We continue our look at some notable 1980s Christmas episodes by looking at a Highway to Heaven episode about New York City that is sold by its prominent guest star.
Highway to Heaven was remarkably the third straight hit show for Michael Landon at NBC, keeping him working at the company from the late 1950s through the late 1980s (when they canceled Highway to Heaven, he left NBC for CBS, but his new show never got past the pilot stage, since Landon turned out to be very sick with cancer). The show featured Landon as Jonathan, an angel, who works with a former cop named Mark (Victor French, who had been a cast member on Landon’s previous series, Little House on the Prairie) to help people who are having problems.
In this Christmas episode, “Basinger’s New York,” Jonathan is trying to help a famous newspaper columnist, Basinger (Richard Mulligan), be inspired again by New York City after being jaded for so many years. Jonathan explains that Basinger has so much more influence than he even knows with his columns, and his recent cynical columns were starting to affect his readers.
So they show him a lot of nice stories in New York, including a young carpenter and his wife, who can’t get into a shelter at Christmas, and when she goes into labor, no hospital will take her in because they have no insurance. Luckily, a senator’s wife is also at the hospital, and she insists on the other woman getting treated (the poor couple, of course, is named Joseph and Mary).
Barney Martin is a cab driver who drives them around, and they help reunite him with his son.
After a long night of Christmas miracles, Basinger is reinvigorated, but it is too late for his column. However, due to a “miracle,” the press is delayed, so he’s able to get his column in on time.
The episode isn’t that good, but Mulligan is such a good actor that he really sells it (Barney Martin is great, too).
