“«The chief of detectives!»”
When an assassin's bullet confines him to a wheelchair for life ending his career as Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside becomes a consultant to the police department. Detective Sergeant Ed Brown and policewoman Eve Whitfield join with him to crack varied and fascinating cases. Ex-con Mark Sanger is employed by the chief as home help but eventually becomes a fully fledged member of the team also. Officer Whitfield leaves after 4 years service, and is replaced by Officer Fran Belding.
Episodes
1. Ironside
While on vacation, Chief of Detectives Robert Ironside of the San Francisco police force is shot by an unknown assailant and paralyzed from the waist down. Fearing he will be forced to retire he convinces the powers that be to to make him a Special Consultant to the Commisioner of Police, who is an old friend. With his team, consisting of police detective Ed Brown, police woman Eve Whitfield, and reformed Juvenile offender Mark Sanger. he tries to find the gunman who put him in a wheelchair.
2. Message from Beyond
A substantial sum of money is stolen from a race-track, whilst Ironside and his team are present, and the Chief is determined to crack the case. The only clue is a car, crashed by the inside man, but if it has a secret to tell it is not going to give it up easily.
3. The Leaf in the Forest
Lonely old women are being strangled, and Chief Ironside believes that there is more to it than just a serial killer at work. Setting Eve up as a potential victim requires a little ingenuity, but it might just prove to be worth the effort.
4. Dead Man's Tale
A notorious gangster is preparing to turn State's evidence when he is murdered, but Ironside pretends that the man is still alive, and ready to talk, in order to catch the killer and nail a major criminal.
5. Eat, Drink and Be Buried
When TV personality Francesca Kirby starts to receive death threats, her old friend Robert T. Ironside is soon on the case. When the threats become attempts on her life, he begins to delve deeper. Will he like what he finds?
6. The Taker
A policeman known to Ironside for some years is shot dead whilst on an investigation. The evidence points to him being crooked, but the Chief is determined to prove otherwise.
7. An Inside Job
Two killers break out of their cell in the precinct and hold Ironside and Eve Whitfield hostage, forcing the Chief to come up with a fool-proof plan for their escape. As always Ironside has a trick or two of his own up his sleeve.
8. Tagged for Murder
An apparently accidental death occurs, but Ed risks his shield on the certainty that it was murder. When Ironside gets on the case a murky tale of murdered ex-servicemen and an old robbery is soon uncovered.
9. Let My Brother Go
Ironside is having problems keeping a group of local kids on the straight and narrow, and enlists the help of football star Bat Masterson, an old friend of Mark's. Bat's brother Joe, however, is a rather less savoury character, and Bat has to choose which side he is on.
10. Light at the End of the Journey
A recently blinded woman is witness to a murder, and not knowing that she couldn't see him the murderer attempts to silence her. Ironside is on hand to protect her, and also to help her to come to terms with her new way of life.
11. The Monster of Comus Towers
An ingenious art theft takes place at Comus Towers Art Museum, and a guard is murdered in the process. Chief Ironside takes the case, but another death is to follow; this time the proprietor of the museum, who is an old friend of the Chief's.
12. The Man Who Believed
A woman who wrote a cheering letter to Ironside when he was recovering from being shot, dies in an apparent suicide. Convinced that it was murder Ironside investigates, and uncovers the sad truth. (NB - As part of the incidental music, this episode heavily features the original song From The Day You're Born, which was reused later in the season, in episode Something For Nothing, where it was sung by guest star James Farentino).
13. A Very Cool Hot Car
Cars are being stolen in worryingly high numbers, and with the numbers recovered falling dramatically, the signs point to a crooked cop somewhere in the department. Mark is convinced that the cop in question is innocent, but nobody else seems very sure.
14. The Past Is Prologue
A friend of the Chief's turns out to have been living under an assumed identity for the last nineteen years, and is wanted in New York for murder. The mayor is determined to have him extradited back to NY for execution, but Ironside is equally determined to save him, especially when it becomes clear that he is innocent.
15. Girl in the Night
Ed falls for a girl he meets after hearing her playing the piano in a bar in Las Vegas. While they are out together Ed is knocked unconscious and the girl disappears. Ed, Ironside and the team try to figure out the mysterious circumstances behind her disappearance.
16. The Fourteenth Runner
A visiting Soviet athlete vanishes during a practice run, and Ironside is placed on the case. It soon turns out that the 'trustworthy Soviet hero' is anything but, and that the athlete is working for American Intelligence. Has he simply disappeared, however, or has he been found out?
17. Force of Arms
A local businessman sets up an organized vigilante force to try to clean up San Francisco. When a key member is murdered, it becomes clear that the "Second Force" has got severely out of hand.
18. Memory of an Ice Cream Stick
An old friend of Mark's is a suspect in a murder investigation, but Mark refuses to accept that the man may be bad. Ironside tries to convince him otherwise, but in the process risks breaking his own friendship with Mark.
19. To Kill a Cop
When Ed and two colleagues arrest a violent man they don't take his threats seriously, but when the other two officers are murdered, Ed is convinced that he knows who the killer is. Suspended from duty he sets himself up as the next victim, determined to prove that his suspicions are correct.
20. The Lonely Hostage
A cop goes bad and shoots a fellow officer, then offers to give himself up to Chief Ironside. Instead, he takes the Chief and Mark hostage, and plans to kill them as soon as his escape is certain. Ironside has to convince the man's wife that her husband is no longer the man she married.
21. The Challenge
A psychiatrist friend of Ironside's is murdered, and the only clues are his collection of artworks. Is one of the artists the murderer? And if so, which one?
22. All in a Day's Work
During a night on the town, Eve Whitfield kills an armed robber who tries to shoot her. When he turns out to be a boy just turned seventeen, she doubts her abilities as a police officer, particularly when half of the town seems convinced that he was a model teenager. It soon turns out that this is far from the truth.
23. Something for Nothing
A compulsive (and unlucky) gambler is in debt to a local mobster for $32,000. Ironside wants to put the mobster away, but only can if the gambler is prepared to turn state's evidence. The Chief has to persuade him to turn against the man who is offering him a way out of debt. (NB - The second episode to feature original song From The Day You're Born.)
24. Barbara Who
A friend of Ironside's turns out to be an amnesiac victim without a past. The need to discover who she really is comes to the forefront when somebody tries to kill her, and it becomes clear that the Chief's hopes for a long term relationship might not be possible with this particular girl.
25. Perfect Crime
Lecturing on a law course at a local college, the Chief finds that one of the students is planning to prove that the perfect crime can be committed. The person responsible appears to be particularly cold and calculating, and the Chief finds that he is facing true genius.
26. Officer Bobby
A baby is found abandoned in the Chief's van, following an explosion at an airport. The Chief suspects that the child's mother was the intended victim of the attack, and plans to make her come forward, using the baby as bait.
27. Trip to Hashbury
Ed is charged with police brutality following a raid on a hippie drug den. As always, of course, things are far from being as they seem, and the trail leads to a group of apparently model students at a local private school.
28. Due Process of the Law
Mark's date is found murdered in Golden Gate Park, and he is determined to catch the man responsible, with or without Ironside's help. When he decides to take the law into his own hands, however, he finds himself under arrest for the murder of the chief suspect.
29. Return of the Hero
A decorated Vietnam war hero is found guilty of murder, but the Chief, amongst others, does not believe that he is guilty. Whilst he is trying to find out the truth, somebody else is killing off the witnesses, and the Chief himself may be next on the list.
Cast & Crew
Raymond Burr
Robert Ironside
Don Galloway
Ed Brown
Don Mitchell
Mark Sanger
Barbara Anderson
Eve Whitfield
Elizabeth Baur
Fran Belding
Story & Production Details
More Like This
Dragnet
Baretta
Barnaby Jones
The Rockford Files
Grace
The Mentalist
Dragnet
Inspector George Gently
Perry Mason
The Mysteries of Laura
Jack Irish
