More escaped cons, another hostage sitch...ho hum. What a stinker this one was. My opinion may be colored just a tad by having recently read a review that really slammed the Ironside series in general and season 3 in particular, noting the lack of nuance in Burr's performance, the absence of camraderie among the team, and the dearth of creativity in the scripts. I personally think the critic was laying it on a bit thick, but you wouldn't know it by this episode. There's so little energy or urgency to any of the proceedings that when, early in the story, a man is shot, the Chief's reaction is just a slight grimace, as if he were releasing a bothersome fart. The scenario is tired to begin with, but the performances don't help; the actors are so low key, everyone speaks so calmly and evenly, that they only aid in burying it, not adding interest or contributing even the slightest saving grace. There are what seem like long, silent stretches of people just driving vehicles; a small physical scuffle in the last act is even outright laughable for its lameness. The only feature of the episode that kept me checking in on it visually (I was mostly just listening to it whilst doing other things on the internet) is that one of the villains was played by an attractive actor named Johnny Seven. This was his 3rd Ironside gig, but more interestingly, starting in Season 4 in 1970, he would become a semi-regular character by the name of Lt. Carl Reese and continue on in that role until the bitter end in 1975.
Oh vell, at least they got out of the office for this one; until the epilogue that is, which veers bewilderingly into comedy. I wonder what that was in that one pot?