• Series: Ironside

• Release Year: 1971
• Run Time: 60 minutes

Plot

Season Five of Ironside opens with the two-hour "The Priest Killer", which is actually the pilot for the George Kennedy TV vehicle Sarge, and as such is not included in the current Ironside syndication package. Otherwise, it's business as usual for wheelchair-bound detective Robert T. Ironside (Raymond Burr) and his assistants, police sergeant Ed Brown (Don Galloway) and law student Mark Sander (Don Mitchell). And though Barbara Anderson as policewoman Eve Mitchell had left the series due to a contract dispute, it doesn't take long for the Ironside team to recruit another female member, namely rookie cop Fran Belding (Elizabeth Baur), who in the episode "The Gambling Game" joins the team in order to clear her murdered police-captain father of corruption charges. Of the season's guest stars, the two that received the most press attention were Barbara Hale, who is reunited with her former Perry Mason costar Raymond Burr in "Murder Impromptu" (Hale's actor son William Katt would pop up in a later installment); and former Twilight Zone host Rod Serling, sublimely cast as the sinister owner of an occult store in "Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Murder". Though the series dropped from #6 to #15 in the ratings this season, Ironside remained one of America's favorite detective series, out-rated only by Mannix and Hawaii 5-0. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast

Raymond Burr - Robert T. Ironside
Don Galloway - Det. Sgt. Ed Brown
Don Mitchell - Mark Sanger
Elizabeth Baur - Fran Belding

Credit

Quincy Jones - Composer (Music Score); Cy Chermak - Executive Producer