‘CHiPs’ Retro Recap: ‘The Volunteers’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

When it comes to television in general, I’ve come to find that shows and their respective story (or stories) for any particular season, tend to jell together nicely about midway through the year. Because that allows for every plot thread to find its proverbial legs and it allows every actor to be comfortable with what’s happening in this respective universe and that’s not a bad thing in the slightest. Because it allows for the audience to invest in what’s happening and it helps the story build toward a powerhouse finale that takes our breath away, and that’s what we live for storytelling wise. But once in a while, proper planning and beautiful writing allows for a new television season to blow the audience away right from the get-go, and well, I’m quickly noticing that this latter ‘option’ is precisely what’s happening with CHiPs in its second season.
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Because ‘The Volunteers’ is a story that quite frankly, blew me away through and through, in large part due to the fact that it featured a storyline that more or less bucks the mantra and formula that this series established in season one. For if you recall, the titular first year of this saga, focused heavily on Ponch and Jon’s weekly pursuit of smarmy and smart criminals, or folks who broke the law for fascinating reasons, and the only time the series broke from that particular formula, was for the sole purpose of keeping the series from falling into monotony. But we’re only two episodes into season two and already, the show is hinting at the fact that the Creep of the Week format may in fact, be a thing of the past and the stories present this year are going to focus heavily on all kinds of wonderful new ideas.

Which brings us back to the episode in question, because it offered up quite the unique journey for Ponch and Jon. Because shortly after a high-speed pursuit ended in flames, our dynamic duo and Officer Turner volunteered for a special escort assignment. Because a trio of trucks carrying chlorine gas had to get away from the location of said flames to keep their payload from becoming a hazard, which meant that our trio of CHP officers were going to need to keep these trucks away from any issues on the road for 140 miles and well, while that seems like a fairly pedestrian escort run, the kind that would be boring to watch, this is CHiPs we are talking about here and anything and everything that could go wrong on this mission, absolutely did.

Because it didn’t take long for some good ol’ boys with their shotgun and beers to cause a nasty accident on the route, the kind that blocked up the road and inadvertently released a tiger from its crate, which meant that Ponch and Jon had to spring into action and make use of some USDA Grade A steaks in order to save a shopkeeper and his wife from becoming tiger food and the hazards didn’t end there. Because once they got rolling again, they were forced to use the backroads, wherein a mountain town wasn’t keen on letting them pass for safety reasons, and natural hazards slowed them down as well, and they even lost one of their drivers when a little bit of the gas leaked out and while eventually Ponch and Jon were able to get the trucks to their respective destination, this ended up being one stressful episode.  

After all, it was just one disaster after another, and there came a point where it seemed as though Ponch and Jon were going to genuinely ‘lose’ for the first time in the brief history of the series. Of course, they didn’t and I’m glad that’s the case, but that’s how unpredictable this story turned out to be, and it was just incredible to see our favorite highway patrolmen face this kind of adversity and danger and well, that made this episode incredible when all is said and done. Because this episode proves just how versatile this series can be since it was able to provide us with a genuinely entertaining adventure story, free from formula, and while it was weird to not see Creeps of the Week wreaking havoc on the greater Los Angeles area, one quickly forgets about that when you’re sucked into a quality story. If anything, this episode, and the new vibe surrounding season two has me extremely excited to continue on this journey and on that note, now seems like as good a time as any to call it a code seven with this recap, so I can join Ponch and Jon on the highways once again. Until next time. 

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