Part 2 of this 2-part story continues part 1's example of featuring very little for the partners to do. Martin Milner's character gets a bit more screen time than Kent McCord's.
This picks up with the segment of the stolen airplane which ended part 1. Viewers are subjected to a very silly, rather badly written and very badly "acted" communication via the helicopter's 2-way radio, between a husband and wife duo. He stole the plane because she's nothing but a nag. There is some good camera work of two copters and the plane. There's quite a remarkable stunt in which the plane comes very close to hitting the copter Reed is in. So that's a plus.
Next the two copters split up to track two get-away cars. Reed's chase is boring. Malloy's chase is better, featuring more great camera work from above. Here they're chasing a Baby-Blue Ford Mustang Convertible. Unfortunately, since the entire chase is filmed from the copter's point of view, we don't get any nice close-up looks at this classic car. (But we will in the following episode. Yippee!) We do get to hear some sparring via radio, between Malloy up above with Sergeant MacDonald on the ground. Mac, at first, can't find the bad guy whom Malloy insists went into a garage. Ends up the guy exited the garage when the copter was out of view. Mac finds him hiding in some bushes.
We then get to see Malloy's hideously ugly 1974 AMC Matador Coupe again when M & R show up at the Helicopter Police Station the next day. It's been repaired after the hit and run it was involved in a few episodes back. Malloy gets sent back to regular patrol while Reed hits the sky. There's some more nice camera shots of Los Angeles from the helicopter and a very pretty shot of the Police Copter silouetted against the setting sun.
Back at the station there's more friendly sparring between Malloy and Sergeant MacDonald. We also find out here that Malloy has been partnered with Officer Woods. It's very odd to hear Woods' voice later responding via radio, "One-Adam-12 to Air-10, go." In the dark of night, Reed has spotted the roof of a house on fire. This scene takes place on a studio lot, but it's still pretty good as the fire is filmed from the dark sky. Oddly, time was taken for one quick 10 second on-the-ground shot of Malloy and Woods at the scene of the fire. Even more oddly, the scene has Malloy complaining about the jacket he's wearing having been torn. The scene doesn't say anything about how it got torn.
So this was a 2 episode showcase for the relatively new - at the time - concept of policing from the skies. Interesting in ways, certainly. But the lack of anything meaty for Malloy and Reed to do (or Milner or McCord for that matter) sort of knocks this 2-parter down into the lesser range for Adam-12. It was worth the experiment though if only for the nice overhead scenary.
This picks up with the segment of the stolen airplane which ended part 1. Viewers are subjected to a very silly, rather badly written and very badly "acted" communication via the helicopter's 2-way radio, between a husband and wife duo. He stole the plane because she's nothing but a nag. There is some good camera work of two copters and the plane. There's quite a remarkable stunt in which the plane comes very close to hitting the copter Reed is in. So that's a plus.
Next the two copters split up to track two get-away cars. Reed's chase is boring. Malloy's chase is better, featuring more great camera work from above. Here they're chasing a Baby-Blue Ford Mustang Convertible. Unfortunately, since the entire chase is filmed from the copter's point of view, we don't get any nice close-up looks at this classic car. (But we will in the following episode. Yippee!) We do get to hear some sparring via radio, between Malloy up above with Sergeant MacDonald on the ground. Mac, at first, can't find the bad guy whom Malloy insists went into a garage. Ends up the guy exited the garage when the copter was out of view. Mac finds him hiding in some bushes.
We then get to see Malloy's hideously ugly 1974 AMC Matador Coupe again when M & R show up at the Helicopter Police Station the next day. It's been repaired after the hit and run it was involved in a few episodes back. Malloy gets sent back to regular patrol while Reed hits the sky. There's some more nice camera shots of Los Angeles from the helicopter and a very pretty shot of the Police Copter silouetted against the setting sun.
Back at the station there's more friendly sparring between Malloy and Sergeant MacDonald. We also find out here that Malloy has been partnered with Officer Woods. It's very odd to hear Woods' voice later responding via radio, "One-Adam-12 to Air-10, go." In the dark of night, Reed has spotted the roof of a house on fire. This scene takes place on a studio lot, but it's still pretty good as the fire is filmed from the dark sky. Oddly, time was taken for one quick 10 second on-the-ground shot of Malloy and Woods at the scene of the fire. Even more oddly, the scene has Malloy complaining about the jacket he's wearing having been torn. The scene doesn't say anything about how it got torn.
So this was a 2 episode showcase for the relatively new - at the time - concept of policing from the skies. Interesting in ways, certainly. But the lack of anything meaty for Malloy and Reed to do (or Milner or McCord for that matter) sort of knocks this 2-parter down into the lesser range for Adam-12. It was worth the experiment though if only for the nice overhead scenary.
