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50th Anniversary Viewing
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Adam-12
"Skywatch: Part 1"
Originally aired February 26, 1974
Wiki said:
Malloy and Reed are chosen for an LAPD program where patrol officers ride along with the Air Support Division....Calls include two robbery suspects inside a high-rise building, a fleeing murder suspect, and a cliffhanger ending involving a hijacked light plane.
It seems that
Adam-12 has dropped off of Freevee. Fortunately, FeTV happened to be right up to the remaining episodes of this season, so I was able to roll along with only a slight delay--My fellow Michianans have got my back!
The officers get teased in the locker room by Brinkman and Woods because they're going to helicopter school--flying with one of the air units as part of a program that Reed pushed for. At the police heliport, they're reacquainted with Officer Walters (William Stevens reprising a recurring role from Season 1), who recently transferred to the air unit from Harbor Division; and they report to Lt. Benson (Jack Hogan). (FWIW, Reed's said to now be two years out of probation.) The officers go up in Air-70 with Walters and the pilot, Officer Chet Mills (Gavin James, a.k.a. James W. Gavin, who seems to have been an actual helicopter pilot given that most of his numerous roles on IMDb are for "Helicopter Pilot").
The chopper takes a scenic route through the canyons of downtown L.A. to investigate a 211 following which the suspects have been ascending inside one of the skyscrapers. The chopper hovers around the floors they're believed to be on and Reed manages to spot them in a 26th-floor window, following which they're reported as having been apprehended in a stairwell.
The officers observe with a scope as Brinkman's unit responds to a call at a residence. Brinkman radios them that it's a homicide of a young woman, whom Malloy and Reed are familiar with from having recently responded to a call for a dispute between her and her boyfriend, whose name is Porter. They're unable to spot Porter's vehicle on the freeway, but head to his known residence and spot his vehicle and then him attempting to get away in it...but he has to do a 180 when he's pursued by a squad car from the opposite direction. Guided by the chopper, the squad car corners him when he turns into a series of horse trails. Porter tries to flee on foot, but a P.A. call from the low-flying chopper persuades him to surrender.
The chopper returns to the heliport with the intention of the officers taking a seven at a nearby sub place, but Lt. Benson sends them after a stolen private plane from beautiful Burbank Airport. For this the officers split up--Malloy riding with Walters in Air-70, while Reed goes with Mills in Air-10. Walters contacts Burbank air control for info about the plane's whereabouts, and Mac updates them about how it's a drinking-related dispute involving a suspect named Pollard, whose wife is being brought to Van Nuys Airport to meet him.
Uncle Jack: Next week, the conclusion of "Air Support."
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II
For all of its pretty aerial footage, in one sense this is sort of a bottle episode...it's all conveyed from the vantage of the officers in the air, with no credited suspects and only two guests who aren't recurring actors.
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Hawaii Five-O
"30,000 Rooms and I Have the Key"
Originally aired February 26, 1974
Season finale
Wiki said:
A wealthy stylish jewel thief and master of disguise who steals for the thrill of stealing (David Wayne) evades McGarrett and then sends the Five-O chief an invitation to his next performance.
The Wiki description also points out that the premise is similar to the two previous episodes guest-starring Hume Cronyn as Lewis Avery Filer.
At the Ilikai hotel, a thief passing himself off as room service (Wayne) uses a master key to get into a suite and pulls out and burns a handwritten note telling him exactly where to look for the jewelry. A suspicious security guard named Darter (Clarence Garcia) confirms that he's not staff, but the thief is a step ahead of him, calmly leaving the scene and proceeding to hit another suite. While Darter gives Five-O a description, we see the thief in a third room removing his distinguishing features, which were all appliances. Then Five-O is called to the third room before learning of the second--where the thief in a new disguise, that of Father Doigt, reports the theft of a holy relic in the form of a saint's finger. While questioning the fake father, McGarrett describes the computer-coordinated system that Five-O, the HPD, and the hotel and security organizations are part of. When they receive a report of the second room theft, involving $50,000 worth of sapphires, Five-O is getting on the elevator, but McGarrett dramatically stops the doors from closing as he suddenly realizes from the meaning of the clergyman's name and the lack of a burned note like the other rooms (including a hit at a previous hotel) that they've been had. In the father's room, they find a rose, a burned note, and a ten-dollar bill.
McGarrett: You know what I think, gentlemen? We just briefed our thief.
(Not that this comes up again as a plot point.)
Che is unable to find any prints in the father's room, but is able to raise a partial thumbprint from the registration card via which he checked into the hotel. Che also determines that the room locks weren't picked, indicating the use of a master key. The thief dons the disguise of a security guard and walks out of the Ilikai to proceed to a hotel called the Coral Crown, where he's got a room and is casually familiar in his security guard ID with an unsuspecting maid named Thelma (Ethel Azama). Inside, he removes the door knob, whips out a key-making machine, and crafts a new key. He then dons the disguise of the room's occupant and leaves the room for the maid to clean up; following which he breaks into the hotel manager's office and plants a bug. Five-O finds an M.O. match with a culprit known only as S. R. Horus, and work out the details of his M.O. on a blackboard. They determine that Horus's next likely targets are a wealthy couple staying at the Coral Crown who refuse to use a safe deposit box and stake out and surveil the room after consulting with the manager, while Horus listens. Five-O watches as the thief enters in another security guard disguise and goes for the jewels...Steve waiting until he's red-handed to burst in with his gun. The thief disarms as ordered but casually moves toward the balcony, where he hooks himself to a prepared line and descends down to another balcony several stories below, giving Five-O the slip.
Steve works out that Horus is motivated by ego and--after receiving an engraved invitation from Horus to his next job at the Hawaiian Regent--a need for risk. They further work out that he always checks into and out of the hotels that he hits in a disguise, leaving the rose and tip. The figure of interest at the Regent is a guest who's expecting to receive a shipment of diamonds from a South African courier. While Five-O tails the arriving courier (James L. Hutchison) and stakes out the Regent--disguised as guests in loud Hawaiian shirts even though the thief has met them--Horus checks into the establishment and breaks into a service room where he taps into the phone line to intercept a call from the courier and divert him to a room on a different floor.
Five-O belatedly learns of this from the courier and finds the usual calling cards, but Steve deduces that Horus is still in the hotel to toy with them. More rooms are hit, and while Five-O is on the prowl in the corridors, Danno spots and recognizes Horus based on a composite of sketches made of the thief in various disguises. Horus gives Danno and Ben the slip via a prepared ventilation shaft escape route, but when Horus returns to his room and removes his current disguise, he finds Steve waiting for him--the partial prints and handwriting from various registration cards having allowed him to identify which guest he was. Horus identifies himself as Bordeaux, turns over the jewels on hand to McGarrett while leaving him to find where the others are stashed, and invites Steve to sit down with him over a drink, which McGarrett declines, affirming that he's a cop and doesn't drink.
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Ironside
"Close to the Heart"
Originally aired February 28, 1974
Frndly said:
A woman with a bullet near her heart claims she doesn't remember ever getting shot.
The Chief is driving himself down to Santa Cruz for a lecture when a station wagon-driving woman experiencing mysterious symptoms (Elizabeth Ashley) runs both of them off the street. We can forgive a non-Mark VII show for skipping straight to the ambulance ride. At the hospital the Chief is determined to be unharmed, but listens as the woman, Laura Keyes, opines to Dr. Furness (Anthony Eisley) that she may have had a heart attack, and acts surprised when X-rays reveal that she has a bullet lodged near her heart...having been shot long enough prior that the wound is now scar tissue. Team Ironside and Laura's traveling husband, Daniel (Donald Moffat), converge on the hospital, by which point Laura is refusing surgery against medical advice and the Chief's curiosity to examine the projectile. She comes up with an obviously false story about remembering an incident at the beach with her daughter two years prior when she thought she was hit by a rock thrown by some rowdy kids and bandaged up the wound. The Chief rules out a suicide attempt based on the gun having been three feet away from her.
Laura falls unconscious from an attack and her husband gives consent for the operation; following which she's visited by him and their 11-year-old daughter, Tress (Linda Marie). The bullet is promptly found to be a match for the unsolved murder two years prior of an up-and-coming union leader named Carlos Ortega, which was believed to have been robbery-related at the time. The Chief confronts Laura with her lie and asks about a connection to Ortega, but she refuses to talk. Later she dials the Cave, but changes her mind and hangs up. The most likely suspect, her husband, is determined to have a spotless record and to have been in Arizona on his job as a radio engineer for the weeks surrounding Ortega's murder, but the possibility that he could have made a quick trip back to Frisco on that date isn't ruled out.
Fran talks to Mike Purcell (James Luisi), Laura's boss at the real estate job that she left for unknown reasons around the time of the murder; and identifies him afterward as a mobster named Charles Morance. Ed talks to the union boss Ortega had been trying to beat in an election, Bill McCraken (Paul Lambert); and then Ortega's widow, Helen (Gina Alvarado), who challenges McCraken's story that Carlos was drunk at the time and shot by a junkie.
Fran finds that Laura has checked out of the hospital. At the Keyses' bayside home, a man who's delivering a plant starts to pull a gun on Laura behind her back, but bugs out when Fran drives up. Meanwhile, a union financial report that Mrs. Ortega got ahold of pulls up something of arrest-worthy interest. The Chief goes to the Keyes home while Fran's there and reveals that Ortega had been calling for an audit of the union and that funds were being siphoned from one of its investments--a lucrative housing development that Laura had been working. This makes both Purcell and McCraken likely suspects. Upon being pointedly questioned by Fran, Laura admits that she'd been having an affair with Mike, who was known to have a violent temper, and flashes back to the night that she broke things off with him...which ultimately ended with him pulling a gun and firing it at her in anger when she tried to walk out. She was still conscious afterward and helped the apologetic Purcell to cover it up, the wound having been patched up by a doctor who worked for the syndicate.
McCraken is picked up and Laura agrees to testify before a grand jury, but Purcell infiltrates the Hall of Justice posing as an elevator operator. When he pops out of an elevator that he's marked "out of order" to take a shot at a figure that he thinks is Laura, but is actually Fran walking with Mr. Keyes, Mark spots and wounds him, then rushes down the stairwell with uniformed backup to the parking garage, where Purcell falls out of his getaway van. In the aftermath, Laura is surprised to learn that Dan knew of her affair all along and never said anything, having put it behind him when she cut it off.
As whodunnits go, this one's novel premise kept it interesting.
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The Brady Bunch
"The Hustler"
Originally aired March 1, 1974
Wiki said:
The Bradys receive a pool table as a thank-you gift from Mike's boss, and Bobby quickly becomes a billiards expert. Bobby shows off his skills during Mike and Carol's cocktail party, soundly beating Mike's boss.
The boys are playing basketball, with Oliver on the sidelines, when a flatbed truck backs into the driveway and delivers a pair of large crates for Mike. The crates are opened after Mike gets home, accompanied by much suspense, to reveal a pool table. Back at the firm the next day, Mike learns that it's a gift from his boss, Harry Matthews, and that a card was meant to accompany it. (I'm pretty sure we've met Mike's boss before, and he wasn't Jim Backus.) Mike accepts the gift graciously, though he's clearly not as into pool as Matthews is, and Carol refuses to have it in the house, so they end up keeping it in the carport! (Seems like their family room would be perfect for it.) Mike decides to have Matthews over for dinner to express the family's appreciation. Meanwhile, Bobby makes a household chore bet over a game with Peter and Greg and cleans up while Oliver watches in amusement. That night, Bobby dreams of displaying his virtuosity before an adoring audience in a swank theater, which ends with him being showered in money.
In addition to Harry and his wife, Frances (Dorothy Shay), the Bradys get backed into hosting two of Mike's coworkers and their wives, the Thompsons (Jason Dunn and Susan Quick) and the Sinclairs (Charles Stewart and Grayce Spence); while the kids all go out except for Bobby, who's making up homework time after having stayed up all night practicing pool. The men let their boss win even though he's not really a very good player, but then Bobby comes out and Harry agrees to a child-friendly wager with him. Bobby cleans up again while the uncomfortable men watch...though Mike displays pride and amusement.
Matthews--who insists on honoring the wager--ends up owing Bobby 256 packs of gum. When a sobered Matthews talks of donating his table to charity, the Bradys jump on the opportunity to restore the series status quo (FWIW at this point) by offering to donate their table in its place.
In the coda, the same truck delivers Bobby's winnings.
This is Robert Reed's final appearance on the show, as he wasn't in the finale due to a dispute over that episode's storyline. And FWIW, the episode before this, which isn't on P+, guested Natalie Schafer.
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The Odd Couple
"The Insomniacs"
Originally aired March 1, 1974
Wiki said:
Oscar, Murray and Myrna try to cure Felix's insomnia.
And it turns out that P+ no longer has
The Odd Couple...but Pluto does, with the same unavailable episodes. Onward.
When Felix hasn't slept for three days, he wakes Oscar up in the middle of the night to pester him, eventually settling into a rocking chair outside of Oscar's open door. Felix's lack of sleep comes to affect his lucidity during the day. Felix tries to keep himself amused at night, calling Miriam to describe the late, late show after the channel goes off the air for the night (Remember that?); then Randall impresses the studio audience by putting poker chips on his upturned elbow and catching them in the same arm's hand. When Felix wakes up Oscar for breakfast at 4 a.m. to keep him company until the TV comes back on, Oscar tries to uncover what happened to Felix four days prior that put him in this state, and it turns out that he saw Gloria in the supermarket with another man. Felix enlists Murray to do some plainclothes investigating (dressed like Columbo, who is referenced), and it turns out that the man was an auto insurance agent she was negotiating with. This proves to be a blind alley, though, as Felix still can't sleep the next night.
Felix comes home from the studio in a state of delirium, having briefly fainted in his darkroom. Oscar has a used waterbed delivered and tries playing a record of soothing water noises, but it just makes Felix have to run for the bathroom. Murray tries the power of suggestion, telling a story full of sleep-evoking imagery while repeatedly yawning...which puts Myrna out. Oscar brings out a box of Felix's old toys that his mother sent him the previous year--including a teddy bear wrapped in cellophane to keep dust off of him--and ends up having to read stories to Felix. When this proves unsuccessful in comforting Felix to sleep, it comes up that his new electronic watch has stopped, and Oscar works out that Felix misses the ticking of his old watch under his ear. To get Felix to sleep until he can get his old watch back from an assistant the next day, Oscar stands by his bed making ticking noises.
In the coda, Felix is sleeping like a baby while Oscar suffers from insomnia...pulling the rocking chair into Felix's doorway and settling in with the wrapped bear.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"I Was a Single for WJM"
Originally aired March 2, 1974
Season finale
Wiki said:
Mary begins frequenting a singles bar to research a news special. When they air from the bar live, they encounter disastrous results.
The title of this episode may be a reference to a 1951 film that's been coming up in the Movies! schedule,
I Was a Communist for the FBI.
Lou holds a conference to come up with an idea for a new location feature spot. Mary wants to do a nostalgia piece about the mid-'60s, when she was married to Dick Van Dyke. Lou goes with Murray's idea, about covering a singles bar that he routinely walks by and is clearly fascinated with...but it turns out that Marie won't let him cover the story, so Mary has to go undercover alone, which Lou protectively doesn't like. At the bar she's hit on by an awkward operator named Dino (Richard Schaal again), and strikes up a conversation with a couple of young ladies named Toni and Alice (Penny Marshall and Arlene Golonka). When Dino tries to hit on Mary at the bar, she learns that she has a chaperone--Lou. Toni rather forwardly gives Lou her number, and when it looks like Dino is picking up Alice, it turns out that he's the husband that she's separated from.
Stuck for an angle, the crew decide to take the cameras into the bar to broadcast live during the news and let the patrons do the talking. Murray resolves to be there, wanting for one brief, shining moment to feel hip and "not bald". At the bar, Mary sits down to explain to Toni and Alice that they're going to be on camera as the crew is rolling their equipment in; and not only do they not want to be on TV, but the entire place clears out. Ted is left with nobody to interview from the studio but the embarrassed newsroom crew, with Murray freezing like a deer in the headlights. Lou fares better on camera, trying to salvage the moment by explaining what happened to the television audience, but ultimately leaves it to Ted to fill the remaining time...which he does by calling for a moment of silence.
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The Bob Newhart Show
"A Matter of Principal"
Originally aired March 2, 1974
Season finale
Wiki said:
Emily stands on her principles and defies an order to let an unqualified student skip a grade.
While Bob's playing with his new record organizer, Emily's grading essays and shows him one by a Richard Lewis, which is obviously too articulate for a third-grader. Emily believes that Richard Sr., an influential member of the school board who wants his son to skip a grade, is responsible. The next day at Bob's office, following a session with Mr. Trevesco (Michael Conrad reprising a role from early in the season), Emily drops by to get Bob's advice about the principal pressuring her to approve of skipping Richard. (It occurs to me that given what we see of Bob's commute in the opening credits, it stretches credibility that Emily casually drops by his office so often, unless her school happens to be in the same area.) That night, Emily's out getting groceries when the principal, Mr. Brimskill (Milton Selzer), visits the Hartley residence and asks Bob to influence Emily on the matter. When she returns, he announces that he'll take the matter into his own hands and skip Richard himself, which Emily protests by quitting on the spot. (There's a gag in here where Brimskill requests an elementary school-style snack from Bob and ends up confronting Emily with grape juice stains on his mouth.)
Emily's still fuming over the matter when Howard, Jerry, and Carol arrive for dinner. They quickly learn of her predicament and attempt to advise her...Howard making her feel worse by offhandedly laying down a realistic chain of career consequences. The next day there's another session with Travesco, who's obsessed with proving that he's being visited and abducted by aliens, following which Bob goes to the school to help Emily pack her things. Brimskill comes in to try to persuade her to stay, and she offers the alternative condition that he skip four other students who are at least as bright as Richard. He won't approve of that, but leaves her with an open offer to return. What ultimately changes Emily's mind is when she receives an unexpected visit from a student named Lisa who's still on the premises (Tara Talboy). The girl has heard that they're getting a new teacher and conveys how much she and the other students will miss Mrs. Hartley.
Lisa (seeing Bob walk in carrying a box): Are you the new teacher? I hate you!
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I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot. But aside from being a charismatic actor with a catchphrase, like the Fonz or Squiggy, I don't think JJ made that much of an impression.
