister, and she will come back in the third season;
• Scotty Wilson (played by James Troesh, introduced in One Fresh Batch Of Leonade, second appearance in A Match Made In Heaven), a quadriplegic lawyer, who befriends Jonathan and Mark, already appearing twice in this season, he is the most recurring character of the series;
• Diane Gordon Wilson (played by Margie Impert, introduced in A Match Made In Heaven), she is Mark and Leslie’s cousin, and during her first appearance, she falls in love with Scotty and gets married to him.

Both Scotty and Diane will come back twice more in the second and third season, as a couple.

Instead, here is more about the rest of the actors:

• Highway Actors, who will appear again in the series, playing different characters. Some of them, with the episode they appear in this season, are: John McLiam (Going Home, Going Home), Ned Beatty (The Banker And The Bum), Lew Ayres (The Right Thing) and many more. Instead, the only actors to appear multiple times in this season except Landon and French are James Troesh as Scotty Wilson (One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade, A Match Made In Heaven) and Ivor Berry, playing two different characters (in Another Song For Christmas and The Banker And The Bum).

• Highway Lifetime: the actors who concluded their career with some Highway episode. In this season, the only “Highway Lifetime Actor” is Jean Allison, who appeared in the episode A Divine Madness and then retired from acting permanently.

• Highwayman, episodes written by neither Landon nor Gordon or anyone else as involved in the show; In this season they are One Winged Angels and The Brightest Star.

Glossary: here are some of the features of the season.

• Cute, the series’ official motto, by Mark (first use in To Touch The Moon);

• “Joey Chitwood“, a moment when Jonathan uses his power to halt Mark’s car and annoy him;

• Highway Of Mysteries, the most mysterious aspects of the series;

• Recycles, episodes that use a feature (a scene, some music) from another one, just like the opening of each episode, which is the same composition as the season nine show of Little House. The episode whose features have been recycled the most on other episodes is Help Wanted: Angels, with two pieces by David Rose that were used again in One Winged Angels (also, Help Wanted: Angel is the episode whose features will be recycled the most over the course of the series);

• References, episode making reference to something else (for instance, To Touch The Moon makes reference to Little House, while A Child Of God takes the same story from a Bonanza episode, or Going Home, Going Home to Little House, when Jonathan asks him if he would like to have a farm).

Most episode in the season are fictional, original stories. The only exceptions are The Christmas Special (based on the Christmas book), A Child Of God (takes the premise from a Bonanza episode) and A Match Made In Heaven, which tells the true, autobiographical story of its actor.

Over the course of the season, Jonathan and Mark will mostly stay in California, but there are some exceptions (here is the “Out Of California” assignments, set in other states).

Instead, here are the episodes with some bloopers.

Production

The season was produced by Michael Landon and aired on NBC over the course of the 1984 and 1985 TV season.

• Background

Around the same time the pilot of this series was being worked on in 1983, Landon had just concluded working on the final episode of the long running TV show of Little House On The Prairie, which lasted nine season and ten years (although he walked out of the project as actor for season nine, he still remained producer and occasionally director as well). By that time, he had also been working on a second TV show, Father Murphy, created on 1981 to run alongside Little House, but it wasn’t much popular and was canceled the same year of the conclusion of Little House.

So, immediately after completion of Little House finale (which was produced on 1983, in the Summer), he pitched the idea for this new series to NBC, and with some reluctance, he secured a Pilot on a three million dollar budget. The project was very dear to Landon, and the intentions are noble, stemming from his experience observing how people get easily angry at each other, and wanting to make them see “how much healthier and better it is to go through life using their energy being nice to somebody“. Curiously, Landon felt so involved to this project that he told producers, in case they wouldn’t like his Pilot, he was willing to pay with his own money for a new one. In an interview with the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he revealed it’s quite a common practice to have two pilots where “You get a pay-or-play on the second one and a guarantee of 13 shows“, but the produces this time were skeptical about this deal, believing there was no way to make a series like that. But they were eventually convinced, just like the way Jonathan got his job in the Pilot.

Then, after its completion, it wasn’t done yet: apparently, during its preview in front of NBC producers, more than half of them walked out, believing there was no way it would have worked as a series. However, somehow they gave it a shot, and a first “probationary” season was ordered, with production set to start in the summer. Originally, producers ordered for a 24 episodes season, but it got one more: that’s because the Pilot was originally shown as a single 90 minutes episode (the way it’s meant to be seen too), but it was later divided in two parts when it went to syndication, so now there’s one extra episode.

• Schedule

For the first season of the show, the only directors were Landon and French, usually alternating with French directing one episode every three of Michael Landon, and the first season concluded with one third of episodes by French and the rest by Landon alone. Writing for the first season began in early summer of that same year. The first episodes were written between June and July, while the filming began officially on August.

As for the cost, it’s currently unclear: it is known that the Pilot was produced on a three million budget, but the costs for the rest of the season have never been disclosed. However, Landon stipulated an agreement in which he was allowed to freely use the budget NBC gave him and distribute it at his own will for each episode: if the season would come underbudget by the end of the year, he would have kept the difference, otherwise, he would have had to pay for any exceeding costs. Apparently, this season finished on budget and on schedule.

More details on the schedule: the filming of the first season ran from August 1984 to March 1985; they began officially with To Touch The Moon, on August 2. Apparently, the first scene they made that day was the series official opening, with Mark picking up Jonathan from the Tucson road. All the episodes were produced separately, even for the two part episode, they worked to conclude all part one before starting the second one.

The production is divided in three parts: once the Pilot was approved and the series ordered, an intensive two months from August to October followed, with most episodes taking around one week to 10 days to be produced, and production taking only one or two days break between episodes. Then, they took a two week break after either Hotel Of Dreams or the Christmas Special (that concludes the first half of the season) and returned on November, with the same pace as the first part, all the way until Christmas. Finally, they took another two week break for the Christmas holiday and resumed on January 2 until March, for the last part of the season. Every episode was produced in California, while Song Of The Wild West and the final part of the Pilot were set in Tucson, Arizona.

Here’s a full breakdown of the chronological production for each episode in the first season.

Notification: the exact date uses as references the production schedule of each episode, while those with “between” or “early” are approximation considering the production order (not the airing one).

Episode:	By:	Production Schedule:
Pilot	Landon	1984, between February and April
To Touch The Moon	Landon	1984, August 2 to 10
Dust Child	French	1984, August 12 to 21
Return Of The Masked Rider	Landon	1984, August 22 to 29
One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade	Landon	1984, August 30 to September 10 (additional part October 1 to 4)
Song Of The Wild West	French	1984, between September 10 and 23
Catch A Falling Star	Landon	1984, September 24 to 28
A Divine Madness	Landon	1984, between October 5 and 14
Help Wanted: Angel	Landon	1984, October 15 to 23
Hotel Of Dreams	Landon	1984, between October 24 to late October
Another Song For Christmas	Landon	1984, early November to 25
Plane Death	French	1984, November 26 to December 4
One Winged Angels	Landon	1984, early December
Going Home, Going Home	Landon	1984, December before Christmas
As Difficult As ABC	French	1985, January 2 to 10
A Child Of God	Landon	1985, after January 12 and within the month
A Match Made In Heaven	Landon	1985, late January
The Banker And The Bum	Landon	1985, late January to early February
The Brightest Star	French	1985, February 6 to 13
An Investment In Caring	Landon	1985, between February 14 and 24
The Right Thing	French	1985, February 25 to March 4
Thoroughbreds	Landon	1985, between March and April

The early episodes of the series (from August to October) from its first half would air in a different order, while the rest of the season was produced according to the airing date. Most episodes were produced one month before their scheduled airing date. The shortest, certain span between the conclusion of a production and airing date is for As Difficult As ABC, that aired on January 30, just 20 days after completing production. It is possible that the span of A Child Of God is even shorter, but the exact production date of that episode is unavailable.

Instead, for the writing: Landon himself wrote alone six episodes (Pilot, To Touch The Moon, Catch A Falling Star, Plane Death, A Child Of God, The Right Thing), plus a contribution to another episode (A Match Made In Heaven), the most he’ll ever write for a season of the series. Most of the episodes (10 of them) were written instead by Dan Gordon, the series headwriter.

Anyway, here is the chronological dates of writing (upon completion of the draft) only when available.

In 1984:

• Pilot, February 7;
• To Touch The Moon, June 21;
• One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade, June 29;
• A Divine Madness, July 23;
• Another Song For Christmas, July 31;
• Song Of The Wild West, August 2;
• Help Wanted: Angel, October 2;
• Hotel Of Dreams, October 16;
• Plane Death, November 12;
• One Winged Angels, November 20;
• As Difficult As ABC, December 11.

In 1985:

• A Match Made In Heaven, January 7;
• The Brightest Star, January 28;
• The Right Thing, February 17;
• Thoroughbreds Part 1, February 26.

So, most episodes were produced some two weeks after the first draft was in.

Curiously, the episode One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade was originally intended to be a one part, 45 minutes episode like the rest of the episodes. However, during its production they added multiple new scenes that weren’t in the original screenplay (expanding the role of Scotty and of Deke’s girlfriend), eventually getting to a longer episode that was divided in two parts (a similar occurrence will happen in season three).

Also, each first page contains a “Story No.”, supposedly indicating the number of episodes written for the season; if that were the case, the last “Story No.” is 34 with The Right Thing (the Season Finale is marked as 32). So, it can be concluded that they wrote at least 34 episodes, and 10 episodes remained unproduced this season. One script from those unproduced this first season would be selected and used in the episode Heaven On Earth for the second season. So, it wasn’t all for nothing.

Airings and Ratings

Complete season available here. Important: the episodes available are the edited version of the 1984 ones.

So, every episode has at least one scene less than the unedited version.

The first season aired on NBC for the 1984-1985 season, every Wednesday at 8.00 pm (in an interview, Landon revealed that he wanted the show on the 9.00 pm slot, but NBC turned that down). Each episode aired consecutively every week from Wednesday September 19 (the Pilot) until December 19, with the Christmas special. Then, they resumed airing new episodes on the same slot from Wednesday January 8 (with Plane Death) until May 8, with the season finale.

There are only two exceptions in the first half of the season: one is between Return Of the Masked Rider (10/03/1984) and Song Of The Wild West (10/17/1984), that aired two weeks apart and left the slot of October 10 for the World Series Baseball Game Detroit Tigers and Sand Diego Padres (it’s not Oakland Athletics, so Mark doesn’t care). The second exception is between Dust Child (11/28/1984) and Hotel Of Dreams (12/12/1984), as on the 12/05/1984 they aired the special S.O.S. on that slot.

Instead, in the second half of the season (from Plane Death to the finale) there are two exceptions as well: the first one is between A Child Of God (02/06/1985) and A Match Made In Heaven (02/20/1985), when on February 13 they apparently aired a “Chipmunks Special” (very likely it’s a filler because they were late and didn’t finish production of the scheduled Highway episode for that week). The second one is on March, between the episodes An Investment In Caring (March 13) and The Right Thing (March 27), though on the vacant slot of March 20 they aired for a second time the Highway episode To touch The Moon, after the first airing on September 26, and curiously, it even improved on the ratings that second time around (it is very unusual for a rerun to score better than the original one).

Anyway once The Right Thing was in, they began airing back old episodes from the season until May, when they aired the Season One Finale, and then kept on airing reruns every Wednesday for the rest of the summer, to build up audience for the second season.

Here is the official order they aired rerun.

In 1984 (while the first season was still airing):

• December 26, Return Of the Masked Rider;

In 1985 (towards the conclusion of the season):

• March 20, To Touch The Moon;
• April 3, Song Of The Wild West;
• April 10, Help Wanted: Angel;
• April 17, Hotel Of Dreams;
• April 24, A Divine Madness;

Every episode that aired between March and April (with the exclusion of A Divine Madness) actually improved on the ratings of its original run.

In 1985 Summer (after the Season One Finale):

• May; Plane Death, Pilot, One Winged Angels.
• June; Dust Child, Catch A Falling Star, As Difficult As ABC, one week skip (special episode of The Fact Of Life).
• July; One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade (Part 1 and Part 2, on consecutive weeks), An Investment In Caring, The Brightest Star, A Child Of God.
• August; Thoroughbreds (Part 1 and Part 2, on consecutive weeks), A Match Made In Heaven, The Right Thing.
• September; one week skip (Pilot of a new series), The Banker And The Bum.

In 1985 Winter (during the airing of the second season):

• December 25, Another Song For Christmas

As it’s apparent by the schedule, they aired every episode of the season (including the Pilot) at least twice (original airing plus rerun), with the only exception being Going Home, Going Home, which aired on January 1985 the first time and never again during the year (it would have its rerun on April 1986, during the second season). Instead, the Christmas Special that already aired on 1984 aired again on the Christmas Holiday of 1985 and, odd enough (again) it scored better ratings than the first time.

• Ratings

By these ratings, it is important to notice how the second half of the season largely improved on the first one: all the episodes until December (with the Christmas special) scored mostly some 28-29 million (with the exception of the Pilot), and very few crossed the 30 million of audience. Then, starting from January 1985 (from Pane Death to the season finale), the series drastically improved in ratings, with almost any episode (with only three exceptions) scoring some 32-33 millions, and almost any episode (with just three exceptions) placing above 30 million.

Eventually, the ratings as a whole span from 25 million (Help Wanted: Angel, the least watched one) to 35 million (Pilot, the most watched one). Most episodes fall between 28 and 32 million.

Here is the complete ratings of the first season of the series. To give some context: usually, there are around 55 to 65 TV programs airing in a week, of which around 25 are TV drama or procedural.

Episode	Audience	Weekly TV Programs	Weekly TV Shows
1984	1984	1984	1984
Pilot	35 million	3rd	1st
To Touch The Moon	30 million	20th	7th
Return Of The Masked Rider	31 million	18th	6th
Song Of The Wild West	27-28 million	26th	10th
One Fresh Batch of Lemonade Part 1	29 million	26th	12th
One Fresh Batch of Lemonade Part 2	28 million	28th	11th
A Divine Madness	27-28 million	20th	6th
Catch A Falling Star	30 million	21st	8th
Help Wanted: Angel	25 million	34th	13th
Dust Child	31 million	19th (tie)	6th
Hotel Of Dreams	29 million	26th	9th
Another Song For Christmas	26 million	27th	8th
1985	1985	1985	1985
Plane Death	28 million	37th	15th
One Winged Angels	33-34 million	17th	5th
Going Home, Going Home	33-34 million	18th	5th
As Difficult As ABC	35 million	14th	5th
A Child Of God	34 million	14th	5th
A Match Made In Heaven	30-31 million	24th	6th
The Banker And The Bum	31 million	22nd	6th
The Brightest Star	32 million	13th	4th
An Investment In Caring	31 million	17th	5th
The Right Thing	31 million	15th	6th
Thoroughbreds Part 1	29 million	13th	3rd
Thoroughbreds Part 2	29 million	17th	5th

They are obtained by combining The Philadelphia Inquirer ratings to these figures, as reported in each episode.

Disclaimer: the “TV show” category only considers shows classified as Highway (so,”drama”, as reported here). That’s because, during those years, the most successful programs were sitcoms, followed by soaps and talk shows, and then by a drama. As such, it would be unfair to evaluate the ratings of Highway taken out of context, without realizing how successful it was for being that kind of show released at that specific point of time. For this reason, such category of weekly TV genre shows (or “drama”) excludes programs such as The Cosby Show, Falcon Crest or Knots Landing (they are still counted as TV programs); instead, it will include popular drama shows such as Moonlighting, Miami Vice and Riptide. Also, consider that the category of TV drama still encompasses procedural crime and investigative series, which were the most popular genre of Drama back then

In this light, Highway was not any investigative procedural, but rather something unique and, although many considered Highway “sappy” and “the worst TV series for people with diabetes” — according to The Philadelphia Inquirer when describing the Pilot and the series by the end of the first half — it still succeeded in attracting an audience.

The sudden popularity of the series in its second part of the season is even more apparent by comparing its episodes of the first and second part: in the ratings collected from September 1984 to December, the first half of the season scored (included one rerun) around 16.7 of ratings each episode (roughly 28 – 29 million people), setting the series 27th out of 65 programs and 10th for TV genre shows. Instead, the second half of the season from January 1985 to April improved to 18.5 ratings (approximately 31 – 32 million) and placed 14th out of 75 programs, and 5th in TV genre show. So, by the end of the year 1984-1985, the series would rank as the 6th most watched TV genre show and 19th most watched TV program (ratings consider shows airing from September 1984 to April 1985 only).

The ratings came as something definitely unexpected for many, considering the offbeat premise of the show, and its unprecedented airing in the TV landscape at the time — as it’s important to point out that there were no major religious TV programs, even in daytime slots.

And, about the purpose of the series (to show people how to be nice), that was reached as well. In an interview with the Washington Post on June 1985, after the conclusion of the first season, French discussed about the show’s popularity, claiming that the first season was so successful “Because it’s in good taste… every show is an effort to show there’s a way to solve problems other than violence” while the TV landscape is saturated “with shows telling us that violence, hurtling cars…. are the ways to solve problems“, which somehow makes it harder for Highway to find an audience, and yet he succeeded nonetheless.

That same year also marked the first time after twenty years that NBC (the network Highway aired) became the second most watched network of the US (behind CBS only), and Highway was largely credited for contributing to accomplish such result. In an article dated April 1985 by the New York Times, while discussing about the strategy that revitalized the network’s popularity and led to such impressive achievement, Brandon Tartikoff, then president of NBC, reportedly explained what he did right was plain and simple: “I put my money down on Bill Cosby and Michael Landon“; sounds easy enough. In the same article, the series of Highway To Heaven and The Cosby Show are specifically pointed out as the reason behind NBC unexpected success that year.

Eventually, against all odds, the reluctance of producers, and a gloomy TV landscape, the probationary first season of Highway enjoyed a great success, and that was enough for producers to promote it as official series and order for at least three more seasons to be made (so, the series was secured until the fourth season at least). So, Highway officially concluded its probationary period, but Jonathan’s one not yet, and there’s still a long way ahead for him and Mark, with new assignments, some old faces and many new ones, new grounds (although still in California) and more punchlines, of course. Producers clearly learned their lesson; never bet against Landon from now on. So, while airing back old episodes throughout the summer and building up the audience, the production was ready to move to a second season, which is even going to have better ratings than this first one.