Airdate: 12/07/1988

Directed By: Michael Landon

That’s it: the last longer show. That’s what the title is about. If people thought Highway To Heaven was dead and might never come back after waiting two months from the first episode of the season, they were wrong. Season five had a discontinued airing as a replacement for those series that happen to skip a week for any reason. So it had to wait over two months, but here it is. By now, Landon and the associates had already completed the series—the last episode was filmed around the day on which this aired—and the network still needs to conclude the second episode of the season.

Also, if people thought season five wasn’t going to have a special ninety-minute episode, especially since it usually aired as the first episode of the season but didn’t this time, they were wrong again. And if they thought there wasn’t going to be a Vietnam episode anymore after making two in season three and skipping them entirely in season four, no: here comes one. And it’s a longer, special one: the last ninety minute episode of the series. But it aired the same night as a single episode, and that’s how it’s going to be reported here.

Lastly—no, really—if the title sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It’s almost like the last episode of Little House season nine, excluding the three final special movies, and the MASH* series finale four years before this. Considering the military setting of this episode, they probably did that on purpose.

Overview:

• Assignment;
• Background;
• Characters
• Highway Actors
• Production And Setting

Glossary:

• Blooper
• Car
• Friendly Jonathan
• Recycle
• The “KA” Network
• Sunday Suits
• The Job
• Ratings

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help a nurse deal with her experience in the Vietnam War.

The assignment begins as two-fold to then evolve into a whole. Jonathan and Mark are working at the Air Force Academy, where Jonathan is a psychologist and Mark is the station housing director. When they get two different jobs, they are going to get two separate assignments as well.

Apparently, Jonathan’s work is mostly centered on Nurse Michael, a combat nurse who is hiding a secret.

She is suffering deeply from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Vietnam years ago. However, she refuses to tell anybody about her pain, and that pushes her away from a doctor who is evidently smitten with her.

At the same time, Mark is working with the Hastings family, who have just moved in from another town in order to let their son David enroll in the Air Force. But the family is hiding a secret as well.

The son was adopted, and that secret is about to be revealed to everyone.

So, the assignment is to work on these two unrelated cases until it turns out they are related.

And spying on babies is part of that.

• Background

This episode spans quite a long period. In particular, part one—although it’s not really two-part episode—probably takes place over a couple of days, while part two covers at least two weeks, as the nurse has to attend a couple of weekly gatherings with a group of fellow Vietnam veterans.

But trying to fit this episode into the series timeline is impossible: the discontinued airing shuffled the order of the episodes, so no episodes in season five offers any specific indication as to how they relate to each other. It’s possibly sometime in fall 1988, but it’s unclear.

Actually, there is a clue. Throughout the episode, it is revealed that David is seventeen years old, that Kim gave birth shortly after her lover’s death, and, at the end of the episode, it is revealed that the man died in July 1971 as reported by the grave.

That means this episode must be set sometime in late 1988 at the earliest, which would approximately correspond to when the episode was shot, or possibly even early 1989, though that seems less likely. Even though season five timespan is unknown, and that can’t be ruled out.

• Characters

As for the characters, the episode makes quite a few revelations. At the beginning of the assignment, Mark reveals parts of his service.

It’s not the first time he has talked about this. It was already revealed in To Bind The Wounds in season two and then confirmed in A Dolphin Song For Lee in season four that he was in the military and served in the Vietnam War.

But now he adds that he served there for three years.

It was already revealed that he worked as a cop for fifteen years, from 1964 to 1979, and then lived for five years with his sister until the pilot started. That means his military service must have occurred earlier. Which is plausible: it was already revealed in Going Home, Going Home and Oh Lucky Man that Mark was born in 1936, which means he became a cop when he was 28 and there is no indication of what he had been doing before that.

So, it now seems that he served three years in the Marines before becoming a police officer.

Otherwise, a second explanation is that the military service came later. In To Bind The Wounds in season two and then A Dolphin Song For Lee in season four, he talked about the service in Vietnam for some time.

That period of service must coincide with his time as a cop. (If the United States only became directly involved in the 1960s, and he was supposedly already a police officer by that time). So, it is possible that the three years Mark is talking about could have occurred at some point while he was already a cop, interrupting his career for a while to serve there.

It’s harder to believe, though. He said that he was a cop for fifteen years, and if those years weren’t consecutive or complete, he probably would have specified that.

The second detail relates to how he feels about flying. In this episode, he tells Mr. Hastings that he always liked it.

Which is confirmed to Jonathan later.

Although that’s a stretch: in season one he once said that his father was a stonecutter and that his dream was to become like him.

That was part of a larger encouragement speech to an assignment who was neglecting his own son, but it still sounds like a contradiction here.

Anyway, he immediately adds that he didn’t.

And the reason is obvious.

In season two, he also revealed that he was afraid of flying when Jonathan wanted him to take a flight to Illinois to visit his daughter.

On that occasion, he even said that Jonathan couldn’t possibly understand because he was an angel and was used to flying.

That’s exactly the same thing he says here, although it comes as a mystery. It’s apparent that Jonathan never flies in the series: he doesn’t have wings, and he simply travels from place to place by vanishing or by using Mark’s car. So, it’s very weird.

And the odd part is that Jonathan should already know that Mark is afraid of flying, but he seems surprised when Mark tells him that.

He’s probably too friendly to actually listen to his friend.

But even Mark forgets that Jonathan doesn’t have to eat.

In five years, he still has to remember that.

Anyway, it just leads to the bemusing part where Hastings’s son takes Mark up in his plane to help him overcome his fear.

Cute.

No idea how they shot this, but it really seems that French actually got on the airplane. That’s probably one of the most complex portions of the series, really. And he had to do it: actors obey their director’s demands.

Maybe he wanted to go flying with Jonathan, for he can’t do anything without his friend. Like when he asks him to have dinner with the colonel.

But there’s another detail related to Mark’s past: at some point, he finds out that the Mr. Hastings he’s assigned to help is actually the younger brother of an old friend.

That’s right: yet another friend. Oddly enough, he won’t be invited to the reunion a few episodes from now.

This friend seems to know that Mark’s name used to be “Flash.”

That’s the same way he said in the season four finale he used to be called.

At the same time, though, he gave a different name in season two, which was then upheld in season three.

So now there are two episodes from two different season with a name, and two other episodes from two other different seasons with another one.

• Highway Actors

The episode also features a couple of familiar actors in the Hasting family. Mr. Hasting is played by Richard Greene, who had already appeared as Lee’s father in season four.

On that occasion, his character admitted that he had fought in the Vietnam War, like this second one.

While his wife Mrs. Hastings is played by Shelby Leverington from season one.

She was Deke’s mother in One Fresh Batch Of Lemonade, the episode about the guy involved in a biking accident (the episode introducing Scotty).

Curiously, on that occasion, her character’s son suffered a motorcycle accident at one point.

They probably thought she simply looked like that kind of role.

So, plenty of old timers.

He already knew them both.

But David is played by Matthew Perry and he had never been on Highway before.

– Production and Setting

As for the production, this episode was written in July 1988, shortly after the conclusion of the strike, and was produced over the course of two weeks in September, about two weeks after the opening episode. Actually, there’s something weird about it: this episode is ninety minutes long, and usually episodes this long are divided into two parts and aired over two separate weeks.

However, this episode aired as a single episode on the same night. That makes it difficult to determine whether this was a consequence of the discontinued airing of this season, or whether it was always intended to air as a single-night “special.”

There is some conflicting information. The episode has two scripts, and usually, when there are two separate scripts, it means that the episode was intended to be divided into two parts.

At the same time, this was the hundredth episode of the series, so it is unclear whether they decided to air it as a single episode because it was a special occasion.

That could also explain why it was postponed to the second episode of the season. So far, every season of Highway had begun with a ninety-minute episode, either airing in two parts over two weeks (A Song for Jason, A Special Love, and Man’s Best Friend) or as a single episode (the pilot in season one). The fifth season, however, unusually began with a self-contained episode, while the two-part episode came second. It is therefore unclear whether the choice was made because Landon believed that episode was a better way to open the season, or whether they wanted this episode to coincide with the series reaching the landmark of 100 episodes. Or, of course, it could have been both.

To complicate matters further, the season’s episode count would have been affected if this episode had not aired as a single ninety-minute episode. In every season of Highway, there were twelve episodes in the first half of the season (from September to December) and twelve in the second half (from January to May). This fifth season, however, was ordered to have only twelve episodes. If this episode had not aired as a single ninety-minute episode, the season would have had thirteen episodes. And that’s h.ow it appears in syndication, where the episode is divided into two parts. This seems to suggest that the episode was indeed intended to count as a single episode for the original broadcast.

Either way, part two was already intended to begin with the nurse meeting the Hastings’ son, so they didn’t have to juggle things (as Landon is used to by now).

But again, this was the final season: it is equally plausible that the series finale was treated as a separate special episode. If that were the case, this episode would have had to be divided into two parts in order to fit the regular schedule. Again, the evidence is conflicting.

Either way, this episode was written by Gutierrez, making it his final writing credit for the series. He had been the sound editor on Landon’s series beginning with Bonanza, then started writing for Little House on the Prairie before returning to Highway in its second season. After this, he would remain an editor for the rest of the series, as well as for Landon’s subsequent shows, and he passed away sixteen years after the end of the series.

The production was also significantly delayed because of the 1988 strike. In March 1988, both the writers’ and actors’ guilds announced that they were going to strike during the summer, preventing productions from taking place. The production, however, successfully negotiated an agreement that allowed him to resume writing even while the strike was still underway. Nevertheless, production was delayed until August, rather than July as had been customary—or even May, as had been the case with season four. The delay was therefore anticipated because of the strike.

Chronologically, this was the third episode shot that season, although the second episode would air much later.

As for the setting, the episode was filmed at the real Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in California, making it only the second time Highway had filmed an episode at a military base.

The first was To Bind the Wounds in season two.

In Arizona, though.

Glossary:

Blooper: there’s an off-screen blooper at the beginning of the episode. During the childbirth sequence, they order to call the doctor.

And the director arrives.

There’s another blooper: when Jonathan is talking to the nurse, she is sipping her breakfast resting both hands on the table.

And then her hands are swapped.

Car: more than once, Mark decides to park his car in reserved spot.

Two things to point out: one, he didn’t have his seatbelt on. Which is not a good lesson for the audience.

But it’s also a reserved spot. But he doesn’t care. And he parks it again a second time later on as he waits for Jonathan.

You really shouldn’t do that.

Someone should fine him. Or turn over his car, like Jonathan did in season one.

Friendly Jonathan: it occurs when Jonathan won’t do anything to prevent Mark from getting on the flight.

He just flies around.

And when he suddenly appears in the car.

Recycles: plenty. In particular, the nurse’s nightmares are all recycled from other Vietnam episodes. There is a nightmare in which a man runs across an open field, steps on a mine, and is blown up.

This was Joe’s nightmare at the beginning of The Hero in the third season.

Maybe this implies that everyone suffering from this disorder dreams of the same scenes. Or perhaps Kim was in the same commando unit as Joe and the deceased boy from the second-season episode. More likely, though, it was simply season five, and Landon realized they had neither the the budget nor the time to shoot complicated Vietnam War sequences, so he decided to recycle what they already had. Or maybe he knew the series would soon be over and simply wanted to move on. Or perhaps he just wanted to throw in everything he had. There are plenty of possibilities.

But there is another recycled element: the amusing flying sequence in which Mark makes terrified faces while flying has a familiar score.

It is the same music used during the horse race in the season-one finale.

Again, David Rose may have known that the series was nearing its conclusion and that ratings had dropped considerably after season four. So why bother composing new music when you can recycle an old tune? And this one comes all the way from season one.

Or perhaps he was simply very fond of recycling. Either way, there will be plenty more of it throughout this season.

The “KK” network: this episode also brings the old KK back.

Just for some context: in the second season, the show introduced a fictional news channel that almost every character in the series watches, as though it were the only channel in the country: the KK (or KA in some episode). The first time was The Torch (Nazi episode).

It was used a bunch of times throughout the second and third seasons (one example is For The Love Of Larry, the actual episode).

So now it comes back in this episode, when Kim is watching a report on the missing-in-action pilots and finds out that her lover is among them.

Sunday Suits: Jonathan and Mark also wear both of their Sunday suits in this episode, on several occasions.

And Mark also wear the black one.

The Job: this assignment divides the job into two parts. So, Jonathan is the psychologist.

And Mark helps people settle in.

Ratings: 20 million audience. 42nd Weekly TV program, 3rd Special.

This episode aired on a single night in early December 1988, making it the last episode of the series to air that year and only the second episode of the season, more than two months after the preceding one. In terms of ratings, it actually wasn’t that bad. Of course, it was the least-watched episode of the series, but it aired so long after the preceding one, and ratings are always affected by this kind of prolonged break. Moreover, it received essentially no promotion from the network, which simply wanted to get the series over with and move on from it. By this point, Highway was already in its syndication run.

Apparently, the network sold the first four seasons of Highway into syndication that summer. This meant that Highway was no longer going to air only on the official NBC channels whenever the network decided to show it; instead, it would air on any channel that had bought the episodes. That created some confusion, as the episodes were airing all over cable television in no particular order, and viewers might not know whether an episode was a new one or simply an older episode being shown in syndication. (This was back in the days when the only way to know a TV lineup was reading the papers, and they might not be updated; so old, isn’t it).

So, all things considered, the ratings for this episode could have been a lot worse. Actually, it scored the same as the Halloween Special in season four, and that episode was part of a weekly lineup and had no shortcomings whatsoever.

But again, considering that the series had already been cancelled—the network ordered the fifth, shortened season to be the last—ratings don’t matter quite as much anymore. Curiously, this episode aired just one week after the series finale was filmed, so by the time it originally aired, Landon and the rest of the crew had already finished working on the series. It’s starting to feel rather wistful now; it’s up to NBC to air the remaining ten episodes of this season—and of the series.