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 5 Episode Guide
13 Episodes 1988 - 1989
Episode 1
Whose Trash Is It Anyway?
Wed, Oct 12, 1988 45 mins
Jonathan and Mark visit a friend of Mark's who's running for public office who's an extremely honest man. And when his opponent who's the opposite tries to smear him by going after his son. Things get out of hand.
Episode 2
Hello and Farewell: Part 1
Wed, Dec 7, 1988 45 mins
A former Vietnam nurse suffers from PTSD while a teenage boy awaiting to enter pilot training, learns he is adopted.
Episode 3
Hello and Farewell: Part 2
Wed, Dec 7, 1988 45 mins
An adopted teenager learns that his biological mother is a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD.
Episode 4
The Silent Bell
Tue, Mar 21, 1989 45 mins
When the church decrees that religion be taught in his preschool, a minister faces a crisis of conscience and an exodus of ethnically mixed teachers and students.
Episode 5
The Reunion
Fri, Jun 2, 1989 45 mins
It's Mark's high school reunion. His aging comrades from high school must come to terms with the fact that they're not the young popular people that they used to be.
Episode 6
The Source
Fri, Jun 9, 1989 45 mins
Jonathan latest assignment has him working as the faculty adviser at a school paper. 2 student journalists are told by a female student that the bus driver was inappropriate with her. They go ahead with the story without checking it further. And the driver's life, who claims to be innocent, is ruined. Jonathan tries to kill the story but the Principal who's the father of one of the boys over rules him.
Episode 7
The Squeaky Wheel
Fri, Jun 16, 1989 44 mins
A former war vet lost His legs in the war. He later on realizes that even though He's handicapped, He still has a lot to offer.
Episode 8
Goodbye, Mr. Zelinka
Fri, Jun 23, 1989 60 mins
A beloved, aging teacher is being forced to retire, even though he still wants to keep teaching. His students rally to save his job.
Episode 9
Choices
Fri, Jun 30, 1989 60 mins
Jonathan and Mark's latest assignment has them as private investigators. And their clients are a Vietnamese couple who have come to the U.S. to look for their sons whom they had to give up during the war. Jonathan and Mark locate them and the couple wants to bring them back with them to Singapore. But the boys have a life in the U.S. and have bonded with the people who took them in.
Episode 10
Summer Camp
Fri, Jul 14, 1989 45 mins
After suffering major body burns in a freak accident, a top fashion model and actress tried to hide away both from herself and from paying offers to exploit her injuries. Jonathan and Mark offer her a job as a counselor at a summer camp for blind children run by Jonathah and Mark's blind friend Frank, and she accepts under her real name, but she doesn't count on falling in love with Frank and is terrified of him finding out her identity. What she doesn't know is that Frank already knows and is in love with her ... the real her.
Episode 11
The Inner Limits
Fri, Jul 21, 1989 45 mins
A young man is considering institutionalizing his brother, who has been completely paralyzed and speechless for many years, against the wishes of their mother who insists that the brother is not vegetative but can truly understand. When Jonathan and Mark prove that far from being mindless the brother does indeed have a brilliant mind locked in his disadvantaged body, the man must confront his guilt and shame as well as the brother he gave up on.
Episode 12
It's a Dog's Life
Fri, Jul 28, 1989 45 mins
Mark seems to be on his own on this assignment when "The Boss" has apparently turned Jonathan into a pooch, given Mark "the stuff" and handed them a runaway kid with a ditzy mother and a father who's heaven knows where...but are things really what they seem?
Episode 13
Merry Christmas from Grandpa
Fri, Aug 4, 1989 60 mins
A wealthy tycoon / grandfather loves His young grandson dearly. His company is doing underhanded things that damage the environment. Jonathan takes Grandfather into the future to show Him the environmental devastation His company has caused, directly affecting His beloved grandson, and future generations.
