Highway to Heaven
Jonathan Smith is a probationary angel sent back to Earth to help people. During the series' first episode, he meets embittered ex-policeman Mark Gordon (as Jonathan is walking along a little-used road, on which Mark happens to be driving). Jonathan helps reform Mark, with the grateful Mark agreeing to become Jonathan's right-hand associate in carrying out the heavenly mission. The two begin traveling the country as itinerant workers, receiving assignments from "the Boss" (God), with their mission being to deliver love, understanding and humility to the people they encountered. Typical episodes stressed moral, Christian themes; though many episodes dealt with common human failings, such as egotism, bitterness and greed, some shows addressed such topics as racism and cancer. A few shows, however, were played mainly for laughs (such as Landon recreating his first famous starring role in a takeoff of his 1957 film I Was a Teenage Werewolf and his role in in little house on the prairie).
- 1984-1989
- 5 seasons
- NBC
- Drama, Fantasy
- TV-PG
Jonathan Smith is a probationary angel sent back to Earth to help people. During the series' first episode, he meets embittered ex-policeman Mark Gordon (as Jonathan is walking along a little-used road, on which Mark happens to be driving). Jonathan helps reform Mark, with the grateful Mark agreeing to become Jonathan's right-hand associate in carrying out the heavenly mission. The two begin traveling the country as itinerant workers, receiving assignments from "the Boss" (God), with their mission being to deliver love, understanding and humility to the people they encountered. Typical episodes stressed moral, Christian themes; though many episodes dealt with common human failings, such as egotism, bitterness and greed, some shows addressed such topics as racism and cancer. A few shows, however, were played mainly for laughs (such as Landon recreating his first famous starring role in a takeoff of his 1957 film I Was a Teenage Werewolf and his role in in little house on the prairie).
Season 4 Episode Guide
24 Episodes 1987 - 1988
Episode 1
Man's Best Friend: Part 1
Wed, Sep 16, 1987 45 mins
A runaway dog helps bring together a boy in an orphanage whom nobody wants and the dog's human family, the parents of which are trying to have another child through a surrogate mother.
Episode 2
Man's Best Friend: Part 2
Wed, Sep 23, 1987 45 mins
The orphan boy has formed an attachment to the dog, although he is going away to living with a new foster family.
Episode 3
Fight for Your Life
Wed, Sep 30, 1987 60 mins
A young fighter must make a choice between right and wrong.
Episode 4
The People Next Door
Wed, Oct 21, 1987 45 mins
Jonathan and Mark are on an assignment as real estate agents in an upscale neighborhood. Upon their arrival a couple of the neighbors come by to meet them and let it be known that they want to make sure the 'right kind of people' will move into the neighborhood. One of the neighbors, Dr. Martin, is a very successful doctor who also helps at a clinic in a poorer neighborhood; when he leaves the clinic, he stops by his mother's house, Mrs. Martinez, who lives in the poorer area; what his mother doesn't know is that her son has changed his name to Martin and lives the good life with a wife and young son who she has never met. Meanwhile, when Jonathan and Mark show the house to a potential buyer, a black family, prejudice rears its head when a neighbor tries to stop the sale by buying the house himself to control who can live in the house. Dr. Martin is put in the middle of the situation when he has a deciding vote to stop the sale and finally lets his ethnic heritage be known.
Episode 5
I Was a Middle Aged Werewolf
Wed, Oct 28, 1987 44 mins
During Halloween night, Jonathan helps a little boy get over his fears (and in the process get even with his older sister).
Episode 6
Playing for Keeps
Wed, Nov 4, 1987 45 mins
Jonathan tries to mend the relationship between a comedian and his son whose a serious actor. He goes about it by getting them to work in a play. Problem is the comedian hasn't been serious in his relationship with his son, which carries over into the play which is a drama.
Episode 7
Amazing Man
Wed, Nov 11, 1987 45 mins
A little boy's father has died, and now his mother and grandfather are shielding him from focusing on his father's death. Now, the little boy has a superhero figurine that he calls Amazing Man, and becomes his imaginary friend. Jonathan tries to help the little boy let go of his grief.
Episode 8
All the Colors of the Heart
Wed, Nov 18, 1987 45 mins
Frank, an athlete who expects to gain his sight, must counsel another man who's sure to lose his.
Episode 9
Why Punish the Children?
Wed, Nov 25, 1987 45 mins
Jonathan and Mark's latest assignment has them going to a women's prison. It seems that the inmates are not allowed any physical contact with their children. Jonathan thinks that policy should be changed but Mark doesn't at first. Jonathan tries to get the warden to change things but he's not moved until he gets a dream of not being able to be with his children. Jonathan tries to get one of the children of an inmate, who resents her mother for her actions, to see her.
Episode 10
A Dream of Wild Horses
Wed, Dec 2, 1987 60 mins
An aging rancher gives up, and places all the responsibility on his stressed out daughter. Jonathan and Mark show up to offer support.
Episode 11
In with the 'In' Crowd
Wed, Dec 9, 1987 60 mins
Jonathan and Mark go to a school as policemen trying to help find who is selling drugs that killed a student. Another policewoman goes undercover and she thinks she knows who the dealer is. She uses a student to get to him. When she drops him, he confronts her. When he gets rough she uses her cop skills to fend him off. Later he learns from the dealer what she is and he claims she used illegal methods to get him to help her. She was hoping that the wire she wore recorded the whole thing. Bur Mark erroneously stopped recording so she can't prove her version of what happen and would get suspended. Mark wanting to make it up to her, goes to the dealer under the guise of deliberately messing up the recoding so that he could get in on the dealer's action. But when they meet again the guy correctly deduces that Mark's wired so he knocks him out and gives him a fatal dose. Mark ends up in a coma. Jonathan tries to get the cop to help him but she doesn't feel as if there's any point to what they do.
Episode 12
With Love, the Claus
Wed, Dec 23, 1987 45 mins
It's Christmas and Jonathan and Mark's latest assignment is to try and get a divorced couple who are still bickering with each other and use their son as a pawn to stop. They go to work for the father who is a lawyer. They take their son to the department store to see Santa. The Santa there really believes himself to be Santa and doesn't approve of the stores marketing policies - he goes into a rage. He gets arrested and Jonathan defends him. The department store owner tells their lawyer, the boy's mother to get him (Santa) to shut up. So parents go at it in court.
Episode 13
A Mother's Love
Wed, Jan 6, 1988 60 mins
When four boys whose mother just died are told that they're going to become wards of the state and will be placed in different homes, they run away. Jonathan and Mark help get them together with a teacher who's about to retire and with no family.
Episode 14
Country Doctor
Wed, Jan 13, 1988 45 mins
A small town doctor is in bad health but he can't afford to retire and there is no one else to take his place.
Episode 15
Time in a Bottle
Wed, Jan 20, 1988 45 mins
When a homeless man is arrested for robbery, Jonathan tries to get the man's friend, another homeless man who was a lawyer to defend him. It appears that the D.A. prosecuting the case is taking a hard line because a powerful man wants to get rid of the homeless people.
Episode 16
Back to Oakland
Wed, Feb 3, 1988 45 mins
As part of the latest assignment, Mark returns to Oakland to become a police officer again and is reunited with his old partner, but things are not the way he left it when he finds his old beat has become a storm of racial hatred.
Episode 17
We Have Forever: Part 1
Wed, Feb 10, 1988 60 mins
When his former wife passes away, Jonathan hopes that he'll be released from his duties to be reunited with her in Heaven, but "The Boss" wants him to stay on Earth. When Jonathan becomes so enraged at "The Boss" that he refuses to obey, he is stripped of his angelic powers and turned into a mortal.
Episode 18
We Have Forever: Part 2
Wed, Feb 17, 1988 60 mins
When an embittered Jonathan, now a mortal, turns his back on everything and everyone, including Mark, a young woman offers him shelter and with the power of love helps him to recover his lost faith and hope.
Episode 19
The Correspondent
Wed, Feb 24, 1988 45 mins
A famous newspaper war correspondent has promised his wife that he won't take any more assignments, but can't resist being persuaded by his publisher to go on just one more story. Unfortunately, he is imprisoned and sentenced to death. In the moments before his execution, it's up to Jonathan and Mark to show him what's he's missed and what he's lost during his life by putting his work ahead of his family.
Episode 20
Aloha
Wed, Mar 2, 1988 60 mins
A handicapped ex-singer from Hawaii yearns for home but will not return as she will not go because her trip to the mainland to find fame failed; then her regular maintenance cheques stop coming.
Episode 21
A Dolphin Song for Lee: Part 1
Wed, Mar 16, 1988 45 mins
A young teen aged girl is dying, and has one more chance for a life saving operation. She has one dream that she would like to fulfill, in case She doesn't make it.
Episode 22
A Dolphin Song for Lee: Part 2
Wed, Mar 23, 1988 45 mins
A teenage girl goes through an operation that may not be successful. Mark helps her fulfill her dream of saving the dolphins.
Episode 23
Heaven Nose, Mister Smith
Wed, Mar 30, 1988 60 mins
Bob Hope guest stars as an angel dispatcher who assigns Jonathan to stop an angel who's back on Earth and intent on breaking up his son's marriage. To stop him, Jonathan must enlist aid of a special kind.
Episode 24
The Whole Nine Yards
Wed, Apr 27, 1988 45 mins
A borderline male chauvinist coach and his teen aged son learn life lessons about caring.
