Airdate: 10/08/1986

Directed By: Michael Landon

This episode is notable for its cold open. Or prologue, or whatever (that was weird). It’s unclear whether the episode was always meant to be that way, and it originally aired that way, or whether that prologue was added at some point later when they realized the actual episode was too short (and it was likely added when the series went to syndication). The only way to confirm this would be to ask someone involved in the production, to read the original screenplay (if it originally began with the squirrel sequence, that would confirm the episode was always intended to start with the dog assignment and that drug-related prologue was added later), or to watch the original 1980s broadcast of the episode (not the syndicated or DVD versions). Still, it’s plausible that “cold open“, even if it had always been part of the episode when it originally aired in 1986, wasn’t written to be part of the episode but was added upon realizing the broadcast would have been too short otherwise.

But now, ten minutes into the episode, the head credits finally rolls, the title appears and the actual episode begins, and it’s completely unrelated to what has happened in the drug busting assignment of the prologue (if this really aired alongside the original episode and not later in syndication, the audience must have been puzzled too).

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are “assigned” to find the family of a lost dog.

The episode is peculiar for several reasons. Basically, after that random cold open, the head credits play out, and Jonathan and Mark are driving up the Los Angeles mountains on vacation.

As they drive, they find a lonely dog who harasses Mark.

And Mark tries to brutally abandons him.

But then the dog saves Mark from a car crash, and eventually, Mark decides to improvise an assignment and try to find the dog’s family.

However, the dog’s family has actually suffered a car accident, and the dog has to find a way to make Jonathan and Mark rescue them before it’s too late.

Now, this episode it’s the first dog assignment of the series (episodes about finding a dog’s family): there’s another one in the fourth and one in the fifth season.

Also, it’s yet another episode in which the assignment is improvised: as explained at the beginning, Jonathan and Mark do not have any assignment, and decide to help the dog out of their own initiative.

That’s the third time in the series the episode doesn’t have any assignment (the first and second episode were both in season two, when Jonathan dressed up in a dead birds costume to save animals from water contamination, and then when Mark felt guilty over an accident that killed a little girl).

• Background

As for the timespan, the episode lasts roughly ten days (according to the usual rule). That’s apparent because, at the beginning, Mark tells Jonathan it’s been almost a week with no assignment.

That implies that this episode doesn’t take place immediately after the cold open, but at least a couple of days later.

Then, after finding the dog, one day passes before they rescue the family.

As for the setting, it’s Santa Clarita: in particular, it’s set over the Sierra Hwy, in the Canyon Country, as revealed by the Vet’s sign.

Curiously, the place for this “Washburn Animal Hospital” will be recycled in another dog assignment of the fourth season.

• Characters

This episode is weird for multiple reasons. And Jonathan’s behavior is part of that. Throughout the episode, he often remains in the background, and allows Mark to make most of the decisions. For example, when Mark nearly runs over the dog and then decides to leave it by the roadside, Jonathan says nothing, even though they are effectively abandoning an animal that may die without help.

Jonathan could just as easily take responsibility for the dog himself, yet he leaves the situation entirely to Mark.

This passivity is very uncharacteristic of him.

Instead, as for Mark, at the beginning of the episode he’s listening to a familiar tune.

It’s the same 1922 song he was listening to in the second episode of the series, To Touch The Moon, because Mark seemingly listens to the same old radio where it’s either Baseball chronicle or old songs without rights.

The production likes Mark for this, especially after spending all their money on Shout in season two.

Also, just like then, Jonathan is not pleased by his vocal rendering, so he turns off the radio.

But at least now he simply turns off the radio instead of using the Stuff and lying about it.

Their friendship has clearly made some progress.

• Production and Setting

Apparently, the episode was produced on July 1986, and the setting is Santa Clarita, around the area where the season one finale took place, in particular the part where Lizzy and Garth spent their first day as married couple.

And they look similar.

Glossary

Cute: there’s a strike of cute at the beginning of the episode, after turning off the radio Mark was listening to, and offering him to stop by to eat.

Friendly Jonathan: when Jonathan turns off Mark’s radio, and offers him to go eating something.

“KA” network: for this series, they created a fictional news TV channel, the “KA” news, that basically every character watch, as if it were the only TV station in the country.

That station was made for the episode The Torch, where they showed Mark watching it reporting the death of a Nazi fanatic.

It was also used in Children’s Children, but now now, the station is back in this episode, when the cabin’s owner is watching it.

The setting remains largely the same, as well as the first initials “KA”, but for some reasons they changed the last two letters “CF” to “BF”, even though the rest is the same. It’s unclear why they did that: perhaps Landon remembered they had created a TV station for season two and wanted to use that again here, but they forgot its name. Or maybe they couldn’t find that letter and just replaced it.

Highway Of Mysteries: this episode has so many puzzling mysteries and revelations about the angelic probation. So, starting from the background, a mystery is how it ties to the cold open: when Jonathan and and Mark are eating, Mark reveals they have been one week without any assignment, which means it’s been almost one week after the drug assignment. It’s then unclear what they have been up to after the cold open and before the beginning of this episode.

Maybe they were driving somewhere, and Mark had been singing all the time, three days straight.

Of course, in every episode there’s a downtime between assignments, but this time it’s different because they clearly state they were headed to the mountains by the end of the cold open, and now it begins on the mountains, yet they are still driving and headed somewhere. Of course, maybe they already had their vacation and were coming back to the city, but it’s unclear what they have been doing all alone up in the mountains for some days.

Then, a second mystery is with their attitudes. Beside Jonathan letting Mark decide for the dog, what’s also odd is Mark’s attitude towards the dog: when he tells Jonathan he fells hopeless about the dog, he also assumes that they’ll have to abandon him. And, apparently, that’s not the case.

What?

That was an old one.

No, really, they can’s take the dog just like that: in the Pilot, the epilogue was all about Mark begging Jonathan to let him come along in his journey, and Jonathan being so insecure and saying that it wasn’t his decision to make and the superior wouldn’t allow it — and dropping that punchline that it doesn’t take an angel to act like one. And now that Mark wants to take a dog and Jonathan plays it cool as if it were no problem at all.

If it was Okay when an ex drunk cop asked for it, there would be no problem.

But there are some problematic aspects: they constantly move around, even to other states, so they’d have to leave the dog alone somewhere, unless they were willing to pay for someone to take care of him, or taking him everywhere. Of course, they could take him all the way to a new state, or go there by car instead of using a plane, but it’s unpractical. It could also be they might intend to leave him to Mark’s sister Leslie or to Scotty and Diane, but at that point it would be reasonable to directly let them adopt the dog. Instead, they do not even mention them. Actually, they don’t even mention whether they intend to take him just as long as they an find a family for him, or if Mark wants to adopt him permanently.

If that were the case, there are several issues: some assignments are just too dangerous for them. Like, imagine what would have happened if they had brought a dog on the drug assignment they’ve just worked on in the cold open, or everytime they have a dangerous assignment that requires them to stay away long shifts (like in the Summit episode, to name one, where they had to live in a protected house). But nobody seems to be worried about it.

And what’s even more ridiculous is Jonathan’s reply to Mark’s question about what their superior will think of it: dog’s are created the same way as human, so the superior wouldn’t want to see the dog killed in a dog shelter.

Now, hold on just a minute: that’s just illogical under any point of view. I mean, if dog’s are “creatures” made the same way as men, then all animals are, but that doesn’t mean that they can bring all the animals they find along the way and take them to their assignment. Unless they want to become like Cinderella. And men are “creatures”, yet Mark had to beg Jonathan in the Pilot all the same. Either that time Jonathan didn’t have any pity for Mark, or maybe now he’s implying not all animals are equal.

There are other issues with that: if the dog being one “creature” made like human is enough to save him, then for the same reason all animals are equally worth saving and having a life. There should be no problem with that assumption, if Jonathan didn’t eat animals (as he implied he didn’t during One Winged Angels, because worms are “living creatures”).

Yet, there was no problem ordering shrimps at the restaurant (The Smile In The Third Row), forced Diane to eat sea animals (The Monster), and then he ate snails upon meeting his daughter (Keep Smiling). Similarly, there was no problem when they found the dog in this episode, and Mark tries to abandon it at the side of the road and drive away “before he tries to get inside”.

It was fine then.

But another huge mystery besides this “living creature” justification is the implications it has for the future: if they can take that dog on their journey, that might imply they can take other people with them along the highway. The mystery is the for instance, in the episode Alone, Jonathan told the kid Arnie that he wished to be his father. But then, does that mean they could have actually adopted him. Maybe Arnie’s case is edgy, because it could be argued that Arnie was meant to stay with the family that eventually adopted him, and he wasn’t meant to be adopted by Jonathan. Yet, by Jonathan’s reasoning here, it seems they can actually take anyone they want along the way, as long as whoever they meet is in danger of being abandoned.

Nobody finds this over-enthusiastic attitude so unnecessary.

But, eventually, they don’t adopt the dog, as they find his owner. However, there comes another mystery: at the conclusion, it is revealed that the dog was actually killed in the accident and has become an angel—or rather, a probationary one.

Thus, the entire episode is not Jonathan and Mark’s assignment, but the dog’s trying to save his folks.

This revelation raises several important points. First, any being can apparently become an angel, not just humans like Jonathan or Petros (who was Saint Peter) or Harold or anybody. It is unclear, however, whether the dog is expected to work as an angel in the same way Jonathan does, or whether this episode was simply a one-time test to earn entry into Heaven. If saving his family was a prerequisite, then the dog may not truly be an angel at all, but was just on a personal rescue. So, if that was the case, this episode suggests that anyone who wishes to go to Heaven must pass some sort of examination (which, for the dog, was rescuing his family).

Anyway, it’s a mystery, as they never explain whether the dog is actually a probationary angel, or whether everyone has to solve an assignment before going to Heaven, or whether this episode was an exception.

If everybody were to earn entry to Heaven, it would be unfair: Mark has been working with an angel almost three years now, he has largely proved he’s worth it.

From Little House: the episode has some weird features from Little House, but not really recycles. One is apparent from the title: there are two episodes of Little House with a similar title, For The Love Of Nancy in season eight (the episode about the overweight kid and the bully, which likely served as inspiration for Highway season two finale), and For The Love Of Blanche in season nine (the orangutan episode). And, curiously, both episodes of Little House and this Highway one were all written by Landon too (and they are all peculiar). It seems like when he writes a weird aimless episode he doesn’t quite know how to name, he’d just go with “For The Love Of” and insert a random character name.

But there’s another weird feature from that series: after the first night, there is a sunrise shot that looks very familiar.

It is the same sunrise repeatedly used in Little House between scenes, usually to indicate that a day has passed. Problem is that Little House is set in Minnesota, not Santa Clarita. Maybe this episode is meant to take place in Minnesota as well (but that’s impossible, because they show the “Sierra HWY” sign at the clinic).

Alternatively, it may simply reflect the fact that on Little House they only pretended to be in Minnesota bit it was actually filmed in California, just like anytime in Highway they seem to move around the country but they actually stay in the Los Angeles County.

It might be considered a recycle, but that scene was used multiple times in Little House and wasn’t specifically made for a single episode. Still, it’s a weird way to show one night has passed in the episode. And it’s amusing to think of what might have happened while editing the episode: whether Landon told his editor they needed a passage to mark the end of the day and the editor recycled the Little House one because it looked Santa Clarita enough, or the editor told Landon they didn’t have any scene for that, and Landon ordered him to use the Little House one. Because it’s been almost two years, who would ever accuse Landon of recycling.

The “Stuff”: the handling of the “Stuff” adds to this oddness of the episode. It’s unclear whether the dog has access to the Stuff or not: apparently, he does, because he seemingly climbs over the fence of the dog house and traces back Mark at the cabin.

But that would make it another mystery: why does the dog latches onto Mark, who abandoned him by the lonely road as soon as he found him, instead of trying to alert someone else. Of course, it’s possible that there are some unexplained rules about the way the dog’s probation works: he found Mark, so he targeted him and only wants him to help find his missing family. Yet, they never explained that.

After Mark accuses the veterinarian of deliberately letting the dog loose, the vet claims the dog ran away despite the locked kennel.

But Jonathan does instead.

And when Mark asks how Jonathan can be so certain, Jonathan merely looks at him — as if the answer were obvious.

It is not obvious at all.

It is entirely unclear whether Jonathan used the Stuff to determine the truth or whether he was informed by his superiors. If Jonathan did use the Stuff, this would mark the first instance in the entire series of him reading someone’s mind—perhaps a power newly introduced for this season.

Neither Mark believes it.

And Jonathan seems annoyed.

And sounds annoyingly condescending too.

Ratings: 35 million audience, 7th Weekly TV programs, 2nd TV genre show.

The episode aired in October 1986 and showed a significant improvement over its predecessor, which suffered a lot compared to season two. Actually, this represents the second-largest ratings jump of two consecutive episodes in the series (the biggest occurred between Close Encounters Of The Heavenly Kind and Change Of Life in January 1986 during season two). That seemed like a positive sign for the rest of the season, which, again, had a slow start in terms of ratings. It wasn’t bad, yet it was far compared to the second season.

However, that would not be the case. This episode would remain the most-watched episode of the entire third season. In fact, no later episode not just in the season, but in the entire series, would ever even surpass a 20-point rating (roughly 34 million viewers). This is particularly striking given that nearly every episode of season two attracted more than 35 million in the audience.

It is not that the third season was unsuccessful; rather, season two was the exception. In some way, this episode marked the last greatly popular of the series: the ratings of season two would remain undefeated, but the upcoming episodes in the season will still be a great success. Actually, this season scored exactly like season one in terms of ratings, which was very popular at the time. So, nothing to worry about for producers, yet.