McCLOUD: The Solid Gold Swingers
The Escort Service Murders (6 of 10)
Sam & Joe are corraling a robbery suspect when Sam sees a dead woman on a balcony. He barges into a party and begins questioning the guests when Chief Clifford arrives, because it turns out the apartment belongs to a Senator who doesn't take kindly to police harrassment. And then the body DISAPPEARS. Which absolutely infuriates Clifford... until the next day, when he's all smiles. It seems the Senator has pulled some strings to "help" Sam get back to Taos within a week. To keep Sam out of trouble, Clifford assigns him as a school crossing guard... but we all know by now Sam won't put up with that for long!
Before you know it, we have an entire string of high-priced call-girls all being murdered by what appears to be a maniac serial-killer. But since their former boss is under investigation, and a nasty detective in charge of the case takes such a instant dislike for McCloud, Sam begins to suspect there's more going on than is obvious.
My favorite scene is probably when Clifford, In a reversal of his earlier decision, tells Sam, "In spite of every instinct I've picked up in 22 years on the force, I'm officially assigning you to the case. But if you so much as begin to cause me your usual amount of embarrassment..." "Appreciate your CONFIDENCE, Chief."
I love the fact that, for the remainder of the story, McCloud & Clifford get along fabulously-- especially the moment when they BOTH kick in a door together.
Producer Michael Gleason turns in his 2nd of 4 scripts for the show, and it's more complicated (and confusing) than usual. I'm not even going to try to explain the rest of the plot, since the individual details of this story are more memorable than the whole mystery put together. Among the highlights are Ross Martin (EXPERIMENT IN TERROR, THE WILD WILD WEST, THE RETURN OF CHARLIE CHAN) as a professional hit man with a drug habit who hides what he does from his wife and kids; Neville Brand (THE UNTOUCHABLES) in his 2nd of 3 appearances on the show, this time as a cop on the take; Steve Allen (creator of THE TONIGHT SHOW) as a singer; Joanna Pettet (1967's CASINO ROYALE) as a call girl who Sam struggles to protect; Denny Miller (the remake of TARZAN THE APE MAN) as a football player who's being blackmailed; and Teri Garr, making her 2nd appearance as a harried police sergeant. Although the name's changed from the previous year, she might as well be playing the same character, since both stories she's been in so far have her repeatedly writing up reports that Sam is too busy to do on his own.
Suffice to say, Sam wraps it up neatly by the end, climaxing in his commandeering a BUS to pursue a taxi-cab.
(3-11-2018)
Addendum / 5-4-2025: I find it interesting that just 3 weeks earlier, McMILLAN & WIFE had a story where a body went out a window but took 3 hours to hit the ground, while here, a dead woman on a balcony vanished only to turn up 3 days later.
I'm really annoyed that despite being Region 1, the 2021 VEI DVD of this episode was another taken from a PAL copy. It's running fast, and clocks in 1:33:29, compared to the 1:37:09 (a 3-1/2 MINUTE difference) from my early-1980s CBS Late Movie rerun tape, back when CBS was still re-running the shows UNCUT. So far, every episode from seasons 3-4 has been running too fast, while seasons 1-2 were at the CORRECT speed. How does a video company SCREW UP an expensive ($85.00) product that badly?
