This is probably the kind of episode that is repsonsible for the fond memories that "Ironside" seems to engender in nostalgic reviewers; most of the 3rd season offerings so far have been on the dull side, lacking energy and a reason to care as to what's going on, but I loved this one. It was personal, tight, tense, suspenseful, and well-acted. The performers seemed really involved, not just phoning it in, and the director or whoever was responsible for the pacing was in top form. Mr. Roper shows up as a detective investigating a shooting that seems to implicate Ed, and he's really good here with his scenes at the beginning and end; he does a laudible job of ratcheting up the tension. I also loved the chatter among the barflies as they were describing the events of the night in question and helping to put together an artist's rendering of the suspect--which turns out, to my eye, anway, to resemble Jerry Mathers more than Ed Brown; their small talk had a nice, improvised feel to it. There's also some fun camraderie between the team at HQ; and I liked the Chief's justified reaction to the title of a proposed magazine article about him. Little moments like that realllly help to sell and episode for me. The bit with the fey, black gas station attendant was--well, just decide for yourselves.This episode was co-written by none other than the clean-cut detective himself, Don Galloway; maybe that helped the quality of it, and if so, I hope he got more chances to excercise his typing fingers in the episodes to come. It might also explain why Ed gets a little bit of the spotlight here--but also, amusingly, gets to sit out most of the episode. He turned out a good script and gave himself an easy work week.