User Reviews

So are you looking for a quality script? Keep looking! Maybe you desire a plausible plot. You won't find it here. How about some actors that rise above the level exhibited by your 5th grader's class play. Score one for the 5th grade. Hey, nobody turns on CHIPS and expects Gielgud, Olivier, and the Bard, but this train wreck makes Michael Bay seem like Stanley Kubrick. Perhaps a hack like Michael Bay would find this slop acceptable. Not everything on television rises to the level of say Lonesome Dove or MASH, but this garbage is flatter than a CD. An obvious attempt at a pilot. Mercifully, we were all spared any additional assault on our histrionic sensibilities.

The genesis of this (thankfully) failed spin off of CHiPs lies in the earlier two-part episode "Ponch's Angels", in which Melanie Mitchell and Paula Woods are trainee CHP officers serving under Jon and Ponch. The blonde Mitchell in that episode was played by Trisha Townsend, in what was inexplicably her only acting role...that's right, she seems to NEVER have acted again after that. Brunette Woods was played by Barbara Stock (later on Spenser: For Hire), while Cindy Morgan of Caddyshack fame played Ponch's girlfriend-of-the-moment Jennifer.

Fast-forward to this episode...Cindy Morgan is back, though now she's filling in for MIA Trisha Townsend as Melanie. Barbara Stock is also absent, as model/beauty contest winner Jayne Kennedy has taken over the role of Paula. These two CHP officers have switched jobs...they now have joined the Ocean City Police Department as detectives.

So now they've went from hanging with Jon and Ponch to the standard motley crew of detectives that seem like rejects from Hill Street Blues. Initially, their Lieutenant gives them a stack of files with routine cases of arson and robbery, but then a case falls into their laps-- LITERALLY--when a hunky guy enters the station, saying he wants to report a murder (his own), then falls dead from a gunshot wound. In what seems like many head-scratching moments in this episode, the dead guy just happens to be a classmate of Mitchell's, the guy she almost went to her prom with! They manage to convince their tough Lieutenant (who turns out to be quite a paper tiger) to give them the murder case.

From there, the two neophyte detectives embark on their own trail of mayhem as they investigate the murder. They cause a multi-car accident (hey, what would CHiPs be without at least one per episode?), immobilize a biker gang with full cans of garbage, punch out a rich bitch (albeit accidentally) and leave an obnoxious gigolo handcuffed to a brass rail. All the while, we hear the characters narrating the episode as if this is supposed to be a Raymond Chandler novel, but instead of resembling The Big Sleep, it just might put you into one.

From watching this, it's hard to believe that a mere two seasons ago, CHiPs was one of the hottest TV series in the country. Certainly, the series took a major decline, but this is definitely one of the lowest of the low points. At least the girls are nice to look at. And what about Jon and Ponch in regards to this episode? They appear at the beginning (to hassle what they assume are their wayward charges), the middle (to give them advice and the name of an informant) and the end (for the inevitable wrap-up). Fortunately, for Robert Pine and the other regulars, their characters don't appear in this episode...one can only assume that, if they watched the finished product, they were most grateful.

When you have to do episodes that completely take away from what & who the show is about, you know you are on you last legs & season 5 had two such episodes!! This was one such episode that just wasted everything! You see they never got their own show as did the season finale didn't!! Thats what these two episodes were supposed to be, pilots for two new shows!!

Was quite enjoying series 5 despite Ponch being AWOL a lot (contract), his fill in Steve (Bruce Jenner) was different enough to be interesting. But this is my contender for worst episode ever, CHiPs with no CHiPs?!? This is a backdoor pilot for a female detective show 'Mitchell & Woods' but unfortunately the ladies seem to have no chemistry & Woods acting in particular is decidedly wooden. Interestingly, Mitchell (Cindy Morgan from Tron) played Ponch's girlfriend who he cheated on with a trainee cop (Ponch's Angels, series 4) and I think she's now playing the different character of the trainee.

Corny, terrible plot but hilariously entertaining.

If you like ironic comedy then you will have to watch this episode. These "detectives" commit so many crimes in almost every scene it would be hard to count them all.