"Ironside" Not with a Whimper, But a Bang (TV Episode 1969) Poster

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6/10
The Big Bang theory
sol-kay20 August 2013
****SPOILERS**** Chief Ironside, Raymond Burr, and his top flight team of crime fighters get on the case of a number of strange bombings that accrued on the Schelling Collage Campus. The bombings were made to look like childish parks in them not being powerful enough to do any damage but Ironside feels that or they were just a warning of things, terrible things,to come. It's the editor of the collage newspaper Neal Morgan, Philip Chapin, who thinks that there the work of left wing "Weathermen" types who are against the collage's support of US the Governments policies both at home and abroad. Something that left-wing radicals have been doing all across the state in protest to America's involvement in the War in Vitnam. It's the US Army bomb disposal team of Warrant Officer Frank Simpson, Edward Asner, and Sgt.Arnie Vernon, Gerald O'Laughlin, who are called in to disarm the phony bombs who seem to be at odds with each other not in their work but social lives.

The focus of the bombing soon shifts from the unknown and shadowy bomber to both Simpson & Vernon who in fact are putting their lives on the line to disarm the phony bombs that can, as Chief Ironside suspects,soon become real & lethal. And sure enough with the latest bomb discovered at the statue of the founder of the collage Albert Schelling this one turns out to be for real and ends up killing Warrant Officer Simpson who was trying to disarm it. It now becomes clear that whoever was behind these bombings was not the person or persons who planted the one that killed Simpson. And thus proved Chief Ironsoide theory that someone used the previous bombings to cover up the one that he planted but who can he or she be?

****SPOILERS**** Well as we soon see the fatal blast had nothing at all to do with the collage's polices but presented the opportunity for the bomber to use them to cover his on tracks. And the tracks in how he skillfully constructed the device lead straight to his front door. Like in the previous Ironside episode Offcer Eve Whitfield, Barbara Anderson, went undercover to track down the mad bomber by posing as a cub reporter at the collage newspaper. And it was in the strange and threatening letter that the bomber sent to the collage about his latest or soon to come blast that put Chief Ironside on his trail.
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Worst ever bomb squad
peterwcohen-300-94720017 March 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Ed Asner and Don Galloway make the worst bomb squad ever to wield a pair of wire cutters. I'm pretty sure that even way back in 1969, bomb techs used a LOT more caution when dealing with explosives. These guys have no bomb disposal vehicle. Their face masks are a plastic visor that comes half-way down the face, so that a blast would be completely unimpeded in blowing your head off. Ironside himself is also pretty stupid when dealing with bombs, throwing a suspect briefcase across the room for his valet to stuff into a slop sink. All this is quite typical of "Ironside," which is one of the dumber cop shows of its era.

For totally improbable events that are naked plot service, Asner explains to the doofus bomber the correct way to set a blasting cap into dynamite. I wonder if this will come back to haunt him? Hmmm...

Top it off with the totally unbelievable personal drama between Asner and Galloway, and you've got a classic turd of an episode.
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