The BEST episodes of Ironside season 1
Every episode of Ironside season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Ironside season 1!
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.
#1 - Ironside
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/28/1967
Holidaying in an isolated farmhouse, Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside is shot by an unseen assailant and paralysed from the waist down. Fearing enforced retirement, he uses his personal brand of diplomacy to secure a new job as Special Consultant to the Commissioner of Police, an old friend who finds it hard to say no. Accompanied by his team, the ever-faithful Ed Brown, society-girl-turned-cop Eve Whitfield and reformed juvenile offender Mark Sanger, he sets out to find the gunman who has changed his life.
#2 - An Inside Job
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/19/1967
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.
#3 - Perfect Crime
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/7/1968
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.
#4 - Light at the End of the Journey
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/9/1967
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.
#5 - A Very Cool Hot Car
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 11/30/1967
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.
#6 - The Man Who Believed
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/23/1967
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).
#7 - The Monster of Comus Towers
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/16/1967
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.
#8 - Trip to Hashbury
Season 1 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/21/1968
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.
#9 - Force of Arms
Season 1 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/4/1968
A local businessman sets up an organised 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.
#10 - Dead Man's Tale
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/28/1967
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.
#11 - The Taker
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/12/1967
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.
#12 - Eat, Drink and Be Buried
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/5/1967
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?
#13 - Return of the Hero
Season 1 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/4/1968
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.
#14 - All in a Day's Work
Season 1 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/15/1968
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.
#15 - Memory of an Ice Cream Stick
Season 1 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/11/1968
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.
#16 - The Past Is Prologue
Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/7/1967
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.
#17 - Barbara Who
Season 1 - Episode 24 - Aired 2/29/1968
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.
#18 - The Challenge
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/8/1968
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?
#19 - Due Process of the Law
Season 1 - Episode 28 - Aired 3/28/1968
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.
#20 - The Fourteenth Runner
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/28/1967
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?
#21 - Girl in the Night
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/21/1967
Ed falls for a woman that he meets one night in Las Vegas. She promptly disappears in mysterious circumstances, and Ed and the rest of the team try to find out what has happened. Needless to say, nothing is as it first appeared; and the truth, when it eventually unfolds, proves to be tragic.
#22 - Something for Nothing
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/22/1968
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.)
#23 - Officer Bobby
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/14/1968
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.
#24 - To Kill a Cop
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/25/1968
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.
#25 - The Lonely Hostage
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/1/1968
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.