Highway To Heaven Cast: Heaven Nose, Mr. Smith

Airdate: 03/30/1988

Directed By: Michael Landon

The fourth season is drawing to its conclusion. Reruns are approaching, the time slot has changed, and the series is about to receive its verdict. After the end of season one, the series was renewed for three additional seasons, with a decision on further renewal to be made after the fourth season concluded. Unfortunately, the ratings this season have not reflected the series particularly positively.

Still, after a run of emotionally intense episodes—from Jonathan’s wife and her assignment helping him, to Mark’s illness-related case—the season has been a real emotional roller coaster, defying any expectation.

This episode partly continues that unpredictability, though it moves in a completely different direction. And it’s a comedic episode. In every season of this series, there is at least one episode airing toward the end (roughly in March) that is downright humorous or a lampoon, the only partial exception being the second season. In every other season, however, this holds: it the heist assignment in season one, the spy lampoon in the third season, and it happens again here. (And it will also happen in the fifth season.) The second season had Summit, which is partly comedic as well, though not fully in the same way—the humorous parts came more from depicting incompetent politicians than from being an outright lampoon show.

And this episode has quite a random title.

Guide:

• Assignment
• Background
• Characters
• On Angels And Probation
• Highway Actors
• Production And Setting

Glossary:

• Angel Revelation
• Blooper
• Cute
• References (Little House)
• Highway Of Mysteries
• Friendly Jonathan
• The “Stuff” powers
• The Job
• Vacation
• Ratings

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a man rekindle with his wife despite the intrusion of a fellow angel.

The assignment seems familiar, and in a way it is: Jonathan and Mark must help a man who is deeply estranged from his wife.

It sounds straightforward enough, but there is a complication—another angel has been assigned to the same case by accident.

And that angel is the man’s father, who has never accepted his son’s current wife and would rather want him to marry a wealthy neighbor instead.

As a result, he intends to deliberately sabotage everything.

Of course, it would have been too simple otherwise.

And, as with so many assignments before, there’s familiarity with earlier cases—most notably Love At Second Sight, the episode involving an elderly woman falling in love despite her late husband’s efforts to prevent it.

Nothing that hasn’t been handled before.

For some reason, they had to send Jonathan to help.

The goal of the assignment remains unclear, though. At the beginning of the episode, Jonathan is told that the issue is that Stanley does not want a child while his wife does. Yet Stanley’s father claims something different: that his anger stems from wanting a grandson. And Stanley’s wife is in for that too.

Then convince your son.

So, the problem is not her, it’s Stanley. And Richbourne’s solution to have him married with another woman won’t necessarily solve it.

But get ready: this episode has many more problems.

• Background

The episode probably spans ten days, as usual. And it compensates the incredibly long earlier assignments.

Although it begins unusually, with no clear assignment: Jonathan and Mark are simply shown heading out for what they believe will be a vacation.

They should know better.

As in other episodes that begin this way—like One Winged Angels or The Brightest Star—this won’t happen.

However, there’s something weird: they want the break because, as Mark puts it, their previous assignment has worn them out.

Now, the preceding episode was the emotionally intense two-part illness assignment involving Mark and the Lee, and Part Two spanned several months (It’s the known longest-spanning assignment of the entire series). So, it’s possible he’s talking about that one, and this episode follows that. At the same though, the emotional weight of that precise assignment (particularly on Mark) makes it rather difficult to believe he would dismiss it so casually.

Another possibility is that he is referring to a different, unaired assignment, which the series never depicts. And that’s possible: by this point, it’s evident that episodes don’t air in strict chronological order, and that not all assignments are shown in the series.

If that were the case, though, it would be impossible to frame this episode within this season. (If Lee’s episode took over five months, then it must be Fall 1988 by now, and there’s hardly time for any other season five episode)

More likely, it’s just an oversight, the same way this episode messes up with many other things.

It takes place in Fillmore, where it’s was produced, and the Marathon that Stanley enters at the end of the episode is fictional, for that matter.

Actually, there are many “Apple Blossoms” charity marathon, but this episode seems untied to anyone in particular. Besides, there’s none in California, so it’s really nothing.

• Characters

In this episode, Jonathan is back with the Stuff. Maybe it takes place before Lee’s assignment, though.

There are no reference to that one: the closest thing is a line by Jonathan at the beginning, when he says they’re about to have that vacation.

He probably realizes that now, after spending five months as a man, which means he had to sleep and eat and drink.

Maybe he has learned something out of that experience, and knows he’s more aware of what his friend goes through in every episode.

Jonathan is still enslaving toward his friend. And almost gets him killed by leaving the wheel of the car.

But he’s also deceitful: at some point, he asks Stanley to race him.

But that’s pointless: he has the Stuff, of course he’s going to win.

And that’s exactly what happens: Stanley starts off without even warning Jonathan, believes he’s finished before Jonathan, but Jonathan is already there.

Of course, he just wanted to help Stanley’s confidence. But he effectively deceived him. .

• On Angels and Probation

There’s so much going on. This episode introduces new angels in the series.

As Jonathan explains at the beginning, there’s an angel in Heaven (or whatever) named Sycopomp, whose job is handing out assignments.

And then there’s Richbourne, the probationary angel mistakenly assigned to help his son.

And Mrs. Richbourne gets in there too.

They are the last angels introduced in the series. Prior cases were Petros Hadiar in Help Wanted: Angel in season one, fellow probationary angel Harold in The Last Assignment in season two, Clifford the angel supervisor in A Mother And A Daughter, a fellow probationary angel Ted in Love At Second Sight, and Jennifer (or Jane) in We Have Forever season four. No new addition will be made in season five.

And some rules about how to become probationary angels are explained again, if anybody forgot them: in the series, when someone dies, that person can be turned a probationary angel, but will be given a different body and identity.

Even though, so far, all the angels they’ve met were over 60s. Except Jonathan and Jennifer, but they are the only exceptions.

Maybe they receive the body about the same age as they were by the time of their death (keep in mind that Arthur, who later became Jonathan, died at 31), even though an exception was made in Jane’s case.

More importantly, after four seasons, this episode reveals how Jonathan gets the assignment: apparently, it’s not his superior giving them out to probationary angels, which is what it’s been implied in the series all these years.

It turns out that there are angels in Heaven doing that job. Actually, they only present Sycopomp doing this, and it’s unclear whether he’s the only one or if there are some other angels like him. Which is probably the case, given the workload of giving out assignments to all probationary angels.

All alone? He’s enslaved too.

Also, it turns out that Jonathan has been carrying a pocket radio the whole time.

Ask no question.

Still, it confirms what has long been implied in the series: being a probationary angel is not the only job in Heaven: someone, like Jonathan, has to work with people on Earth; some other angels need to give out the assignments (as Sycopomp), and then supervising angels (like Clifford or Petros Hadiar) need to assist probationary angels or decide when their probation is over and it’s time to be promoted.

That also leads to many other possibilities: if probationary angels are not the only angels around, then it’s unclear whether Jonathan will ever rest after his probation. In the series, they never explain what happens once he completes the probationary service: he says in We Have Forever that he’ll go to Heaven with his wife, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be working there, or won’t become a supervising angel. Besides, the series has never explained whether Heaven is available for everybody, but some people have to serve as probationary angels before getting there, or if everybody has to serve time on probation. (It seems that some people have direct access to Heaven, but there’s no definite answer). And then, once they serve their time, they still have to work in Heaven as supervisor or dispatchers or whatever. Again, being an angel is a punishment in this series.

Though Jonathan will never be promoted. So there’s no point in wondering about that.

Anyway, it’s more likely that Sycopomp is not the only angel around giving assignments, he seems too clumsy for that: for example, at some point Jonathan turns to him to ask him some support for the assignment (as if Mark wasn’t enough), and Sycopomp tells him one available angel is Mrs. Richbourne, but he’s unsure this thing will work out.

Except you do.

It has happened many times before that angels were assigned to relatives: Jonathan had to help his wife in Keep Smiling, and she had to help him back in We Have Forever; and Ted’s assignment partially involved his wife too.

Actually, it seemed like this is meant to be part of their probation—seeing how angels handle assignments involving their own relatives.

Perhaps that Sycopomp there was new, and wasn’t the one who assigned Jennifer to Jonathan.

Then, this episode also has problems with the partners. Mark’s role in this is weird: when Jonathan and Mark meet the probationary Mr. Richbourne, Jonathan reveals their angelic identity, which is unusual for him to do so openly with another angel. But he doesn’t introduce Mark.

And who is the other guy?

But Mr. Richbourne shows no concern, and just gets along with this.

Essentially, Mark’s role is treated as if it’s unremarkable, which shouldn’t be. In the pilot, Mark’s involvement was presented as an exceptional circumstance—probably unprecedented—since angels were not supposed to maintain human partners (or at least that’s what Jonathan believed). That idea was partially confirmed in the Season 2 episode with Harold, who recognized Jonathan but assumed Mark was another fellow angel, and Jonathan corrected him.

Later, in Love At Second Sight in season three, Mark’s presence is not questioned by Ted, as though it had become habitual.

Now, Mr. Richbourne is like Ted: he doesn’t seem surprised at all to see a fellow probationary angel with a human assistant.

Actually, he doesn’t even ask who Mark is or what he’s doing there: at this point, he may be thinking that Mark is an angel too. Or perhaps knowledge of Jonathan’s partnership with Mark has spread within Heaven’s hierarchy, and that has become habitual. Or maybe all angels in Heaven know that there’s a fellow probationary angel named Jonathan who goes around with an assistant, but that’s an exception.

That leads to another problem: the series never specifies how come angels can’t work their assignments together. If Jonathan getting a human assistant is no problem anymore, then it’s possible for angels to get other probationary angels as assistants to work with. So, when a couple dies and they are both turned into angels, they could both be traveling the country together. That would make the job easier for everybody, instead of remaining separate their entire probation until they can ascend to Heaven, where they’ll probably have to get other jobs and won’t rest either. But it seems they can’t, and they have to go separate ways. (As Jennifer left Jonathan in We Have Forever).

Maybe Sycopomp thinks that assigning two angels on the same case is a waste of resources, but giving an angel a friend is fine, for men can’t ever be angels. (That contradicts Jonathan’s belief, though). Or maybe Jonathan having a friend is really an exception, and everybody in Heaven knows that. The same way sending his wife to help him was an exception — if what Sycopomp said about assigning relatives is true; but this episode has so many problems, and it likely wasn’t.

So, being a probationary angel is a lonely job, and a punishment delaying going to Heaven. It even seems that probationary angels don’t even get to know what happens to their relatives: at the end of the episode, Mr. Richbourne mentions that he didn’t even know his wife had passed away and had turned into a probationary angel too.

And they’ll have a long way to go.

There’s no clear duration for a probationary service (Jonathan thought he was through after 40 years, Harold’s took him over 200 years) but Richbourne and his wife had been on probation for a lot less than that.

So, even though it seems that each angel serves a different probation, it will take ’em a long time before they ascend to Heaven. If they ever will: if they are too good, Clifford won’t promote them.

They probably wanted to spend eternity in Heaven, but instead they are now forced to work on Earth for an unknown period of time, until they can be promoted upstairs. So they’ll continue their duties there, like the angel responsible for assigning cases, or like Jonathan was meant to in season three, when he was close to promotion.

Besides, it seems that angels in Heaven can be married; at least, Sycopomp is wearing a wedding ring.

Although it’s more likely the actor’s.

He’d be too busy to see his wife.

• Highway Actors

The episode features several cast members belonging to Highway actors, both new and returning, along with a lifetime one. In particular, the characters of Stanley and his probationary angel’s father should both feel familiar.

The subject of the assignment, Stanley, is played by John Pleshette, who previously appeared in Season 3 on All That Glitters, the episode about a fake minister who steals money and later falls in love with a woman—while being chased by three thugs. And he played Charlie, the fake minister.

Curiously, the two of them share many similarities: both are awkward, timid men unsure of their place in life, with no confidence and no friends. They might even be the same character: Charlie just realized his father was Mr. Richbourne and left the girl and moved out here. And the girl may have suffered a similar psychological break to cope with his disappearance and turned to writing spy stories without any memory of her former relationship.

Instead, Mr. Richbourne, the probationary angel trying to convince his son to leave his wife, is also played by a familiar actor.

He’s Bill Macy, who previously appeared in the Season 2 Cindy episode (the Cinderella assignment), playing the titular character’s father.

Once again, the roles feel similar: both are men with troubled but essentially kind relationships with their children (Cindy or Stanley), they are both convinced to do what’s best for them—neither maliciously nor selfishly, just hard-headed and essentially stubborn—and both are terribly wrong. Perhaps they are the same person. Or maybe Mr. Richbourne’s body is actually the form of Cindy’s father.

But the episode also introduces a new Highway actress: Stanley’s wife Constance is played by Murphy Cross, who later returns in a late Season Five episode.

And that will be another humorous episode. They really outdid themselves there.

There are also Highway families: the angels Charity and Faith are played by two brothers, marking the fifth such family in the series (and the third in this season). However, since they have no dialogue and appear only briefly, they are more like background presence than significant roles.

The angel who assigns the other angels their jobs is played by comedian Bob Hope, in one of the final appearances of his career.

After this episode, he didn’t officially retire but he never played a fictionalized character anymore: he just made TV host or appearances in other capacities. So, he’s partly a Highway Lifetime, in a way.

• Production and Setting

From a production standpoint, this episode was filmed in February 1988 for a week. It written by Lan O’Kun, the informal highwayman— and it may help explain why the tone feels so off.

Even the title is weird: it partially references a 1957 movie with a “Mr. Allison” instead of Mr. Smith, and this is not the first time the show has done something like this (the Washington episode). In that case, however, it fit better, since it related to the assignment—or at least part of it (Jonathan was actually going to the Senate). Here, by contrast, the title feels entirely disconnected from the episode aside from a loose pun. It’s just like Oh Lucky Man, that had nothing to do with the movie bearing its title.

Anyway, it was produced immediately after Lee’s assignment. Everybody probably wanted something lighter after that one.

The setting was in Fillmore, while the house where Stanley and his wife live alone is a real building located in Chatsworth, and it still stands. Unlike almost every other set Highway has passed through so far.

Glossary:

Angel Revelation: this episode has a revelation for every angel. The first revelation occurs for Stanley when his father tells him the truth, and then Jonathan does the same.

And he even tells to keep it from his wife.

And then Mrs. Richbourne gets down there and tells her.

This episode has one revelation too many. And everybody shows zero excitement. I mean, they have just found out that angels exist, and they act as though it was nothing.

Perhaps the writers realized they had underused this device in the current season compared to the second and third seasons: it was only the fourth angelic revelation so far, after We Have Forever (though that one is unusual, since another angel does the revelation to Jonathan), the Halloween special (the one featuring Jonathan the werewolf), and the war episode (in which Mark is absent for the entire assignment). And Fight For Your Life doesn’t count, although Jonathan openly displays his otherworldly strength.

In a way, this feels like a return to the series’ origins, as it was supposed to be. In the first season, the angel revelation was confessed in only two episodes—the Pilot, of course, and The Banker and the Bum, the trading place assignment that started it all. In the second season, however, the show shifted direction, the assignments becoming more unrealistic and whimsical, and Jonathan dropping the revelation in almost every episode. And season three pushed this even further.

Now, in season four, the series seems to be returning to its original approach, with fewer angelic revelations and less contrived, implausible assignments. Except for this episode.

Blooper: one in the Heaven part. When behind the gate, Sycopomp is holding his record with both hands.

And when he’s shot, he’s holding it with his left hand only.

Cute: it’s actually the eight reverse cute instance of the series. It occurs at the beginning, when Mark keeps making jokes on Mr. Richbourne’s invention.

And Jonathan gets tired of it.

The series has no more reverse cute—when Jonathan drops Mark’s catchphrase. All prior examples are One Winged Angels and The Right Thing in season one, Friends in season two, the Vietnam episode and the Christmas Special in season three, Playing For Keeps and All The Colors Of The Heart earlier this season. (And some unused ones in the script for Lee’s assignment). So many things are finishing up.

References (Little House): at the beginning, Jonathan is summoned to Heaven to speak with the angel Sycopomp—and this time, it is shown to the audience as well. No kidding: the entrance is a single pearly gate, and it looks like a colorful, mostly white cloud filled with haze, mist, or air pollution.

More likely, it’s the last one: that’s air pollution.

All the angels are dressed in white clothes with wings, and Bob Hope is behind computers and machinery.

This defies any logic and certainly goes beyond any plausible explanation.

Despite being questionable, this may serve a purpose: it’s likely to reference a 1978 episode of Little House, the weirdly comedic episode centered on Carrie (probably the only episode about her, despite her credit as protagonist). It was the one in which she plays with an imaginary friend and hallucinates about going to Heaven where she meets her dog but not her brother. The way Heaven looked in that episode is exactly like this one: the clouds, the atmosphere, the angels in white. It’s all the same.

Except that Little House just feels old.

If it were just one shared element—like the hazy lighting—it could be dismissed as recycle, as though the production had used a set from Little House rather than designing something new. However, the inclusion of the angels and the gate makes it feel more like a deliberate reference.

And it wouldn’t be unprecedented: there are many Little House Easter Eggs on Highway (like a painting in To Touch The Moon, the hymn in The Banker And The Bum, or a line in A Song For Jason Part 1, just to name some).

A further confirmation that these two series are more connected than what it seems. And that Jonathan might be another form of that Jonathan there.

Anyway, the From Little House feature isn’t the only reference in the episode: at the conclusion of this assignment, it turns out the problem was glitching memory banks. And Sycopomp closes the episode by “thanking” for the memories. And the 1938 Thanks For The Memories play on that.

This part was already in the script, so they had probably been meaning to cast Bob Hope the whole time.

Highway Of Mysteries: a very problematic episode. One mystery concerns the assignment: as explained in the episode, it is about a couple in conflict: the husband Stanley does not want children, while his wife Constance does, and they must work through that disagreement.

However, this raises a larger issue: it’s been established that angels who sabotage their assignments are condemned to walk the Earth forever (as Jonathan was in We Have Forever, and Ted was in season three). So why is no one removing this Mr. Richbourne from his role? It’s reasonable to assume that this situation is being allowed to unfold as part of the assignment’s correct solution—which means Jonathan is wrong and he may actually be interfering with something that is meant to happen, the couple’s divorce. And that’s a possibility. Unless Jonathan were implying that marriage is forever, even if it’s with the wrong person.

And angels do not endorse divorce.

Or there is another explanation: only a higher authority can release an angel from an assignment.

You got it.

Besides, Jonathan does not address the potential repercussions for the angel if the assignment is mishandled. It’s apparent that Mr. Richbourne hasn’t been on probation that long, or that he hasn’t read the books properly (those on how to be a probationary angel, even though they are clearly wrong). So, maybe he doesn’t know what happens to angels who don’t follow the assignments. But Jonathan has a long experience with that (from Love At Second Sight to We Have Forever), so he should warn him of the consequences.

Another large mystery relates to Jonathan’s accessing Heaven, and there’s a lot going on. The moment he says he has to go “up”, he just vanishes from Mark’s moving car.

This is not unprecedented—he has been called back to Heaven before, such as in The Secret and Jonathan Smith Goes to Washington, the only known prior instances. However, in those episodes Jonathan was always walking, either along a desert road (in The Secret) or approaching a hospital window (in the Washington episode), until he’d gradually fade away to Heaven.

Those scenes implied that entering Heaven required some movement. Here, by contrast, he simply vanishes abruptly from Mark’s car.

At this point, he could have done the same thing on those other occasions instead of simply walking toward something.

In general, the way Heaven is presented is a mystery: everything feels thoroughly wrong. First, Sycopomp has wings, which seems to suggest that angels are dressed in white and actually have wings—a recurring mystery in the series (more about it at the Highway Of Mysteries entries here). And Jonathan being there too, it means he does not need wings to ascend to Heaven in the first place.

Again, that’s mostly due to a shared misconception related to the series: many people report that Jonathan’s journey is about winning his wings to ascend to Heaven (the “Wings Mystery); but that’s wrong, the series has never put it that way (the only time it was ever implied that Jonathan needed wings was in the season two Halloween Special).

Anyway, if Bob Hope and the other angels have wings, but Jonathan doesn’t and yet he’s there with them, it confirms that wings are just accessories with no real purpose.

Maybe that’s not really Heaven, but a sort of hallucination (as in Little House), or just a stop away from the actual Heaven, or whatever.

And one last mystery is about Stanley and the Stuff: it seems that Jonathan gives him some in order to encourage him to enter the race.

Before doing that, though, he asks permission from his superior.

He’s fooling you.

Friendly Jonathan: when he leaves Mark’s moving car, without even stopping it.

It really could have killed Mark; and after being a human for five months, Jonathan should have been more careful.

But he just missed playing these jokes on his friend.

Maybe he was still using the Stuff to move the car. But there was no point in scaring him like that.

The “Stuff” Powers: there are many problems about the Stuff and how it’s used. In earlier episodes (especially in season one) it was established that Jonathan needed permission from his superior to use the “Stuff,” and that only later—possibly after that Bin episode—was he allowed to use it more freely when he deemed it necessary, though still not unlimited (he can’t wipe out the world, supposedly).

Even then, the rules implied strong safeguards: misuse would result in consequences, such as being summoned to Heaven (as in The Secret) or being forced to remain on Earth indefinitely (although in that case it didn’t follow a misuse, but whatever).

But in this episode, it seems that Mr. Richbourne uses the Stuff just as it pleases him: for example, at the beginning of the episode he uses it to make Nel dream of his son.

Given that, it is unclear whether Mr. Richbourne here is formally authorized to use the Stuff. If so, it would imply that manipulating Stanley’s emotional life—including potentially steering him toward another relationship—is considered an acceptable intervention. Which, again, confirms that Stanley either isn’t meant to stay with his wife, or pushing him toward another woman is the correct way to shake him up and solve the assignment.

Otherwise, it’s possible that the probationary angels can use the Stuff as they please, just as long as it’s for something they believe it’s right. So every time Jonathan has refrained from using the Stuff, it was due to his acknowledgement that it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Although he still had to face the consequences in case he wrongly used it.

The Job: it’s one of the few episodes with Mark taking a job (in this case, driver) and Jonathan taking none.

But there are a couple of curious things: one, when they introduce themselves to Mr. Richbourne to apply for the job, they are told that they need references for it. Which is curious, as it implies that not all probationary angels share Jonathan’s ideals, and references are important.

However, upon discovering that Jonathan is there to replace him, Rochbourne refuses to let him, but hires Mark without checking the references anymore, nor asking him what he’s doing with an angel.

Without ever asking who that friend is, whether he’s an angel or a random guy who had no idea angels existed.

And to hell with references now.

Maybe he just assumed that Mark was a nice guy, if he hangs around an angel. Even though he could have also assumed that Mark is a subject of Jonathan’s assignment (and that’s why he’s there with an angel). So he’s probably an alcoholic cop and not the right man to hire for this.

But this Mr. Richbourne has more than a problem with references: when Sycopomp sends Mrs. Richbourne down, she just starts working like that.

Nobody seems surprised, or asks who hired her or where she comes from. Even assuming that Mr. Richbourne did all the hiring, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t introduce new workers to Stanley and his wife, the people he’s working for.

But with all that happens in this episode, it’s really no big deal.

Vacation: at the beginning of the episode, Jonathan and Mark believe they’ll have one, eventually.

But they won’t.

Essentially, the only vacation they’ve ever had was the one when Jonathan left Mark asleep the whole assignment.

After four years together, you still believe him.

Ratings: 23 million audience. 32nd weekly TV program, 11th TV genre show.

The episode aired one week after Mark’s assignment and fell slightly behind it. And remains below most of the season overall, which is the least popular so far in ratings. However, it is important to consider that it is not necessarily a bad result. The ratings in late spring are usually the lowest of the year for any TV series—not just Highway—and earlier episodes in the season performed even worse, especially those airing in October (when the show typically reaches one of its greatest periods); so, it becomes clear that things could have been a lot worse. So, not entirely bad for the series.

The ratings those early episodes of the season seemed to forecast for the rest of the season were misleading, and the season eventually avoided a large decline. However, they were still not strong compared to other programs or even previous seasons.

After this episode, the scheduling was handled similarly to season three: instead of holding back the final two episodes for a separate airing a month later, they broadcast this episode immediately after Mark’s assignment, while leaving the season finale as the only standalone episode of the season, airing one month later. However, this time there was something different: usually NBC starts rerunning old episodes from the season this time of the year, all the way until the season finale, and then continuing through the Summer, concluding with the beginning of the new season. This time, however, this episode was followed just by a bunch of random other programs. Which may have serious damage in the ratings of its finale, without any direct lead-up from the previous weeks.