Airdate: 01/07/1987

Directed By: Michael Landon

After taking the usual two-week Christmas holiday break, the series resumed airing new episodes in the New Year—and this is what they chose to kick things off with. It’s an episode with many obsessions, like any episode airing after Christmas, for that matter.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help the members of a neighborhood devastated by a fire.

Much of the assignment doesn’t revolve around a single, specific issue. At first glance, at least.

Essentially, Jonathan and Mark are disguised as priests and open an old abandoned church.

Which is soon turned into a refuge for a neighborhood that has been destroyed by a recent fire.

So, their assignment is to help anyone who comes to the church.

Then, suddenly, a man arrives there as well, pretending to be a priest (just like them, for that matter). But he’s no angel: he’s actually a burglar who stole two mysterious fellas’ briefcase, which is loaded.

So, Jonathan and Mark must straighten him out while also dealing with those criminals that were after him.

And then making him fall in love with a lonely spinster.

Perfect for him.

It’s an episode set on the streets, with plenty of bins scattered around.

• Background

The episode takes place specifically at Eastwood Boulevard, as revealed by the radio Jonathan and Mark are listening to. And no such place exists, of course.

But it’s likely somewhere in Los Angeles, a fictional one.

• Characters

As for the characters, there are some notable aspects. One is about Jonathan: basically, over the course of the episode, he seems patronizing towards Charley, and doesn’t want to force him to do the right thing. Rather, he’s just there to help him, but the final choice is up to Charley.

That’s a recurring point in the series: Jonathan can only show people that there’s another way if they can’t find one, but the decision has to be made by the people—he can’t force them.

It’s particularly important in the context of Landon’s intentions, getting people to help each other. Importantly, it confirms Jonathan’s power can’t force him to make people do what he wants to. Even though that will happen on some later episodes.

Instead, Mark appears to reference his own past experience. At the end of the episode, when Charley decides to keep the money but feels empty without the woman he loves, Mark teases him by saying that with all that money, plenty of other girls will be after him.

That’s what Mark learned a few episodes ago, when he won the lottery and fell in love with a woman who only pretended to reciprocate his feelings in order to take his money.

That episode.

However, since Mark effectively forgot his previous life experiences in that episode—including his love for Stella in season one—it is also possible that this line is not meant as a deliberate callback, but simply a general comment.

• Production And Setting

From a production standpoint, the episode was written on May 1986, as the third episode of the season, it but was only filmed in November of that year. It’s unclear why this episode took so long: maybe it wasn’t originally selected to be part of the series (keep in mind they write more episodes than the ones they need, and each season as some leftovers at the end), and was only picked up much later.

Anyway, it was the second produced for the second half of the season, and it’s the third in the official streak of episodes directed solely by Landon for the remainder of the series.

As for the setting, filming took place in California. Specifically, the street where Charley inadvertently steals the money from the suitcase is in Rosslyn Lofts. Then, the church where most of the assignment unfolds is the St. Mary’s Catholic one in Boyle Heights, and there’s a problem here.

The Lofts and the church are actually 3.5 miles away, roughly a 50 minutes walk; yet, in the episode, they show Charley chased by the thugs all the way to the church, in about three minutes.

Perhaps he used the Stuff, or at least some kind of it.

Curiously, this is the same neighbourhood used in As Difficult as ABC from season one—the episode about the adult playing a teenager who couldn’t read (hard to believe) and resolved to bust some dealers (even harder to believe).

Actually, the school used in that episode— including the conclusion where Jonathan and Mark pretended to be criminals during a drug deal — is located close to this church.

It seems that whenever the series needs a rough neighborhood setting, they go here—and the residents probably don’t appreciate.

Glossary:

Angel Revelation: it’s actually a double this time. One is for Charley, of course.

The second one is to the thugs who want to kill him.

Blooper: one blooper at the conclusion, when Charley walks out of church while hugging the briefcase.

But when he turns around, it’s not there.

Bins: it’s a bins episode, one of Landon’s three obsessions.

There are more obsessions in this episode.

Cute: when Mark opens the church and interacts with two burglars who were robbed by Charley, one of the burglars wittily claims he doesn’t want to confess, Mark responds with his catchphrase.

That’s the only time in the entire series that Mark drops a cute to someone other than Jonathan. In the next season, Jonathan will do the same.

Drugs: it’s a BBD episode. Besides the bins, Jonathan also talks about another of Landon’s obsessions.

The odd part is that, earlier, Jonathan advised Charley to give the thugs the money back.

So those two fellas can buy drugs to sell to kids? Come on, you know better.

Highway Actors: as for the actors, this episode has plenty of familiar faces. There are four Highway actors: two returning actors from the first and second season, and two newcomers who will return later on.

The first returning actor is Martin West, who plays the police officer asking for help to rescue the victims.

He had already appeared in the second season episode The Monster, but only in one scene at the beginning, giving a misguided advice.

Even in this episode his character appears a couple of times, but he’s the same actor.

Then, the second old Highway Actor is Dennis Pratt, who plays one of the two burglars.

He had already appeared in the first-season episode Catch a Falling Star, where he played Junkie, the man who tried to rob Jonathan and Mark at the store.

In this episode, his character is called “Bushy” and serves a very similar function: an overly excited robber with drug problems who attempts to steal from Jonathan and Mark. Given the similarities in both their mannerism and name, it is unclear whether Bushy is meant to be the same character as Junkie, or simply a deliberate reference to that episode.

This would not be unprecedented. In season one, Ivor Barry appeared in two different episodes, both times playing the enslaved butler to a grumpy man who is then straightened out by Jonathan and Mark. So it is possible that, after being arrested, Junkie became a dealer and changed his name to Bushy. If that is the case, however, this would be his final appearance in the series, and the character’s fate in this episode would make that clear.

Also, before this episode, Pratt had a part in The Torch (the Neo-Nazi episode), but only in a background role in just two scenes, making it unlikely that those characters were meant to be the same.

The other two Highway actors in the episode are newcomers instead.

The subject of the assignment, Charley, is played by John Pleshette, who will return in season four playing a similar role: a gentle, comical man.

Anyway, the woman he falls in love with is played by Didi Conn, who will return again later in this same season.

Once again, she plays a different yet very similar character—an awkward, shy woman who is just helpless when it comes to love.

And, again, in 1978, way before Highway, she had a role in Grease as yet another awkward woman.

It’s curious: three Highway actors in the episode play a role that resembles their other appearances in the series (and in part of their career). And Conn’s one is especially striking: she comes back in this same season, playing yet another relevant part. Maybe they are actually meant to be related, somehow. More likely, someone believed she has the right face of a clumsy girl. And Pleshette makes for a right friendly phony.

Joey Chitwood: at the beginning, when Jonathan recklessly turned the car around. Also, it’s exactly the same thing Jonathan did at the conclusion of The Last Assignment in season two. And it was unnecessary as well.

References: besides Mark advising Charley on what to do with the money (it might be a reference to Mark’s own experience), and Bushy’s role (might be a reference to Junkie), there’s another, indirect reference, at the beginning of the episode. As they wander around waiting for an assignment, Mark is listening to the radio playing Ridin’ Down The Canyon by Gene Autry, a familiar tune.

It also played at the end of the cold open in For The Love Of Larry (the random cold open about drugs).

Mark really likes old station, and producers won’t pay for something recent.

Friendly Jonathan: the episode is partly a friendly Jonathan instance, because it seems that Jonathan deliberately leaves Mark oblivious of Charley’s assignment. So, at the beginning, when Mark alerts Jonathan that there’s a mysterious guy hanging out of the church, Jonathan doesn’t warn him that the criminla is looking for Charley, and would rather scares him.

And walks away. Leaving Mark like that.

The “Stuff” power: it’s unclear whether Jonathan used the Stuff to change the briefcase the moment the thugs knock Charley down and take it.

Surely, he used the Stuff to remove the bins from the church: when Charley is running in, there’s plenty.

Then, they all vanish like the powers Jonathan uses when moving somewhere.

But there’s one curious rule about this: the two burglars previously robbed by Charley initially refuse to enter the church because they feel uncomfortable committing violence there—or perhaps because they watched The Dakotas and didn’t want Highway to meet the same fate.

Eventually, they do enter and threaten Jonathan.

You’d better do something before they cancel the series.

But what’s important to point out is what Jonathan says: they can’t talk like that in a church. As though they could if they were somewhere else.

Anyway, the point is that something similar occurred in the season one finale, when Jonathan gave up on the assignment because everybody was at a church and he believed he couldn’t use it there.

Even though he eventually used it, but that’s not the point here.

It seems, though, to confirm that churches are somehow off-limits for him.

And the thugs learn their lesson: one of them defies Jonathan and fires. But Jonathan is immune to bullets.

Similarly to Catch A Falling Star, when Junkie fired him.

If they were really meant to be the same character, he should have known better.

And that sneer is so earth-shaking.

That’s the real trouble.

Before the audience can protest or call for the series’ cancellation, the three thugs are suddenly shrouded in light and disappear simultaneously.

It’s unclear whether Jonathan used the Stuff to jam the gum or if his superior helped him and subsequently punished them. If that were Jonathan, it’s problematic: in For The Love Of Larry, the cold open, Mark believed he had the stuff after seemingly appear immune to bullets, only to discover he wasn’t. But if Jonathan could use the Stuff to jam the guns, then it wouldn’t make sense why he didn’t use it on that occasion, and let Mark chase an armed drug dealer like a fool.

But it’s likely that, this time, it’s the Superior using the powers.

The Job: for this assignment, Jonathan is once again working as a minister—the sixth time in the series.

The previous instances were in The Smile in the Third Row and Love And Marriage, and briefly in the season one finale, The Last Assignment and Summit in season two.

This time, unlike those episodes, Mark is also a priest, and he seems quite confident in the role, calling everyone “son”. While correctly pointing out how sacrilegious it is to fake references.

Just a little.

One curious anecdote: in interview with producer Kent McCray, he revealed that during the filming of an episode in which Landon played a priest, it was late, and Landon decided to head home without changing out of his priest costume. On the way, he stopped at a shop to buy some wine (not very angelic), still dressed as a priest. And the shop owner refused to sell it to him, believing he was an actual priest. Eventually, Landon’s driver had to step in and explain that Landon was an actor—and apparently a drinking one, too.

It’s difficult to determine exactly which episode it refers to, since Jonathan appears as a priest multiple times throughout the series—partially in the season one finale and The Last Assignment, and fully in The Smile in the Third Row and Love and Marriage. However, given how prominently he plays a priest in this episode, it’s plausible that this anecdote relates to it.

“I’m an actor”. That’s probably what happened that day.

Ratings: 32 million audience. 25th TV programs, 5th TV genre show.

The episode aired in January 1987, three weeks after the Christmas Special: in these two weeks they aired the season one Christmas Special (for the third time), and then the “Orange Bowl Parade” for the New Year’s Eve. So, this episode was the first to air in 1987, and kicked off the second half of the season.

It performed quite well in the ratings, roughly matching the Christmas special. While it was not as successful as Alone (the first episode of the second half of season two), it performed better than Plane Death, which aired in season one. That was positive: usually, January and early October are the two months the series enjoys the most popularity, and the Christmas Special three weeks ago seemed to have effectively broken the ratings loss that the series suffered from Love And Marriage on, from November on. Maybe it can enjoy greater popularity now, or being stable at season one’s ratings at least. That will be revealed by the upcoming episodes. But the ratings can change really any moment, as this same season showed in the previous episodes. So, really anything can happen now.