Airdate: 12/03/1986

Directed By: Michael Landon

The episode is quite a peculiar assignment, especially in the way it deals with The Stuff. And it seems that he couldn’t really help anyone without some sort of power anymore; in the first season he used the powers on very few episodes, and not as extensively no prominently (except maybe on a couple of episodes) as he does in this season.

But another important aspect is that it has Leslie Gordon again, making her the third recurring character of the series.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a senator prevent a budget approval at the Senate.

This episode brings back Leslie: that’s right, Mark’s younger sister. She previously appeared in the Pilot, where she fell in love with Jonathan, and then disappeared from the show. Occasionally, her character was mentioned here and there (for example, in Plane Death, in a deleted scene, in Love And Marriage, in the new prologue, and in Man To Man, at the beginning), but she was never shown again—until now.

So, after three seasons, Leslie is here, and it seems that she is about to get married to a man, Bill Norman, who already has a daughter. However, this girl, Leslie’s future stepdaughter and Mark’s niece, is ill.

Apparently, she suffers from some unspecified rare amino acid life-threatening problem. And there’s a potential treatment for it, but it’s unavailable almost everywhere because it’s an orphan drug: a medication for a disease so rare too few people would need and buy it to justify its production costs.

And, as Mark points out, it is happening in America.

Not everything in this series has aged well.

So, even though Jonathan and Mark were called by Leslie to go to her wedding, they decide to do something about this disease: as the title suggests, they’ll go all the way to Washington to convince a corrupt senator block the yearly budget and insert additional funds for the distribution of new Orphan Drugs that can help Mark’s niece and people like her.

It’s a high-stake assignment, similarly to Summit in season two.

Anyway, this episode also marks the fifth time just in this season Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help someone they already know: Jonathan knew the fellow probationary angel Ted in Love At Second Sight, while Mark knew the subjects of Man To Man (his old friend), Love And Marriage (his former colleague as a cop) and A Special Love (with Diane and Scotty). And now he’s helping his sister.

• Background

The title seems to indicate a miracle for the series: they are not in California anymore.

It’s one of the few episodes, and the first of the season, to take place in another state.

Also, the assignment is not entirely fictional either: as explained in the episode by a random pharmaceutic manager, the Orphan Drug Act was a real subsidy for Orphan Drugs that was approved in 1983, so one year before the beginning of the series, roughly.

However, by 1986 (when this episode was made), of the four million dollars that were meant to subside the Orphan Drugs every year, only a half were appropriated for it. And nobody did anything about it.

And this assignment is partly inspired by this real problem.

So, it’s yet another episode using real news in the setting, even though the rest of the assignment is entirely made up. Most of the assignments in the series are fictional but, occasionally, there are some episodes that either uses a real background to tell a fictional assignment (as in A Special Love or The Torch) or where an assignment is directly inspired by a real story (the complete list is here). This episode belongs to the first category.

As for the timespan, it’s roughly a couple of days: the first day Jonathan and Mark have dinner with Leslie, the second they discover Lindsey’s disease and the rest of the assignment takes place on a single night.

• Characters

In the episode, they get Leslie back. Being one of the few recurring characters in the series (and the third one so far, after Scotty and Diane), it might be useful to know something about her: she was introduced in the Pilot as Mark’s sister, a social worker at an elderly care home run by the despotic Mr. Haskins (the man who hires people without pay and scolds his employees for being five minutes late). When off her job, she had to take care of Mark, who had moved in with her after being suspended from the police for his drinking.

So, she was having a hard time, but her life was saved by Jonathan, who fixed both her brother and her job. But as soon as Jonathan concluded his assignment there, he abruptly left, and she began a relationship with her new neighbor that moved into Jonathan’s apartment. In the Pilot’s epilogue, Mark found Jonathan on a desert road and they began their journey in California to help people. While she stayed home.

Throughout the series, Jonathan and Mark have occasionally mentioned her: actually, the last reference was just one episode ago, when she called Mark to tell him an old friend needed his help.

They probably did that because they knew she was going to come back in one episode, and they needed to remind the audience of who she is.

But she had actually never appeared again after the Pilot.

At the beginning of this episode, she sends Mark a letter, and it turns out that she’s about to get married to a man.

Who is not the neighbor who moved into Jonathan’s apartment at the end of the Pilot and immediately hit on her.

It seems like this relationship didn’t work out.

Instead, her actual future husband, Bill, already has a daughter, who will become Mark’s niece.

And nobody seems willing to carry on Mark’s name: in The Monster, he thought Diane was pregnant because she called him with urgency, and he remembered her promise to name their son after him.

Only to later discover she wasn’t pregnant, but was just straining with Scotty.

Then, in A Special Love, he brought this up again when he was told that Diane wanted to have a baby, and he proposed a name in case they had a girl instead.

It wasn’t Leslie, for that matter.

And then he found out she was unable to have any baby, and would have to adopt instead.

And now, his sister is not going to have a baby of her own either. At least in the series.

It seems like no one wants to carry on his name.

Anyway, about Leslie and Mark: it remains unclear whether they met again at some point after the Pilot, and if Mark was actually aware that she was in love with that guy, or if he found out about it the moment she wrote him a letter. Presumably, she had told him, but certainly they haven’t seen each other, at least during the holidays (because Mark is always busy at Christmas). It’s also unclear whether he ever told her that he got married too. Even though it was for eight weeks, and it was a dramatic one.

But there’s another thing to point out about her: Leslie never mentions Diane at any moment. Like, she wasn’t there during her marriage, and it doesn’t seem like she has invited Diane to her own upcoming wedding either.

No doubts about it now: It’s clear these two hate each other.

Also, it seems like Mark forgot about Diane too: when he meets Leslie at the beginning of the episode, he drops a weird remark.

Maybe Diane is just an intermittent cousin.

Also, it shows that Mark has learned his lesson: this remark is what Jonathan told him in the Pilot, when he didn’t want to get off his sister’s back.

“No, she’s all you’ve got“.

It seems like he remembers some things sometimes. But not his cousin.

As for Jonathan, there’s one thing to point out too: when Mark is informed that Leslie is gonna get married, Jonathan seems unaware of that.

But in the episode Love And Marriage, he knew that Frank had invited Mark to the wedding before Mark could tell him. That further confirms that, by now, he hasn’t unlocked the mind reading power, and he had it then just because that cold open was added years later (the mind reading wasn’t even the only problem).

He doesn’t believe it either.

• Highway Actors

The episode features two Highway actors who had already appeared before. One is the character of Leslie played by Mary McCusker, the same actress as in the Pilot too.

Curiously, this season likewise marked the final appearances of both Scotty and Diane—but don’t worry: the next season will introduce new recurring characters. It almost seems like the fourth season marks a new beginning of the show: new recurring characters and no mention of the old ones (with the exception of Jane, the only recurring character introduced in the first three seasons to come back in the fourth season).

Anyway, once Highway was over, she continued acting for some years, and in the 1990s she gradually quit and became an acting coach instead

The second Highway actor is Russ Marin, who plays Congressman Kelly, the first congressman Jonathan and Mark speak with.

He had previously appeared in the second-season episode The Smile in the Third Row (the one featuring Bonanza’s Lorne Greene as a struggling actor with religious visions), though he played a different character then—a lawyer who helped Greene’s character draft his will.

And, before the series, he had worked with French in 1975 for a new version of the play The Lower Depths by the Group Rep, with Marin playing the lead and French directing him. So, it’s quite amusing to see them back here.

I was your director too, don’t you forget that, Bub.

One curious thing too: the senator Cory involved in the assignment is played by Eddie Albert, who was 80 at the time, even though his character is six years younger.

It’s not the first time an older actor plays a much younger character: one example is Arnie in Alone, portrayed by an actor who was almost thirty, even though the character is like fifteen or something.

• Production and Setting

Even though the title might suggest otherwise, don’t be fooled: production was not actually moved out of California. The Washington Congress shown is the Capitol—but not Washington, D.C.’s; it’s California’s. And just the exterior.

Maybe California is the true capital of the country.

Production took place in early September 1986, following Love at Second Sight in late August, and the episode aired in early December, three months later.

Glossary:

Angel Revelation: there’s one to the senator, to convince him to pass the bill.

Blooper: the episode has one blooper, when Jonathan and Mark have the first argument with the congressman Kelly, and he’s shown with his hands below the desk.

But then, his hands are holding his head.

Recycle: there’s one notable recycle in the episode. At the beginning, when Leslie takes Lindsey to the hospital, they show a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper, which is a familiar one.

That’s the same building used in the first-season episode As Difficult as ABC, where Brian was applying for a job (despite being unable to read) and later got stuck in an elevator with Jonathan.

It was never clear what that building was supposed to be, but it certainly wasn’t a hospital. But, even assuming that it were actually a hospital, the idea that Brian could be applying for a hospital job without being able to read seriously undermines the credibility of the “richest country in the world”—unless it’s a country where references aren’t required.

Punchline: there’s a punchline that sounds like a recycle, or at least is familiar. At the beginning of the episode, Bill tells Jonathan and Mark that going all the way to Washington and overrule the budget sounds crazy. Which is crazy, actually. But Jonathan seems to contest it.

It’s very similar to one of Harold’s punchlines in The Last Assignment, when he explains he has lost his faith because of tragedies taking place all over, including children dying of diseases that could be treated if people didn’t spend money to make weapons that kill other children instead.

Although that episode was written by Landon; perhaps Gordon, who is writing this, drew some inspiration from it.

Highway Of Mysteries: this episode has a bunch of mysteries both with the characters and the Stuff. So, one is about Leslie and Mark, and their relationship: it’s unclear how she has remained in contact with Mark all these years. Nor how she fells about Jonathan: in the Pilot, it was heavily implied that she was falling in love with that then mysterious man.

And that she was upset when Jonathan abruptly left at the end of that episode, even though she quickly got over thanks to her new neighbor.

Except they didn’t. Maybe Jonathan and Mark should have helped them in one of their assignment.

Then, in the epilogue of the Pilot, it was shown that Mark found Jonathan on a desert road and the two began working together, but they never explained whether Mark told his sister about this. Like, she was in love with Jonathan, a mysterious man who abruptly disappears one night, and she found out the next day that her brother is traveling around the country with that man.

The most obvious reaction would be to ask your brother what happened, why Jonathan left her so abruptly, what’s his real identity (only Mark knows that Jonathan is an angel, and a bunch of other people including the senator of this episode, but not her).

Yet, apparently, she didn’t ask anything about Jonathan or about what her brother has been doing traveling the country.

At some point in the episode, Mark actually tells her that helping people like Lindsay is part of his job, without going into the details.

What do everybody else think you do?

Maybe she knows — or maybe she’s just relieved that her alcoholic brother is finally off her back and she doesn’t care about Jonathan at all.

Then, the second mystery is about the Stuff: in the episode, it is never shown how Jonathan and Mark can get to Washington that quick. Supposedly, they took a plane, but as revealed in Keep Smiling in season two, Mark doesn’t like it.

Unless he’s forced to, like Jonathan and his relationship with animal products.

Either way, it’s also plausible they just used Jonathan and his vanishing power, but they never clarify it: they show them one day in Los Angeles, and the next in another Los Angeles but pretending to be in Washington instead.

And there’s also another mystery at the conclusion: after dying and invisibly coming back, the senator is shown in her hospital room.

Then he disappears.

And then he appears in the hospital hallway.

Is that Heaven?

There was no reason to have them disappear and then show them walking like that, instead of appearing in Heaven directly. And even though they wanted to show them headed towards that window because it’s light, then there’s no point in disappearing from the room instead of having them invisibly walk out. Unless they just want to show that they are invisible to the characters, but only intermittently visible to the audiences.

Even though it’s not likely the case, as there’s a precedent: immediately at the beginning of The Secret in season two, as soon as Jonathan was summoned by his superior, he was shown walking on a random road and gradually vanishing from it.

So, maybe people can access to Heaven by walking and gradually fading out. Even though it won’t be the case anymore in the fourth season.

The “Stuff” Power: one of the most important feature of the episode is the “Stuff” and how Jonathan uses it. He seemingly uses it for the first time to teleport himself to Washington alongside Mark (but it remains a mystery though) and to reach Capitol Hill instantly. They simply walk in as the senators are about to start the vote, without even attempting to change clothes or pretend to be congressmen.

Later, and most importantly, Jonathan uses the “Stuff” to let McCorkindale experiences a nightmare about having his grandson suffering from those rare diseases.

This marks the sixth time in the series that Jonathan uses his power to intrude into someone’s mind. The first was in season one for the Christmas special (in Eddy’s) and in Going Home, Going Home, when he entered Mark’s strange hallucination or dream (though it’s unclear exactly what happened); then, in season two, it occurred during To Bind the Wounds, when he manipulated at least three people (and one indirectly through Mark) and in Heaven On Earth (again on Mark’s). And, in this third season, it had already happened in Love And Marriage, although on that occasion he sent Mark alone.

Instead, this marks the first time in the series that he doesn’t bring Mark along. (Technically, they invaded multiple people’s dreams in To Bind the Wounds, and they weren’t in all of them together, but Mark was at least involved in some of those dreams.)

In this case, though, there’s something different: Jonathan doesn’t actually invade the Senator’s dream; instead, he manipulates events so the Senator has a nightmare about having an ill grandson.

That effectively makes Jonathan a kind of Sandman—no dream is safe from him.

Moreover, since Jonathan never appears in the dream, it’s unclear how he manipulated it. For example, with Eddy in season one, Jonathan was actually in the dream with him, and showed him how other people truly felt about him; in both To Bind the Wounds and Love and Marriage, either Mark or Jonathan traveled through memories of the subject who was having the dream (a guy who remembered the day he almost got drafted for Vietnam in the first case, and an elderly man who lived his bachelor’s party again in the second). Here, though, Jonathan seems to be artificially creating a dream, which is an entirely different matter. The senator is not living any particular memory again, but rather a fantasy of having an ill grandson. And he does that without being there, but simply fabricating the dream in some way.

There’s no way he could have done that, unless he were a sandman. Or he secretly disguised himself as the Senator’s daughter.

That’s Jonathan in the dream.

Anyway, he apparently uses the power to get to outrun the senator in the rush to the hospital.

That doesn’t make much sense, if he could have just used the power to vanish and appear immediately at the hospital, instead of doing dangerous reckless Joey Chitwood with the car.

Then, he uses his power to vanish and reappear on Capitol Hill to stop the bill. Notably, this is the first time in the series that Jonathan uses his power to disappear other people as well. That had happened before inside Eddy’s dream—with Eddy and Mark—but never outside a dream, even though Jonathan frequently used the power to move himself around quickly.

After that, he uses the Stuff multiple times: he creates a power outage, sabotages the restroom, and seemingly manipulate the Chair President into recognizing McCorkindale so he can hold the floor.

That’s too powerful: if Jonathan can use his power to make people say what he wants, he could simply manipulate everyone’s mouths and force them to vote against the bill. And, besides, it’s against what has long been established in the series: Jonathan is there to help people make the right choice or guide them the way they think it’s right, but the final choice is always up to the people. So, he should have found a way to convince that reluctant President to see that McCorkindale is fighting for a good cause; but if Jonathan can use the power to bend people to his will, then he could have done that in every assignment.

But he doesn’t.

And the most significant use of this power comes at the episode’s conclusion, when the senator dies and asks Jonathan to convince his superior to get him back to life just long enough to cast a vote sending the bill back.

But Jonathan doesn’t know if coming back is possible.

Now, it’s unclear whether Jonathan’s superior eventually allowed this, or whether Jonathan himself granted McCorkindale that power. If that were the case, it means Jonathan can make dead people appear on Earth for a short time. Or maybe their superior allowed it, because McCorkindale basically died for this assignment and it wasn’t fair: if it hadn’t been for his battle standing three hours talking to the Senate, he wouldn’t be dead now.

Security: there seems to be no security at the Senate, if Jonathan and Mark are able to walk in just like that.

The Job: in the episode, Jonathan and Mark do not really have a job.

But it seems like that job allows them to move around governmental buildings.

Ratings: 26 million audience. 35th Weekly TV program, 9th TV genre show.

The episode aired in December 1986 but, for some reason, was not very successful. It remained just on the same ratings as the preceding episode, and ranked as the fourth least-watched episode of the entire series up to that point. It’s difficult to determine exactly why the show’s ratings were declining so sharply, but after the episode Love and Marriage, they began fluctuating wildly from week to week, never settling into a stable audience. This is quite unusual for a third season of an established series like Highway is by now. Had this happened during the first season—as it actually did—it could have been justified considered that it had to build an audience. But then, by the second half of the first season, viewership had stabilized, with most episodes earning nearly identical ratings week after week.

Now, in the third season, ratings swing unpredictably from one episode to the next: A Special Love was not as high as season two, then ratings drastically improved with For The Love Of Larry and settled at around the same as season two for a couple of episodes, then there were two weeks break that brought them down again, then they immediately recovered with Love At Second Sight and Love And Marriage, and now, these last three episodes couldn’t even keep up with A Special Love earlier. It’s as if viewers are watching only sporadically, or stumbling upon episodes at random rather than tuning in consistently. Or maybe it was Love And Marriage that people didn’t like, and turned people away. At this point, every episode feels like a gamble in the ratings.