The BEST episodes of Riptide (1984)
Every episode of Riptide (1984) ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Riptide (1984)!
Cody Allen and Nick Ryder, were two long-time friends who had served together in Vietnam, whose Private Investigation business was based on Cody's boat, The Riptide, in King Harbour, Los Angeles.
#1 - Does Not Compute
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/29/1985
Rc: Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) *see note A liberal city councilman embroiled in controversy for allegedly defaulting on various financial obligations blames it on the "right wing" police department discrediting him through computer tampering. To their surprise, none other than Lt. Quinlan hires the Riptide Detective Agency for Murray to use his computer expertise and disprove the claims and find who the real culprit is. But their investigation angers the hacker who is behind the councilman's problems, who promptly turns his hacking towards the Agency, tampering with their financial accounts and causing them to go into the red. Murray finds himself up against a worthy computer opponent as he tries not only to disprove the councilman's claims, but to prevent the hacker from wrecking the Riptide Detective Agency financially...
#2 - Who Really Watches the Sunset
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/12/1985
After reporter Marlene Lewis learns she in dying, she hires the guys to find out who infected her with an incurable disease. The guys accept the case and soon learn that Marlene had been working on a story with a man named Don Orley. However, Orley had died of a heart attack before she could discover more. Fortunately, the guys get a lead when Marlene receives a phone message from a man named Jeff Rockwell. Unfortunately, the guys arrive at Rockwell's house only to find that he has apparently hung himself. Searching Rockwell's house, the guys learn that Rockwell worked for the F.D.A. Since Orley, a food engineer working on APS (a food enhancer), would have needed F.D.A. approval, the guys realize the connection between the two dead men. Checking into records on APS, the guys discover that Robert Stockwood is the only member of the AP. research team that has not been killed. Therefore, the guys decide to protect Stockwood. Then, at Orley's funeral, Stockwood disappears after a nearby ca
#3 - Peter Pan Is Alive and Well
Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/11/1984
rc: Ken Olant (Dooley) The trio are hired by the manager of a local beach club to investigate a series of valuables being stolen on the beach, and while there, Cody is pleased to find that an old room-mate, Byron Monk, is working as lifeguard at the club, and seems to be romancing a number of the club's female members. As they investigate the missing valuables, they find themselves uncovering a plot to both blackmail and kill Byron, but they more they investigate, the more it becomes apparent that he may be just asking for trouble with his attitude towards his relationships with women... The case is made more light-hearted by Murray's experimenting with taking on a tough guy image...
#4 - Baxter and Boz
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/22/1985
rc: Ken Olant (Dooley) *see note After meeting a down-and-out who is also a fellow inventor, and helping him iron out a kink in his latest creation, Murray learns that the man is actually reclusive billionaire Baxter Bernard. In gratitude for his help, Baxter gives Murray a Baxtercraft 1000, a sophisticated new helicopter, as thanks. But the detectives end up helping the billionaire to stop the corrupt men who now control Baxter Aviation, who are willing to sell a flawed new helicopter to the Government no matter how many lives it costs...
#5 - Prisoner of War
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/15/1985
rc: Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) Things are getting serious between Nick and his new girlfriend Peggy. But returning from a date on the beach, they witness an accident in which a young serviceman is fatally hit by a car, which triggers a strange reaction in the woman, who promptly races off in Nick's Corvette. After being notified by Lt. Quinlan, the Riptide detectives find the ‘Vette abandoned in a red light district, with no sign of Peggy. It emerges that Peggy served as a Nurse in Vietnam, and the soldier's death triggered off delayed stress syndrome in her, but her confused state which drives her to the red light district sees both her and the P.I.s walking into the middle of a turf war between two pimps...
#6 - Pilot (1)
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/3/1984
Nick and Cody investigate a yacht pirating that's disputed by a woman who says she saw the boat explode and sink. First of two parts.
#7 - Pilot (2)
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/3/1984
Conclusion. Nick and Cody try to raise the sunken hull of the yacht to find out why anyone would sink it.
#8 - It's a Vial Sort of Business
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/4/1984
rc: Ken Olant (Dooley) Cody and Nick's patience is being tested with Dooley's singing while working off some debts and Murray causing chaos with the Riptide's electricity, when the agency's latest clients arrive, a couple with the seemingly straightforward task of asking them to find their missing son William, who has disappeared since dropping out of University. But things suddenly get more serious when they come under attack from thugs who try and grab William's suitcase from his parents. The detectives presume that William is in some kind of trouble and the thugs were after him, but unbeknown to them, Dooley also has people after him! It seems that Dooley has been making off-the-record visits to a local race-track, and has got his hands on a vial that some bad guys want, but unfortunately for the missing William, who is merly pursuing his dream of becoming an actor, both the Riptide detectives and the thugs presume him to be mixed up in the trouble...
#9 - Gams People Play
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/8/1985
rc: Ken Olant (Dooley)* see note, Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) When Nick returns from National Guard duty, he thinks Cody and Murray are playing a trick on him when they tell him they've been hired to over-watch a beauty contest. But sure enough, it's true, they've been hired when one of the contestants, Charlene West, receives threatening phone calls. Their immediate suspect is a big-headed, womanising Game Show host who is the M.C. for the pageant, but when he is killed, they must dig deeper to find the true culprit...
#10 - Curse of the Mary Aberdeen
Season 2 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/29/1985
rc: Ken Olant (Dooley), Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) Late one evening during a fierce thunderstorm, Murray is alone on the Riptide when a mysterious character suddenly appears seemingly out of nowhere, and pays $1000 cash for the Riptide Detective Agency to find the Mary Aberdeen, a supposedly cursed boat who's former owners have all been killed, before she kills again. Finding Murray's story of the incident hard to believe, Cody and Nick are certain that someone, probably Lt. Quinlan, is playing a joke on them, when the phone number on the business card that the man left turns out to be for the local cemetery. They visit the original owner of the Aberdeen, only to have him hire them, with $5000 in cash, to find the boat as well. As they look into the case, they are surprised, and worried, to find that what was the Mary Aberdeen is now the Riptide! What's more, somebody seems determined to stop them investigating, and is the Riptide really cursed and haunted, or is there a more logic
#11 - Catch a Fallen Star
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/18/1984
The trio come to the rescue of an elderly lady vagrant who is being grabbed by two thugs, only to learn that she is none other than a once-famous actress who vanished fifty years previously. It turns out she had been placed in a sanitarium by a man connected with the Mob that she was having an affair with after she refused to marry him, and what's more, she owns the deeds to Pier 56. The thugs were sent out by the man's son, who, determined to finish what his father has started, is determined to get his hands on the deed, the one last possession of the woman's that his father never took from her, even if it's against his father's wishes...
#12 - Harmony and Grits
Season 2 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/14/1985
rc: Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) Cody and Nick are loath when Murray drags them to a "harmonising" seminar, an event that ends in a punch up. But afterwards, a woman, having heard them introduce themselves as Private Detectives, hires the trio to check out her husband Chris, who she believes is having an affair. However, when the P.I.s set about following the man, they find that, instead of having an affair, he is involved with something much more sinister, but as they watch the man, they witness to the husband's distress - the shooting of a man involved with the shady operation. The next day, Quinlan tells them that the body has disappeared and the investigation has been dropped – leaving the P.I.s even more certain that there is something big to investigate, something to do with the sale of a top secret project, and set about finding out just what the woman's husband is mixed up in... Meanwhile, all the way through the investigation, the detectives toy with the "honesty" methods they h
#13 - Boz Busters
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/5/1985
rc: Ken Olant (Dooley), Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) Realising that something is bothering their friend, Cody and Nick try to find out what's troubling Murray, only to learn that he has been offered an unmissable job position to work at a cutting edge robotics company. Sadly leaving his friends, Murray decides to take the job. Missing their friend almost as soon as he's gone, Cody and Nick decide to deliver the rest of his belongings personally, but upon arrival find that the supposed company that he's gone to work for doesn't exist. As they investigate, they remember how they first met Boz in the Army, assigned to escort him to prison after he had punched a Colonel in the nose, the same man who is now intending to sell him to the Soviets for his electronic skills...
#14 - Conflict of Interest
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/10/1984
An old pal "persuades" Cody and Nick to locate his wife. Meanwhile, Boz agrees to protect the wife, who overheard her husband planning to murder Lt. Quinlan.
#15 - Hatchet Job
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/31/1984
rc: Anne Francis (Mama Jo), Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) Things aren't going too well for the detectives when the thief on Pier 56 that they're trying to catch makes off with all their surveillance equipment! While out for an early morning jog to try and get fit (after he was unable to stop the thief), Murray meets a young woman who is looking to hire the Riptide Detective Agency. She wants them to find her boyfriend's killer – and she's the prime suspect! She was found at the murder scene, standing over the body with a knife, but left in deep shock as a result of the murder, she lost memory of the events. As a result of being unable to prove her innocence, was sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. But as the trio try and determine who the real killer was, their belief in her story is tested when they learn that instead of having been released from the mental hospital, the girl has actually escaped from it!...
#16 - Four-Eyes
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/6/1984
rc: Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) At great reluctance, Cody, Nick and Murray accept a job from shady attorney Myron Bell that turns out to be working for an arrogant, rude character named Roger Ramsdale, who wants them to get evidence that his wife Joan is supposedly cheating on him, to help him win a divorce law suit. But as the trio begrudgingly take on their assignment, they find that far from being the harlot Roger claims, the woman is in fact an upstanding, thoroughly nice lady, and what's more, she herself has hired two female private investigators to prove that Roger is actually the one cheating on her. But when Roger is murdered, Joan is arrested as the prime suspect, and the male and female private investigators are forced to not only join forces to try and find the real killer, but more demandingly to simply manage to get along together...
#17 - The Mean Green Love Machine
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/7/1984
rc: Anne Francis (Mama Jo) Brandy, a friend of Cody and Nick's whose father until recently ran a local restaurant, hires the agency to find her father Lane, who she's lost contact with since he went to Mexico with his new, much younger wife Dee-Dee. As they investigate, it seems increasingly obvious that Lane's new wife is a gold digger, but she in turn is being put under pressure by a dangerous mobster...
#18 - Where the Girls Are
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/2/1984
rc: Ken Olant (Dooley), Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) Cody has agreed at the request of his mother to take care of three college student girls who are visiting the area, but upon arrival at the airport to pick them up, the detective trio find themselves foiling a kidnap attempt on the girls. The girls just laugh it off as a prank by a rival faculty, but the P.I.s suspicion is raised, and they intend to keep a firm watch over them. As it becomes more apparent that someone is trying to get their hands on the girls, the trio have their work cut out for them as they attempt to find out who is responsible, while trying to keep the rather spoilt girls entertained and safe...
#19 - Home for Christmas
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/17/1985
Nick, who has never particularly enjoyed the holiday season, decides to accept an assignment from Colonel Ryan, his Army Reserve commander. Thereby, Captain Nick Ryder is assigned to transport the remains of Private Ricky Wilkenson, a soldier who died in a training accident. However, when he arrives in Wyoming, Nick learns from the funeral home that the body he transported is not Ricky. (Unlike Ricky who had permanently injured his foot when he was a kid, the corpse has a complete set of toes.) After Colonel Ryan denies there was a mistake and a Congressman tries to dismiss the concerns of Ben Wilkenson, Ricky's father, Cody and Murray decide to help their partner investigate the situation. Murray accesses the army's computer system and is surprised when he finds Ricky's records kept with Vietnam files. Once back in California, Nick joins Cody in an attempt to sneak onto the army base for more information. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Walker, one of Ryan's aids, catches the guys. Ryan the
#20 - Somebody's Killing the Great Geeks of America
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/17/1984
A woman in Boz's high-IQ club needs help after a member of her "brain trust" has a fatal accident and an attempt is made on her own life.
#21 - Long Distance Daddy
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/27/1984
rc: Marsha Warfield (Max), Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) A member of a gun smuggling racket takes the opportunity to use a flight to bump off the irritating son of the head of the operation. Nick has a surprise when Chin Lee and Mia, two Cambodian children that he sponsors, unexpectedly arrive in American and at the Riptide when Chin must get urgent heart surgery for his young sister. But unbeknown to them, the pair came into the country by stowing away on the smuggler's aeroplane. The killer plans to get rid of the children along with their friends at the Riptide to stop them from sharing what they saw, but when the bemused detectives investigate who's responsible for trying to kill them, the mobster head of the smuggling operation believes them to be his son's murderers! The fact that a mean character who Cody and Nick sent to prison while serving as M.P.s in Vietnam has just been released does not help matters...
#22 - Lady Killer
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/7/1986
rc: June Chadwick (Lt. Parisi) Nick and Cody manage to make fools of themselves when they both unsuccessfully try to hit on an attractive woman while shopping in a grocery store. After the latest in a string of serial killings, the Agency is hired by a man who claims to have reason to believe that his elusive roommate might be the murderer. The detectives find to their surprise that the woman from the store is none other than their new Police contact; but as they investigate their case, there is a twist they don't expect, as they hunt for a killer with a hatred for engaged women...
#23 - #1 With a Bullet
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/20/1984
rc: Marsha Warfield (Max), Jack Ging (Lt. Quinlan) After falling out with their record company, two singers of a long-running hit group loose control of their car, killing one and leaving the other in hospital. The location of the surviving singer, Dell Turner, is being kept very under wraps, and Murray agrees on behalf of the Riptide Detective Agency to take on the task of finding which hospital he's in and delivering flowers sent by the group's fan club. But the seemingly straight-forward assignment leads the guys, along with a Nurse they unintentionally endanger after duping her into helping them, to uncovering a case involving the executive of the record company trying to bump Turner off in order to make huge sales of a memorial album...
#24 - Requiem for Icarus
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/10/1985
At a party, the guys run into Cathy Skinner, an old friend of Nick's. Nick explains that when he was a cargo pilot, he used to "crash" at the home of Doug Skinner, Cathy's father. While catching up on old times, Nick learns that Cathy is worried about the fact that Doug has been acting very strangely lately. In response to Cathy's concerns, the guys go to see Doug. An ungrateful Doug responds by telling the Riptide Detectives to leave him alone. That night, Doug calls Cathy and tells her that he will be leaving town for a while. Alarmed, Cathy and the guys go to Doug's home. Once there, the guys end up in a shoot out with some men looking for Doug. Unfortunately, the guys are mistakenly arrested by the police. After getting out of jail, the guys trace some pills that they had found in Doug's home. They then learn that Doug has been suffering from delayed stress as a result of an airplane accident that occurred when he was an air traffic controller. (Doug suffered despite the fact that
#25 - Diamonds Are for Never
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/21/1984
rc: Anne Francis (Mama Jo) An air stewardess who delivers seemingly innocent packages from her friend Artie to his brother, witnesses Artie's murder, and is danger herself when the killer sees her and chases. With Mama Jo away visiting a sick aunt, Nick and Cody are taking full advantage of the situation, with two of the girl's from the Barefoot Contessa coming over to the Riptide, and send Murray away to the cinema to get him out of the way. There he meets the hunted woman, hiding out in fear from the killer. Cody and Nick's intended romantic evening with the girls is reluctantly put on hold as the detectives investigate, and they find themselves uncovering diamond smuggling arranged by an infamous criminal...