Highway to Heaven
Man's Best Friend (1)
TV Flash files “Man's Best Friend (1)” as the first listed hour of season 4 — Highway to Heaven (1984–1989) on NBC, season 4, episode 1, aired 1987-09-16, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S04E01: listed hour 73 of 108 in the Highway to Heaven guide, first listed hour of season 4. It aired 1987-09-16 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Gift of Life” (S03E24). Next is “Man's Best Friend (2)” (S04E02).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
A runaway dog helps bring together a boy in an orphanage whom nobody wants and the dog's human family, the parents of which are trying to have another child through a surrogate mother.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Man's Best Friend (1) sit in the Highway to Heaven guide?
S04E01 is listed hour 73 of 108 — first listed hour of season 4, season 4 episode 1.
When did Highway to Heaven S04E01 air?
Man's Best Friend (1) aired 1987-09-16 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Is it just Little House on a highway?
Spiritual-successor energy, same preacher. Landon wrote, directed, and kept the sincerity. The partnership with Victor French is the new instrument — kindness as a job, not Walnut Grove.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Michael Landon as a probationary angel and Victor French as the bitter ex-cop riding shotgun: weekly redemption on American highways when grit was the fashion. Landon wrote, directed, and preached with Little House sincerity intact. If you can stomach the lump-in-throat moral, the partnership is the real miracle — two men treating kindness as a job.
The instrument is a sermon the decade did not dress for. NBC's *Highway to Heaven* (1984–1989) puts Michael Landon as probationary angel Jonathan Smith and Victor French as retired cop Mark Gordon on American highways when grit was the fashion. Landon writing, directing, and preaching with Little House sincerity intact. Spiritual-successor energy to those prairie values, now in a car. The lump-in-the-throat moral is the house style. The blotter will file the multi-hyphenate control. The text is two men treating…
Filed against
- Michael Landon as Jonathan Smith
Michael Landon’s Little Joe Cartwright is the matinee face of Bonanza — the youngest son as Sunday-night color, the through-line who remained when the Ponderosa roster broke. NBC’s glossy family western treated the ranch like a parish;…
- Victor French as Mark Gordon
Victor French’s Mark Gordon rode shotgun on Highway to Heaven — Michael Landon as a probationary angel, a bitter ex-cop on American highways when grit was the fashion. Landon wrote, directed, and preached with Little House sincerity…