What saves tonight's show from its technical shortcomings, and keeps it from dissolving into silliness, are the essential decency of the premise and the understatement with which the "miracles" are performed.
Highway to Heaven is, it turns out, a road paved with intentions so good you could throw up. Violence on TV is a problem. But must the alternative be violins?
No speed limits are broken on the Highway tonight, since the premiere is rather slow. But I wouldn't bet against Landon on the basis of just this. On TV, no contemporary actor knows the road better than he.
If Its honey is too thick for sophisticated viewers, NBC and Landon are counting on great numbers of viewers who are sick of crime and violence and gratuitous sex to turn to this show as a remedy. It could be a good bet.
It's not unusual, of course, for God and religion to be treated so tritely on TV. But God can survive Highway to Heaven. What might not survive is the Idea of family TV programs.
Let's hope that NBC, which really deserves praise for this experimental program, doesn't discover that no good deed goes unpunished. If it doesn't get good ratings, there is no God.
The program isn't as dumb as it sounds, and if Landon continues to lend his varied talents to it the show should work its way into the hearts and minds of America in much the same way that Little House on the Prairie struck a chord.
