‘CHiPs’ Retro Recap: ‘Drive, Lady, Drive’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

For as long as I can remember growing up, television shows loved to offer up a special two-hour episode from time to time. I was never sure why as a kid, but as I grew up, I came to learn that these served as a grand opportunity to boost the ratings since they often happened during Sweeps Week, something that was a huge deal before the advent of streaming. And usually these particular tales gave us a grandiose adventure, one that would be life-altering for some characters or they would introduce a major change for the series going forward, or in the case of CHiPs, provide the audience with two hours of filler that disappoints more than it enthralls.
 
Which I know, is a bitter way to dive into this Retro Recap, but I don’t want to mince any words here or lie to you because ‘Drive, Lady, Drive’ was a mediocre and messy adventure for certain, one that really wasn’t indicative of the top quality that we know and love from this series and that’s frustrating to say the least. Because this particular tale actually had the chance to do some special things on the screen. After all, Ponch and Jon were put in charge of the Palma Vista Police Department in this tale, since their men were on strike for better wages, which set up a grand opportunity for them to really strut their stuff as officers of the law, and we were even introduced to a badass female racing ace named Candi Wright, a character who was loaded with potential.
 
Because this was 1979 and the idea of a woman racing a car was unheard of then, so I was supremely eager to see where her storyline would take her and well, before we dive into that, let’s talk about the first elements in this episode that didn’t quite sit right with me. For this particular tale’s extended running time, which could have been dedicated to some fascinating character development, was wasted with a lot of drawn out racing scenes and filler moments that really don’t take the plot anywhere, and Palma Vista is such a boring suburb that the only real crime that happens here involves the work of spoiled rich teenagers with too much time on their hands. Which more or less is what allowed for Ponch and Jon’s potentially glorious journey to sputter out. Yet while that’s rough enough on its own, the biggest problem that I had with this particular tale, is how it handled Candi’s arc.
 
For this was a grand opportunity to really do something special by delivering unto the audience an independent woman with an amazing career in prime-time television and for a time, it did just that. Because early on Candi wasn’t putting up with anyone’s crap or doing what everyone expected of her and that was great to see. But as the hours rolled on, the script made her a confused character, one who suddenly fell into familiar female tropes, since the story forced her to choose between her motherly instincts and her career and it even took the time to make her unstable for no good reason when her career was threatened and this was just, so disappointing to see. Which is tough to write since the kid in question did indeed deserve something better, and had Candi in her corner, but it is frustrating to see a woman who has carved out a niche of success in a male dominated field question her future out of the blue once the 'biological clock' comes into play. 
 
Especially when one considers the fact that she never speaks to what she wants as a character and the bigger crime here is that the story never resolves what her future is going to be. Instead, it focuses more on Ponch and Jon bringing down some electronic thieves that they encounter in the first act and really in the end, they simply blew it with this one. Because it’s two hours of fluff, and slow fluff at that, and this really could have been something special had they taken the time to focus on the key elements that piqued our interests. But sadly, this is one of those rare episodes of the series that I simply did not enjoy. But that’s okay. Because there are still plenty more episodes of CHiPs to enjoy, so it’s best to just move on from this one and dive right back in. Until next time.  

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