In this Ironside Officer Fran Belding gets the Eve Whitfield treatment, in which she falls in love immediately with someone who is a chief suspect for murder. But at least in this case it's an interesting guy, played by Joe Don Baker.
This is kind of a depressing episode because basically we get to see three "snuff films" - the killer films himself killing three young women. They even show the bullet hitting one of the women. It's pretty awful. And yet they don't seem overly concerned, at least not any more than any other case. Can you imagine the bedlam and sensationalism if someone really was sending police videos of murders?
The strangest part of the episode is that it never explains why (SPOILER) the lawyer is the killer. They say the killer is killing the other girls (and Fran?) to cover up the killing of the one he wanted to kill, but why? My guess is that it was some elaborate plot by the lawyer to get rid of his trustees of the estate he was executor for and was so convoluted of a motive that they just gave up explaining it. This would happen in the old Perry Mason's, of course, where sometimes one had no idea why the murderer killed someone. But it's kind of jarring to see it in Ironside. Unlike Perry Mason, Ironside often went with the "psychotic" angle to explain murders, which in the 1970's was pretty valid! (and still is).
Fun to see Mark in police academy outfit. Already carrying a gun! He works fast! Although he skips a day at the academy to work on the case, which I'm not sure is how the police academy works.
The big star before he was a star here is Joe Don Baker, later to be Buford Pusser in Walking Tall.
And, Ironside continues to drive himself around!
This is kind of a depressing episode because basically we get to see three "snuff films" - the killer films himself killing three young women. They even show the bullet hitting one of the women. It's pretty awful. And yet they don't seem overly concerned, at least not any more than any other case. Can you imagine the bedlam and sensationalism if someone really was sending police videos of murders?
The strangest part of the episode is that it never explains why (SPOILER) the lawyer is the killer. They say the killer is killing the other girls (and Fran?) to cover up the killing of the one he wanted to kill, but why? My guess is that it was some elaborate plot by the lawyer to get rid of his trustees of the estate he was executor for and was so convoluted of a motive that they just gave up explaining it. This would happen in the old Perry Mason's, of course, where sometimes one had no idea why the murderer killed someone. But it's kind of jarring to see it in Ironside. Unlike Perry Mason, Ironside often went with the "psychotic" angle to explain murders, which in the 1970's was pretty valid! (and still is).
Fun to see Mark in police academy outfit. Already carrying a gun! He works fast! Although he skips a day at the academy to work on the case, which I'm not sure is how the police academy works.
The big star before he was a star here is Joe Don Baker, later to be Buford Pusser in Walking Tall.
And, Ironside continues to drive himself around!
