Season 3 Overview

Highway To Heaven Cast: A Father’s Faith

Airdate: 03/04/1987

Directed By: Michael Landon

It’s another big family-issue assignment, but not quite like many before it. And it features some familiar faces.

Anyway, it’s one of the most overtly religious episodes of the series, so that’s a warning for what’s ahead.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a family drifting apart after an accident involving one of their children.

Basically, at the beginning of the episode, Jonathan and Mark wound up randomly visiting Gene, an old fisherman who happens to be a friend of Mark’s whom he hasn’t seen in years.

So, once again, a very random friend appears.

While visiting him, it turns out that the man’s son, Tony, nearly drowned a few years earlier and has been left unconscious. He’s been lying in a convalescent home, and his father is the only one who visits him regularly.

Meanwhile, his mother Marge and sister Michele consider it useless and have come to terms with the possibility that he may never wake up, which leads to countless arguments in the family.

So Jonathan and Mark decide they might as well help this old friend of Mark’s move on. In order to do that, they work in different ways: Mark helps the father realize that he has been neglecting the rest of his family because of his devotion to his son.

At the same time, Jonathan helps the man’s wife and daughter confront their own guilt and sorrow, which they have been shielding themselves from by pretending the boy is already dead and that nothing more can be done anymore.

The entire assignment feels somewhat unclear. In part, that’s because it’s an “unofficial” assignment: Jonathan and Mark just decided to check on Mark’s old friend and then realized he was having a tough time. But they didn’t receive this as an official assignment, and if they hadn’t visited this friend in the first place, this episode wouldn’t exist. That makes it hard to determine whether the assignment is a real or an improvised one: perhaps Jonathan would have warned Mark they were gonna stop by an old friend, and this would have become the assignment all the same. Or maybe not. In both cases, Mark is lucky to have an angel, otherwise he’d have to deal with this assignment alone.

Anyway, the lack of any indication in the assignment is the problem: in a way, it’s as though Jonathan and Mark are working on two different sides, with different goals. Jonathan seems to focus on Marge and Michele, trying to convince them that there is still hope for Tony if they are willing to believe. And Mark has to work on Gene, trying to persuade him to let Tony go and stop clinging to the possibility that his son will recover.

That contrast, particularly by Jonathan’s side, is weird: if, as the doctors say, nothing more can be done for Tony, then there’s no use for Jonathan in encouraging Marge and Michele to believe in a miracle. Unless Jonathan knew from his superior that something was going to happen. Which is exactly what happens, for that matter.

But then, he also warns them they shouldn’t be optimistic.

You told him to keep believing, and now they have to be cautious instead.

• Background

As for the setting, it’s in Los Angeles, of course. Instead, the timespan is unclear: in these cases, it’s ten days (according to the guidelines), but it could be more, and they never explain that.

However, the odd part is that they do not show what Jonathan and Mark have been up to before the assignment: the episode begins while they are going to see Mark’s friend. But they never explain why would they do that now: whether Jonathan told Mark that his friend Gene was the assignment and they had to meet him (but it doesn’t seem to be the case, because they are both unaware of Tony’s condition by the time they meet him), or if this just friend called Mark up for some reason and asked to see him (it doesn’t seem to be the case either, because he didn’t see him coming.). Or if Mark just decided to stop by. Even though it’s unclear why he’d do that now.

Back in the days when you had to actually go out to see your friends.

That makes it hard to place in the season. The only clue is dropped by Gene, who refuses Jonathan and Mark’s help because they are on vacation (or so it seems, at least).

And as soon as he goes out, he’ll give them an assignment to work on.

But that suggests that maybe they stopped by to see this friend in the downtime between assignments—and then it became their actual assignment. Even in that case, though, why Mark decided to stop by and see his friend right in this vacation is left unexplained.

Anyway, the episode takes place in February 1987, as revealed by what’s hanging at both Gene’s house and store, and it’s Los Angeles and the Malibu pier (exactly where it was produced too).

Instead, the timespan is some ten days: the episode begins, then Gene is hospitalized for one week and when he gets out it’s one or two days more.

• Characters

The peculiar aspect of this assignment is that Mark apparently knows Gene, the fisherman, and his family.

And Mark finally does the introduction to Jonathan.

This is actually the fifth time in the season that Jonathan and Mark meet some of Mark’s secret friends: the other friends or colleagues were Frank in Love And Marriage, then Luke in Man To Man, the convicted felon in Oh Lucky Man and Gabe the pianist in A Song Of Songs; it’s also the ninth assignment in the season to be about someone either Jonathan or Mark personally know or have met before (like A Special Love with Scotty and Diane, or Jonathan Smith Goes To Washington with Mark’s sister Leslie, and Love At Second Sight involving a fellow probationary angel).

It really seems like there’s something new: in season one, Jonathan and Mark personally knew the subject of the assignment only a couple of times (in Plane Death and A Match Made In Heaven), that increased during season two (with Keep Smiling, The Secret, Change Of Life, The Last Assignment and The Monster). And now—excluding Scotty and Diane and the recurring characters—this season has already introduced Mark’s lost friends in five different episodes, compared to one in the first season (Plane Death) and two in the second (Change Of Life and The Secret); it’s really happening so often.

Not for long, though: actually, this episode is the last of the season Jonathan and Mark are already familiar with the subject of the assignment. In the last two seasons, things will be back like in season one, and they’ll stop introducing a new random lost friend each episode.

Anyway, Gene adds up to the long list of friends that Mark secretly has but hasn’t heard from in years: that also includes the cop colleague in Plane Death, another colleague in The Secret and yet another colleague in Change Of Life, and more. But none of these friends ever came to help him when Mark needed them in the Pilot. He had to wait for a probationary angel.

At least this time it’s someone he hasn’t seen in years, so there’s no awkward question about why that friend did nothing when Mark was an alcoholic police officer.

He had some very serious problems, you know.

However, it’s actually unclear how Mark even decided to visit Gene and his wife in the first place. In previous cases, Mark met old friends because he received a sudden phone call or some other reason for contact (as in Love and Marriage and Man to Man). Here, however, it seems completely random: Jonathan and Mark are simply shown walking toward the man’s fish shop as the episode begins, and no prior indication of the visit is ever given. Jonathan never says anything suggesting that this man will be their next assignment. In fact, if they hadn’t discovered that his son was ill, the visit probably wouldn’t have turned into an assignment at all. So it’s unclear why Mark suddenly decided to drop in on an old friend right now, just like that, without warning.

In that way, it’s exactly like Oh Lucky Man, beginning with Jonathan and Mark paying a visit to a random old friend without any explanation whatsoever.

Anyway, there’s something to point out about Jonathan and his ideology when it comes to animals: in season one, it seems that he wouldn’t eat or kill animals (which is reasonable, being an angel he doesn’t eat in the first place). His ideals was confirmed in a season two episode which revealed he was an advocate for animals and environmental causes— but it was then disproved when he ordered shrimps for dinner once, and then suggested a lobster in another episode, and then ate snails in yet another episode.

That seemed to imply that not all animals are equal—sea animals being worthless. And this seems confirmed here: at the beginning of the episode, Gene asks Jonathan and Mark to have fish stew for supper.

Now, Gene is certainly talking to Mark: he has just met Jonathan, so he can’t possibly know that he likes “so much” a fish stew. And yet, while Mark says nothing, Jonathan talks for them both.

And he’s supposed to be the angel, an entity who has no need to eat in the first place.

• Production and Setting

As for production, it was likely filmed between late January and early February 1987, after Parents’ Day. It was written by another highwayman—although in this case it’s a “highwaywoman,” one of the few in the series. As with many of the other highwaymen, she remains somewhat of a mystery: apparently, this show is the only credit she has in her entire career. More than ten years later she came back as a producer on a couple of television shows, and then disappeared from the industry again. And there’s very little information available now. At least it explains why this episode feels weird.

Anyway, as for the setting, it was filmed in Los Angeles in both new and familiar place. For example, the beach where Gene’s daughter stares at the ocean is not a new one.

That’s Westward Beach, already used a number of times in the series, including in the season two episode Keep Smiling (for Jonathan and Jane’s waterfront cookout).

And even before that, in The Secret, when Mark inadvertently told his friend’s daughter that her parents had adopted her.

They really liked that place.

Instead, the hotel where Marge and Gene go on holiday to is between Westward and Zuma Beach.

And, curiously, Zuma beach is just at the other side of Westward Beach. So, not that far.

Also, at some point they show a car driving out of Westward Beach and turning right.

Now, it’s unclear who is driving, but that’s supposedly Marge, because she’s then shown at the fictional Valhalla lodge. Except that, if that were the case, it means she lives on the beach: that street she’s driving out from as she turns right is a one-way road to Westward Beach, and there’s nothing there except the beach.

So, maybe it’s just a random driver who went to the beach and was coming back out. Or maybe Marge and the family lives on a beach like some real sailors.

Then, Gene’s shop is located along the Malibu Pier, while the “Osiris” convalescent home was actually the Meridian West Hills facility.

Curiously, they will recycle this place in a fifth season episode as convalescent home, again.

Instead, the “West Hills” hospital where Gene wound up is at “West Hills”, of course.

And curiously, Landon will use this place again, as hospital, in a fifth season episode (not the same as the Osiris home, though).

Glossary:

Fishing: it’s part of the episode.

And they never go there, for that matter.

Highway Actors: this episode has some familiar actors. That old friend of Mark’s and his family were actually an old friend of Landon’s (and French too) coming from this series: in particular, Gene the father is played by Eli Wallach, an experienced stage actor.

Then, Marge (his wife) is played by Anne Jackson, who was Wallach’s real wife.

And Michele (their daughter) is played by Katherine Wallach (that’s right), their actual daughter.

While Tony was unrelated (they do have a son, Peter Wallach, but he’s not an actor).

Anyway, it’s the only time in the entire series a family of actors appear in the same episode together, playing an actual family too. It’s not something unprecedented to Landon: for those who watched Little House, it’s no mystery that Laura and Willie’s actors were both related (plus a bunch of guest actors); but they didn’t play related characters in the series, like the Wallach family now.

Hopefully their family life was less troubled than the one they play here.

Actually, even on Highway there are some related actors (siblings, mostly) appearing separately: for example, the Jacoby brothers (one sister and two brothers) were separately featured in three different episodes in season one. But the same family in the same episode has never happened before.

And the Wallach family wasn’t new to Landon and to the series: both Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach already met Landon in Sam’s Son, the semi-autobiographical movie directed by Landon about his life before college. (Just some context: it was shot in 1983, the year before Highway.)

There, Wallach and his wife played Landon’s dad and mom respectively. A fictionalized version of them, at least.

This episode wasn’t even the only credit by Wallach in this series: he is a Highway Actor, who previously appeared as Timothy Sr. in To Bind the Wounds in season two (the Vietnam episode where Jonathan and Mark play sandmen). On that occasion he played the subject of the assignment, and his character is very similar to the one here: a lonely father whose late son has a problem, and he’s now convinced to be the only one to care for him; and Jonathan and Mark had to convince other people to have faith and hope and remember the child. Only that time, his son was actually dead. And Wallach played without his family.

In any case, the Wallach family is the second Highway Family in the series (a family with actors appearing in either the same or different episodes), and Eli Wallach in particular is a Highway actor too.

Highway Of Mysteries: there are some new mysteries related to this assignment. Actually, the entire assignment feels somewhat unclear: Jonathan hardly tries to convince Marge and Michele to hope for the boy’s recovery. Despite this being problematic because it feels like he’s asking them to believe in miracles (and that’s way religious, more than what the series is used to get), maybe it implies that the assignment is actually about helping them confront their guilt over what happened. However, it’s unclear how Jonathan can possibly know that they feel bad in the first place: for instance, he knows that Michele is responsible for the accident. But it’s never explained how he can possibly know that.

And who said that?

Of course, it’s definitely Jonathan’s superior, but it’s unclear why he would keep it from Mark. And, importantly, why it has to be “tonight”, while visiting her brother.

Eventually, it turns out that Jonathan was right about that: she’s responsible for the accident, and she can’t stand it. But she only realized it in a dream.

Now, if Jonathan wanted her to visit her brother in order to make her confront her responsibility for what happened, rather than trying to suppress it, he could simply have entered her mind in any moment, as he had already done with other people before. So, it’s a mystery why he could only face her when she was visiting her brother, and not before. Of course, maybe it’s because he knows that once she understands what happens, she wouldn’t be visiting her brother anymore. But then it’s unclear whether Michele knew that she was responsible but never faced it, or if she was really unaware. Also, it’s unclear whether Jonathan is the one behind the dream she has when she falls asleep, or whether it was simply seeing her brother that triggered it—but he could have done it sooner all the same.

She knows he’s behind all this.

Of course, maybe Jonathan knew that if he had caused her the dream in any other time, she would never be able to face her brother— and Jonathan wants her to confront her feelings. But it’s also possible he wanted to wait because he knew that her brother would wake up soon. And remains unclear is whether Jonathan used his powers to make Tony wake up at that precise moment she breaks down crying at her brother’s bedside, or whether the recovery was meant to be completely unexpected for everyone—including Jonathan himself.

Then again, he might also have placed some power on the boy and made him experience an angelic recovery, as he did with Mark in some episodes from the earlier seasons.

One final mystery is the timespan: it’s roughly around one week, but there’s something missing here.

Apparently, the episode begins with Jonathan and Mark vising Gene, and then Gene has a problem and is hospitalized for one week, as reported by his wife.

However, the moment Jonathan and Mark go find him there, Mark jokes that they still have to go fishing, and it’s apparent that they hadn’t seen him the entire week. Otherwise he would have talked about fishing the first time they stopped by.

Unless Mark brings that up every time.

But if they hadn’t seen him for an entire week, that’s problematic: either Gene went to coma and couldn’t receive any visit or it’s hard to explain the reason it took so long before Mark decided to stop by to see his an old friend at the hospital (a friend he had intended to visit in the first place, at the beginning of the episode).

More likely, Jonathan and Mark were busy working a different assignment somewhere else. It’s possible: it’s been established the series doesn’t show all the assignments Jonathan and Mark work on, and some episodes may take place concurrently (more about it at the “Assignment Schedule” entry here). Maybe they had something else to do.

Or maybe they were just having a holiday, which was the idea in the first place.

You never get a vacation when you’re angeling around.

Or maybe Mark is just a bad friend.

He surely has peculiar relationship with his friends.

Recycle: The episode begins with an immediate recycle, the flying seagull moment.

That comes from Help Wanted: Angel in season one, and it had already been reused in The Secret in season two. This marks the eighth recycled shot from that episode in the series, making Help Wanted: Angel once again the most recycled episode in Highway to Heaven. And the second least-watched episode so far.

Out of all the least-watched episodes, it can’t be a coincidence that the series keeps recycling from that one.

Anyway, it’s the fourth episode of the series to begin on a recycle (and, for the third time, the recycle comes from that episode).

Family issues: that’s the category of the assignment.

But that was already apparent by the title: it’s yet another parental name. And this season had plenty of these: A Mother And A Daughter, and Parents’ Day one episode ago, and That’s Our Dad in the first half of the season. How many family issues episodes can a single season bear— that’s another mystery. These are probably the most common words in the title, alongside “Song” and “Love” too.

Landon the mechanic: there’s one instance, when he repairs Michele’s car.

The “Stuff” power: Jonathan uses the stuff just to fix Michele’s car, and then to vanish and appear in different places. Like when he’s with Marge by Zuma Beach.

And then he’s gone.

The job: they help Gene doing fishing and repairing the boat.

Nothing they have never done before.

Ratings: 30 million audience. 23rd Weekly TV programs, 3rd TV genre show.

In any case, the episode aired in early March 1987 and received ratings similar to those of other episodes, which is quite successful considering that the ratings of most TV series usually drop in March and April, toward the end of the television season (except for the season’s finale). For these three seasons of Highway, however, it wasn’t the case. It also confirms that the preceding show aired in an particularly strong week, but it was just an exception. The weekly ratings now are back as usual.