‘CHiPs’ Retro Recap: ‘Bio-Rhythms’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about police serials as a whole, it’s that, sequels to the storylines present in these shows, are often a rarity. That’s due in large part to the fact that most episodes involving hard-boiled police officers tend to wrap up in neat fashion week to week, allowing for the series to explore all kinds of goodies within the framework of a season. But once in a while, a police serial figures out how to make a follow-up happen, in the most seamless of fashion for that matter, as was the case with the next episode of CHiPs.
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Because ‘Bio-Rhythms’ saw the return of Robbie Davis, who if you recall, was the truck driver that Ponch and Jon rode alongside in ‘The Volunteers’ and in this particular tale, we came to learn that her father finally made good on his promise to retire from the business and hand it over to his little girl, and that business was booming, that is until a problem child moved into Los Angeles. Because our first reunion with Robbie involves her truck being violently rammed by another truck, driven by a man named Murray, who just so happens to work for a sleazeball named Karl Maddox, and Karl, well he wants the entire trucking business under his thumb in Los Angeles. And Robbie is the last hold-out that’s keeping him from achieving that goal, and he will stop at nothing to put her out of business to complete his empire.

Which of course means that Ponch and Jon, and Robbie’s dad Charlie and his buddy Sam, all reunite in this story to figure out who is going after Robbie, and this whole reunion worked out pretty well. Because the chemistry these actors built in the prior episode is still present here, and that only enhances the story further, and it raises the stakes to a whole new level when Karl starts making deadly moves to get what he wants and since we know and love these characters already, it makes Charlie’s decision to dig into this and help lead the cops to Karl, supremely satisfying. Especially at the end when Karl is finally confronted for his crimes and arrested because seriously, trying to kill someone just to get all of their business is messed up and I hope there’s a follow up reference down the line mentioning that Karl got life in prison.

But, while the action here was tense and outright explosive in every sense of the word, since hey, we saw Ponch and Jon fly off their motorcycles in the finale, this episode really did make sure to have as much as fun as possible. The kind that went above and beyond, since the whole ‘Ponch in a towel’ sequence was downright hilarious and the Bio-Rhythms mentioned in the title only add to the joy as well. Because Frank tried desperately to find a way to make money off of this new science that Sindy and the department were studying and the end result of Ponch’s eyes locking on the monetary prize was pretty darn funny, since he put Jon in an embarrassing situation and lost out on all the money he thought he was going to win and in the end, this really was quite the awesome episode.

Because it was just supremely awesome to see a police serial figure out a way to bring about a sequel, and really, having some of the good guys return was a stroke of genius because it allowed for the series to stay true to its lighthearted nature, instead of diving into a twisted revenge plot from an old crook. But what made this follow-up truly worthwhile is that everything here felt organic in nature, as though this was a little slice of life on the small screen and that’s the kind of thing that just immerses the audience further into the character’s fictional lives and well, I have to admit, that this was definitely a unique story to throw into the mix and with only three episodes left in season two, I truly cannot wait to see what other surprises await me as we close in on the season finale. Until next time.  

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