Season 2 Overview

Airdate: 03/05/1986

Directed By: Dan Gordon

This episode carries a significant assignment—arguably one of the most high-stakes of the entire series—as it tackles the tense dynamics between Russia and America. So much has changed since then, hasn’t it — although it still remains a relevant episode, somehow.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an elderly lady find her missing son.

The assignment is not as it seems, though. It begins as a family issue one: there’s an elderly, Russian woman who moved to the US during the WWII, while her son remained in her homeland. Now, Jonathan comes to her as a priest, setting to help her find her son.

In order to do that, he has to convince the Russian Government to collaborate with the American one. So, Jonathan and Mark go to work as butlers at a “secret talk” between Russia and US ministers, and they plan to bring the fictional Russian minister Karpovich to that woman, in order to move him with her story and make him help her.

And maybe bolster trust in the relationship between the two nations in the process. But that’s unimportant.

• Background

The episode takes place over the course of a day (similarly to Heaven On Earth), but it’s unclear to know the date. As for the setting, it’s deliberately vague. Most of the assignment is set at the “secret location” where the summit is taking place, but It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where this is meant to be. At the beginning, while Jonathan and Mark are listening to the summit news, the anchor reports that the Russian Prime Minister has landed at Andrews Air Force Base—a real location in Maryland. So, it’s reasonable to assume that the summit will take place somewhere in the East.

However, if the episode were actually set in Washington or somewhere nearby, it raises the question of how Jonathan and Mark got there in the first place. So far in the second season, they’ve mostly stayed in the western U.S. (actually, California or Arizona), with the exception of New York in The Smile In the Third Row, which aired at the beginning of the season. So, maybe, that implies this episode takes place around the same time as that one — which means that either this episode takes place earlier this season but only aired now, or that New York episode aired earlier than when it took place. Actually, that wouldn’t be the first time: the episode The Right Thing aired at the end of the first season (just before the season finale), yet it’s set on March 1984, placing it chronologically as the third episode of the series to take place — possibly after the Pilot and To Touch The Moon — although it aired one year later.

Anyway, if this episode really took place at the same time as The Smile In The Third Row, as they were already in the East Coast, that has many implications: for instance, the episode Heaven On Earth began with Mark reading on the newspaper about a “secret talks”, which is likely the summit of this episode.

That’s important for two reasons: it’s one of the very few references between two episodes of the series (it’s not really something important, but it’s there).

Also, it means that Heaven On Earth must be set before this, and if this episode takes place on 1985 alongside The Smile In the Third Row (because they are set in the East Coast), then Heaven On Earth must be set around that time too. Although that episode took place in Arizona, seemingly.

Otherwise, another possibility is that these episodes are all unrelated, and Jonathan and Mark traveled to Washington during the usual two of three days of downtime between the conclusion of an assignment and the beginning of the next one (more details about it at the “assignment order” here). But that’s hard to believe, considering it’s usually just a couple of days between stories, and you can’t realistically drive across the country that quickly. Unless, of course, Jonathan had some advance knowledge that their next assignment would be somewhere in the Washington area—just not exactly where—and Mark, being the loyal friend he is, didn’t question it when asked to drive all the way across the country.

However, despite the mention of Maryland, the episode was filmed in Encino, California—as always, there was little reason for the production to move. This wasn’t the first time the show pretended California was somewhere else (like Oklahoma in season one or New York earlier this season), but in those cases, the show made it clear where the story was set. Here, the “secret location” could be anywhere. It would be odd to fly the Russian Prim Minister into Maryland just to drive him across the country to California, though.

But again, the summit could be anywhere.

• Characters

So, the assignment last time of Heaven On Earth was quite dramatic for Mark, and probably now Mark has learnt a lesson about fighting to make a difference and all that. However, in this episode, he keeps on asking the same question about why their superior wouldn’t stop the war.

And Jonathan has to bring up again what he had already explained during the hallucination.

And then he goes again with the “where’s the people” issue.

That was the idea behind the assignment of Heaven On Earth, and the curious part is that this episode must take place after that (because Mark was reading the newspaper about the “secret talks” then). So, it can’t be that Mark still had to learn that lesson, but that he learns nothing from his assignments.

• Production and Setting

As for the production, it took place on late January 1986 for one week, while the script was written on December 1985, one month earlier.

There’s one important feature to point out: this time it wasn’t directed by either Landon or French (they both made almost all the episodes). Instead the reins were handed to Dan Gordon, the series’ head writer. This episode marks his first work as director not just for the series, but of his career. Of course, that is excluding that incomplete picture realized involving the New York Mafia (his early career is here). But he was unaware of their involvement, apparently.

As it has been mentioned before, Gordon started his career at Universal, after college, but was fired after being caught stealing from an executive. Then, he moved to New York and began working on a picture as director — only to discover mid-production that the producers were from the Mafia. Following such experience, he halted the production and went to Israel, where he served in the army for ten years before returning to the U.S. in the 80s and resuming his career as a screenwriter. So, while this episode marks his first completed directorial effort, it wasn’t technically his first attempt. From Mafia to angeling—quite a journey.

Anyway, there are just five episodes in Highway where Landon and French have been directed by somebody else: two of them are by William Claxton (The Secret and The Good Doctor, both in this season), while three of them are all by Dan Gordon, and this was the first one (the remaining two are both in the third season).

Instead, the setting is California, around Encino, which is where the summit is taking place.

Nobody would think that’s the place for a summit.

Glossary

Angel Revelation: there’s one to the Russian Prime Minister.

And he’s incredulous, of course.

Blooper: there are two in this episode. The first one is at the conclusion: when Jonathan brings the Russian Minister to meet the elderly woman, Karpovich waits by the door with his hands stretched a little.

However, next, the hands are now swinging around.

The second one is not really a blooper, yet something odd about the characters in this episode: basically, Karpovich and his assistant speak Russian only once at the beginning, then switch to English as soon as Jonathan enters their room, because the Minister believes that Jonathan could understand them all the same, or that they are being spied, and there’s no point in speaking Russian then.

However, all the Russian characters keep on talking in English even when Jonathan is not with them anymore. But when they were first introduced, Karpovich and the assistant were speaking Russian — implying they were also speaking Russian before Jonathan entered the room. Then, Jonathan gets in, and from that moment on, they continue speaking English for the rest of the episode, although there’s no American character there (like during the conclusion, in which Karpovich talks about his dream to his assistant, and they are alone in the room). That’s probably just for the audience’s benefit, but it still feels odd they were another way at the beginning then.

You mean the American audience here.

Little House Actors: the Russian Prime Minister is played by Nehemiah Persoff, who by that time had already worked with Landon and French on separate occasions.

During his career, he appeared on Cutter’s Trail (the 1968 pilot for a series that never came to be), playing a background character. Likely, it was set to be a western about a sheriff helping people — basically, a surrogate version of Gunsmoke, which at that time was losing ratings and was about to be canceled after its twelfth season. However, Gunsmoke was never canceled (at least for other eight seasons then), and Cutter’s Trail was never picked up — while this pilot aired two years later, in 1970, as a TV movie for CBS.

Anyway, on that movie (or Pilot), there was also French playing the antagonist — that was early in his career, when he mostly played the villain or the bad character (more details here). Although Persoff had a secondary character, and appeared just in one scene with French, they already knew each other from that, so he wasn’t new to French by the time of this Highway episode.

Anyway, Persoff wasn’t new to Landon either—they’d worked together before, back in one episode of season four of Little House (the season without French), where Persoff played an absent father whose son is forced to spend the summer with Charles, and learning life lessons through the ever-reliable method of hard labor on the farm.

And now, the three of them play for the first time together, but directed by someone else.

Friendly Jonathan: there’s a notable a Friendly Jonathan moment right at the beginning. While driving to the secret location (in California), Jonathan and Mark are stopped by the military, who aggressively hold them at gunpoint and demand identification. It already feels jarring—Jonathan and Mark were doing nothing, and the military seems to be about to shoot them just because, even though they weren’t assaulting them or anything.

They might be soldiers, just like you.

And it becomes even more awkward when Mark, flustered, doesn’t know how to respond, and Jonathan gives him a lead.

That Mark is an alcoholic ex cop?

But Mark chooses to reveal Jonathan’s identity instead.

And it turns out that’s the phrase that lets them through.

Now, it’s unclear whether Jonathan used the “Stuff” to make everything Mark said the secret phrase, or if he already knew the secret phrase and was just waiting for Mark to say it. If that was the case, it would be quite risky, since Mark could have really said anything random, even “I’m a ex drunk cop,” and then they might have been arrested. Unless Jonathan was reading Mark’s mind, and he knew that he was going to say that.

The Job: it’s a double job. So, in order to get to the Prime Minister of Russia, they pretend to be butlers from the White House.

She means angeling around, obvious.

So, Jonathan worked on the references on this.

Then, in order to get to the elderly lady, Jonathan becomes a minister, the fourth time in the series Jonathan pretends to be one.

The Stuff power: in the episode, Jonathan uses the Stuff a couple of times. The first one is seemingly at the beginning, when Jonathan knows the phrase to let them thorough, but wants Mark to say it (the friendly Jonathan instance). Then, he uses the Stuff to disappear from the bathroom where he was talking to Karpovich, and during the conclusion of the episode, when he acts that kidnapping by using the door gimmick — where he opens a door supposedly leading somewhere but now leading somewhere else (similarly to what happened on Another Song For Christmas with Eddy’s bedroom and To Bind The Wounds, both time leading to a memory from the past of the assignment’s subject). Even though, unlike those instances, Jonathan is not in the Minister’s dream now.

Ratings: 35 – 36 million, 12th Weekly programs, 3rd TV genre show.

As for the ratings, this episode aired one week after its predecessor, and somehow improved on its ratings — and that’s as near as the series will get to the streak of successes from Change Of Life until just two weeks ago. That’s mostly because Heaven On Earth for some reason couldn’t get to the same ratings of its predecessors, and halted the success of the series, but as unexpectedly as they suffered from that episode, in just one week this show got better. It remains the most-watched episode ever directed by Dan Gordon out of the three he did for the series.