Season 2 Overview

Airdate: 01/15/1986

Directed By: Victor French

This episode continues the streak of puzzling titles in the show. It was unnecessary, really.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an elderly man obtain custody of his grandson after the death of the kid’s parents.

It’s a family related assignment, but not a family issue; so, they won’t have to work on a reconciliation between grandfather and grandson — there’s no problem with them. Rather, the kid remains orphan of both parents — and only his grandpa is left for him.

However, the grandpa is unemployed and without a pension — and spends most of the days locked in his room sending broadcast to the outer space, hoping to get in touch with something.

And now the social services remind him that, if he doesn’t have a job, they are going to take the grandson away from him.

So, instead of a family issue, it’s an old folks assignment, similar to An Investment In Caring (about old folks forced to retire) more than The Right Thing (about folks struggling with accepting their age).

Here, Jonathan and Mark are assigned shake him back to Earth, get him a job — and maybe have him fall in love with his neighbor. That makes it a love assignment too, at least in part.

• Background

The timespan of the episode is one week, as the woman from the social service reminds the grandpa that’s how long she is giving him to find a job before she comes back.

Instead, the setting is California; in particular, the characters live in Windsor, where much of the assignment takes place.

• Characters

One peculiar feature of the episode is the whole premise: at the beginning, Jonathan warns Mark of a star in the sky.

Is it a bomb or an angel?

It’s where all the special effects of the series went into.

So, Jonathan orders Mark to follow it.

That’s not a star, but a meteor.

Yet, it’s unclear why he’s acting like that, because the assignment is not following that, but rather helping a family out. And when they find the pit, he even pretends to be some alien for the grandson.

Even Mark is puzzled at that.

For some reason, Jonathan decided that it was better to lie for this assignment and tell people he’s an alien rather than an angel. The odd part is that, unlike the Angel Revelation instances in which he introduced himself as angel while Mark as only a friend (or an ex-cop), this time he is mysterious with Mark too, and wants the kid Adam to believe that Mark is an alien as well. That’s the only time in the series Jonathan does something like that (forcing Mark to pretend to be someone else).

But there’s something odd about his attitude too: when they meet Harvey for the first time, Jonathan claims that he believes in aliens too, and adds something peculiar.

Now, if that friend is Mark, and the angel is Jonathan (and the audience knows that Jonathan is actually the angel), that might imply that aliens exist in the world, the same way as that “friend” once saw an “angel”; unless Jonathan means that he’s not an angel and he’s been fooling Mark for over a year. That would be similar to what Jonathan said in A Divine Madness, when Mark told Jonathan that the man they were assigned to help was lunatic (because he thought to be a Medieval King) and Jonathan replied it wasn’t any different than Mark believing in angels instead (implying he wasn’t an angel, or that people shouldn’t be judged based on their belief).

And Mark’s reaction is quite odd: he just makes a shy, awkward, quiet laugh. He’s not looking puzzled at Jonathan, nor he makes a contemptuous smirk because his friend just subtly made fun of him; instead, he just looks ashamed or something like it, as if he knew what Jonathan is saying were true but he felt sorry for it.

Instead, as for Mark, for some reason he doesn’t even appear that much in the episode, and he just spends time with the kid throwing the ball.

That’s the second time in the series Mark plays baseball (the first time was here), and again with a kid.

Then, he disappears for much of the episode.

• Actors (Highway Lifetime Actors, Little House Actors)


The actors playing Harvey and Adam, grandpa and grandson, both had already worked with French and Landon during their careers.

So, the grandson Adam is Jerry Supiran, a former child actor who began his career in the early 1980s and appeared in the Christmas Special of Little House during the eight season (the episode where the family gathers around on Christmas sharing childhood memories related to the holiday). There, he played Almanzo — not the adult of course, but the kid’s version in a flashback.

On that occasion, he didn’t play with Landon but was directed by him.

But three years later he’d work with French too for one episode of Fame, the popular 1980s musical on NBC that aired on syndication. For that series, Supiran made a guest appearance in the third season finale as the younger brother of Chris, one of the many protagonists.

Anyway, around the same time, he played a recurring role in a weird Sitcom about a man who buys a girl robot to live with his kids, and he retired from acting in 1989 (four years after this Highway episode), in order to go to college. In the 1990s, he reportedly became homeless— from an alleged manipulative girlfriend who reportedly stole all his money earned in his child acting career — and then became an advocate for them and volunteers around.

Curiously, on that very same Fame episode, the season three finale, there’s also French playing the father of Chris, and of Supiran’s character too, of course.

That role in Fame is also a peculiar one for him: one, that episode was directed by William F. Claxton, who had already directed multiple episodes of Little House and a couple of episodes of Highway too, right this season (he was the first one besides Landon and French to have ever directed one episode one this series).

That episode marked an important part of his career too: it was produced on early April 1984 (around the same time as the Pilot of this series) and was the last role Frenhc has ever played besides Highway; after that episode, French would exclusively appear on Highway for the rest of his career (from 1984 to 1988), likely because making a TV series like this and playing a prominent role kept him too busy. Then, he wasn’t planning to retire just yet (apparently, he was called to direct the movie Rock-A-Doodle), but on 1989 his career was cut short when e was diagnosed with a lung illness, and died that same year. So, his career was cut short and he never got the chance to make anything after Highway; and his last role on TV excluding this series is right on Fame, five years earlier.

Instead, grandpa Harvey is played by Harold J. Stone, who has a decade-spanning career appearing in numerous television projects — including a 1966 two part episode of the sitcom Get Smart, during its first season.

On that sitcom, French played a recurring character appearing in the most absurd places of all. In a 1979 interview with The Tampa Tribune, he described it as a comical agent “Who was always getting locked inside closets and clocks or upside down inside a bass violin case“; early in his career, before his friendship with Landon, basically French used to play either bad characters or comical ones, and this role isn’t less (more details about it here).

Anyway, he appeared eight times in the first season (mostly playing that role), including in the same two part episode Stone was in (although they were never in same scene at the same time).

And now, 20 years later (and older), they get the chance to play together (with Landon as well), and Stone can be directed by French too.

Then, after this episode, Stone officially retired from acting at the age of 72, and spent the rest of his life privately until his death in 2005, some twenty years after this Highway, which was his last role. So, he is part of the Highway Lifetime Actors (those who retired or concluded their acting career with an episode of this series). He’s the third so far, and there will be more later on. There’s always something poignant about experienced actors ending the career with this show — and this episode in particular, in some ways, feels like some kind of sendoff to him.

Anyway, it’s quite a coincidence: on this episode there’s an actor (Stone) from a show that gave French more stability as actor (at least according to his children) twenty years earlier, and there’s another actor (Supiran) from another TV show that marked his last role (excluding Highway, of course). And Frenhc is directing both actors this time.

But there’s also someone else whom French had already collaborated with before: Harvey’s old neighbor whom he falls in love with is played by actress Louise Latham, who, just like Harold Stone, had a decade spanning career.

Maybe that’s why their characters fall in love.

Anyway, in her long career, she also appeared in the 1980 movie The Ghosts Of Buxley Hall, about three ghosts haunting a boys school. There, both French and Latham played the ghosts.

And, curiously, that movie was directed by Bruce Bilson, the same director of multiple Get Smart episodes, including the one with both Stone and French (where the two characters didn’t meet, but whatever). Again, Hollywood is really a small world

• Production and Setting

As for the production, it took place on late November 1985, around the same time the baseball assignment aired— and lasted for one week, as usual. It was written by Paul Cooper, who had already worked on one episode this season and two episodes in the first season (that man surely likes family issues assignments) and it was directed by French, explaining why Mark’s character doesn’t appear that much — possibly he’d rather act or direct, not both contemporaneously (more details about it at the entry “Production and Setting” here). Curiously, it’s the second episode of the series written by Cooper and directed by French; nothing wrong here, just that, for some reason, most episodes he wrote weren’t directed by Landon, even though he was the one directing more than 90 episodes.

The setting is South Pasadena, in particular Windsor—because, after all, it’s always nice to hang around California, but they needed to change the Los Angeles setting.

Glossary

Car: in this assignment, the car plays an odd role. As they pretend to be aliens for Adam, the car is supposedly their ship, which they land in the pothole.

Then, it’s not there anymore.

And the curious part is that they are never shown getting it again, although it must have happened, because they’ll have it in the next episode.

Doozy: there’s one doozy kid. at school.

Friendly Jonathan: one instance at the beginning, when he’s driving the car as Mark sleeps behind, and then he suddenly leaves the wheel.

That’s one of the worst thing Jonathan has veer done to Mark; and if Mark hadn’t rushed to the wheel, he could have been killed or something.

Actually, it’s unlikely Jonathan would have let that happen, and he he’d rather use the powers to drive the car telepathically (As he’d do to stop the car when they spot the meteor), yet there was no need for him to play such a trick on Mark, especially after Going Home, where they actually had an accident.

Or maybe he wanted to kill him and then have him turned to an angel.

Joey Chitwood: one instance, at the beginning, when Mark is recklessly driving to chase the meteor.

So, Mark hasn’t really learned his lesson from Going Home, nor The Halloween Special, nor from the experience of Jonathan trying to kill him just two minutes ago.

But Jonathan is incoherent: when he tries to warn Mark about his Joey Chitwood moment, and he looks quite scared too.

Now you know what it feels like when someone drives like that.

Yet the weird part is that, if he wanted to, Jonathan could use the Stuff to just halt the car right away (as he did on multiple instances, beginning with To Touch The Moon, and including in the friendly Jonathan instance of this episode).

Quiet Quitters: one instance at the conclusion.

And they are not. So, it’s the second instance in a row; they likely realized they had been too polite in this second season.

The “Stuff” Powers: 
in the episode, Jonathan uses the powers. quite indirectly. For instance, when Harvey the grandpa says he can’t afford to pay to apply for a job, and Jonathan finds the money carried to the car window.

And again when the man throws away his application, Jonathan uses the same trick to have it carried back right at the porch. It’s the second time in the series Jonathan uses such power (here is the first one).

Then, it’s unclear whether Jonathan gave the Stuff to the meteor fragment, and to anyone getting a hold of it, or not.

Or maybe he’d stuffed the stone with powers.

Ratings: 34 million audience. 19th Weekly programs, 3rd TV genre show.

In terms of ratings, this episode was successful— although definitely not on the same level as its immediate predecessor (which, at that point, was the most-watched episode of the series), but it was admittedly hard to keep up with that. Except that’s exactly what will happen by the next episode.

Anyway, the episode lost more than 3 ratings point compared to Alone, making it the largest rating loss between two consecutive episodes of the series up to that point (in the third season several episodes will lose even more), and it was also the first episode of the season to score less than 20 ratings point after five episodes in a row that got above that. Either way, as it is apparent by the ratings, it was still largely successful, more than most episodes that aired in January 1985 during the prior season. And such great string of success will be continued into the next episode, which, again, is going to be the most popular of the whole series.

It seems that the first episodes airing in January of the new year often sets the tone for the rest of the season’s success. This pattern held true for the first season (even though on that case the episode airing the second week surpassed the preceding one) and it will also hold true for the third and fourth season. It won’t be the case for the fifth season , but that’s just because it didn’t air any episode that month.