I can only echo what the other reviewers have said, but I would add that Don Galloway gives a wonderful performance. Whenever people recall Ironside they think of Raymond Burr, and rightly so, he is the solid centre of this highly memorable series. Episodes like this one, however, remind us how good the supporting players were. It's brilliantly directed but Galloway gives the powerful, star performance...
3 Reviews
One of the best of the whole series
searchanddestroy-12 October 2017
Don't be surprised if you see Raymond Burr in only a few sequences here. He directs the whole stuff. So this explains that. He can't be in front and behind the camera in the same time. And besides, this is an above average - as Leo Malteen would say - episode, if you compare with the rest of the series. Don Stroud of course plays the villain, a fierce inmate of the Don Galloway's character who is falsely sent behind bars. Very good directing, and enhanced by a beautiful soundtrack, which is very unusual for the series. This episode looks like a movie, not a TV stuff.
Mistitled episode one of the best of the whole series
TopekaBob23 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
The title of this episode is "Nightmare trip," but the that's a very lazy title for a very deep and incredibly thought-provoking Ironside. This episode resonates in 2022, fifty years after it was made! Features films have been devoted to the subject - what's it like to be arrested for doing nothing and then dehumanized in the criminal justice system? - but this Ironside episode is jarringly dramatic and effective in 45 minutes.
What's also cool is that it also manages to present the issue of combat PTSD.
Raymond Burr directs and the scenes in the LA County Jail are powerful. With no dialogue Ed and his fellow prisoners are essentially raped by the system - you even see a bare bottom! How'd that get through the censors!
Ed is accosted by some LA cops after being mugged and rebelliously decides to see what it feels like to be the arrested. What makes this so effective is there's no sensationalism - it presents what being locked up in county jail is probably really like - in all it's mundane, ordinary horror.
Kudos to Ironside for putting so much effort and thought into this episode.
Quickly, the Ironside/Star Trek connection: Paul Carr (who does feature a cheesy moustache here!) played Lt. Lee Kelso in the original Star Trek.
What's also cool is that it also manages to present the issue of combat PTSD.
Raymond Burr directs and the scenes in the LA County Jail are powerful. With no dialogue Ed and his fellow prisoners are essentially raped by the system - you even see a bare bottom! How'd that get through the censors!
Ed is accosted by some LA cops after being mugged and rebelliously decides to see what it feels like to be the arrested. What makes this so effective is there's no sensationalism - it presents what being locked up in county jail is probably really like - in all it's mundane, ordinary horror.
Kudos to Ironside for putting so much effort and thought into this episode.
Quickly, the Ironside/Star Trek connection: Paul Carr (who does feature a cheesy moustache here!) played Lt. Lee Kelso in the original Star Trek.
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