In the Heat of the Night is an American drama television series based on the 1967 film and the 1965 novel of the same title. It starred Carroll O'Connor as police chief William Gillespie, and Howard Rollins as police detective Virgil Tibbs. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, then on CBS until May 1995. Its executive producers were Fred Silverman, Juanita Bartlett and O'Connor. The wonderfully made racial intensive series, brings more great acting from the cast, Like Anne-Marie Johnson as Althea Tibbs, and Denise Nicholas as Harriet DeLong the now Love of Bill Gillespie life, and story-lines that cover, crack cocaine, teenage obsession turned suicide, and Doctor assisted suicide.you won't want to miss this season!
This page is a collection of interesting and (in many instances) downright hilarious 'slip-ups' a/k/a production errors/goofs from the television series In the Heat of the Night. If you have a slip-up that you'd like to add for inclusion, please message us through Facebook or e-mail us at: intheheatofthenight.fc@gmail.com . Submissions will be credited.
Latest Additions. . .
A Depraved Heart -- submitted byKathaleen 'K.D.' McCrite
Bubba confronts David Monroe in his office at the real estate company and shoves him into a bookcase. Shelves in the bookcase break, scattering books everywhere. But later, as Bubba is leaving Monroe's office, the case is perfectly intact and all the books are aligned neatly in place on their shelves.
In the Heat of the Night: Carroll O'Connor, Howard Rollins, Alan Autry, Lois Nettleton, Anne-Marie Johnson, David Hart (II), Geoffrey Thorne (I), Hugh O'Connor. The series was cancelled (again) after season seven, only to return (again) for an eighth season of four TV movies. While there was no finale, season seven concludes with Gillespie marrying girlfriend Harriet DeLong (Denise Nicholas). That DeLong was an African American woman gives Gillespie's story a touchingly redemptive ending.
Sparta Slip-ups Archive
Rape --submitted byTate Skinner
When Sweet went to Harriet DeLong's studio apartment to have a conversation with Candace Sloan, he identified himself as Officer Sweet. He had been promoted to Sergeant since the previous season.
Legacy --submitted byJimmy Edwards
When Sweet went to Harriet DeLong's studio apartment to have a conversation with Candace Sloan, he identified himself as Officer Sweet. He had been promoted to Sergeant since the previous season.
A Final Arrangement -- submitted byKevin Green
At the station when Bubba is observed at his desk looking at a file with a magnifying glass, Officer Dee Shaw's name tag spells 'Phillips.'
Ruda's Awakening -- submitted by Hank Voight
In the season 5 episode, 'Ruda's Awakening,' an edition of the Sparta Herald incorrectly identifies Bubba as 'A.J.' Skinner.
Brotherly Love: Part 1 -- submitted byBill Weichand
When Det. Dwight Walker is on the phone with Virgil, he is handed a phone message that is clearly written as being for 'Det. Walters.' The note makes a second appearance when Virgil is going through Dwight's personal items after his death.
When the Music Stopped -- submitted byKevin Johnson
Bubba's desk calendar clearly shows 1988 on it yet this was a 1992 episode.
By Means Most Foul -- submitted byTim Turner
In episode 'By Means Most Foul' Season 5/Ep17, (1992) Rebecca Ballard tries to have her husband killed by her boyfriend, Moss. Moss has to kill his teenage employee to cover up. When he goes to bury him, you see a shovel by the grave, implying he dug it. However, when he buries the boy, you see backhoe bucket teeth marks on the side of the grave.
File scavenger 4.3 keygen. No Other Road-- submitted by Chad Moore
As Eugene is running a lap, an In the Heat of the Night crew member and boom mic are briefly visible in the background on the field. If you blink, you're sure to miss it.
A Love Lost-- submitted by Christopher Parr
When Lt. Lonnie Jamison (Hugh O'Connor) informs both Chief Forbes and Sheriff Gillespie that the handguns had been accounted for, Hugh O'Connor is wearing his wedding ring.
Pilot: Part 1 -- submitted by Christy Taylor
At the scene of Nan Woodall's discovered lifeless body in the Bottoms, Lonnie Jamison's name tag is clearly spelled 'Jamieson'.
The Littlest Victim -- submitted by Bradrick Houston
In the scene where the chief, Bubba, Sweet and Parker are looking at the video of the store robbery, Sweet walks to the television and points out a skull on one of the robbers jacket -- we can hear him talking while pointing at the screen, but there's a brief second where his mouth doesn't move.
A Necessary Evil -- submitted by Micah Gober
In this scene, Elmyra Carroway and Eugete Davenport are having a dispute outside the police station about who gets to visit Henley Davenport. Just before Chief Gillespie and Junior Abernathy arrive to stop the dispute you can see a Louisiana State Trooper car pass by in the background.
A Problem Too Personal -- submitted by Bradrick Houston
During an outdoor brunch party at the Tibbs residence, Virgil addresses character Ted Marcus (Thom Gossom) as Thom.
Fifteen Forever -- submitted by Susan Hattan
A brown sheriff's car was shown parked outside the Monarch Motors warehouse where Sweet and Bubba were inside investigating and eventually discovered the car a/k/a 'killing machine' that was involved in the fatal, drunk-driving accident. The sheriff's department wasn't there.
Walkout -- submitted by Kris Tapp
After the accident inside the plant, the ambulance door shows a partial outline of the state of Georgia.
The Littlest Victim
A scene with Chief Gillespie, Sgt. Sweet and Althea Tibbs shows the Chief with his eyeglasses off and on repeatedly throughout this scene.
Pilot: Part 2
When Red Jack's truck starts to pass Detective Tibbs' squad car, the driver's door of the car is undamaged. Moments later, the door is badly dented, before there is any contact between the two vehicles.
Blind Spot
When Bill Gillespie calls Parker on the car radio, he does not hold the talk button down while speaking.
Blind Spot: Part 2
When Tibbs stands up after being face down in the water, only part of his suit is wet.
Blind Spot: Part 2
When Tibbs is wading towards the supposedly dead Wallace Posey in the water, you can see the vapor from Wallace's breathing.
Blind Spot: Part 2
During the shootout in the hospital where Virgil kills bad guy #1, the camera is switched to show bad guy #2 driving off in the blue Firebird. When the scene switches back to the interior of the hospital, the blue Firebird can be clearly seen in the parking lot outside the window.
Hot Nights
When Bubba shoots Frank outside the cabin, his pistol is obviously not aiming at Frank.
Country Mouse, City Mouse
When Willie Baylor opens the door and surprises Bobby and Nicole, there is the sound of him cocking a pump shotgun. However, Baylor is carrying a double-barrel shotgun, not a pump.
Harriet Delong And Bill Gillespie
Country Mouse, City Mouse
As Chief Gillespie walks toward the loud music coming his office, two marked spots of tape on the floor can be seen behind him for Officer Parker Williams and Cpl. Lonnie Jamison to stand.
The Creek
When the Chief is talking to Jimmy Dawes in his jail cell, Jimmy goes back and forth between sitting on his bunk and leaning back on one elbow whenever they change camera angles.
Sister, Sister
In the opening scene, when the camera's back shot shows a naked J.D. Sinclaire stepping out of the shower, she wraps a towel around her head and you can see the edges of the shield covering her breasts on either side just under her raised arms.
Fairest of them All
In the opening scene, Lizbeth stumbles out of a car so drunk she can barely walk. After she sees Bubba and gives him a hug, she now is able to walk normally.
First Girl /Murder Most Ancient
Although Officer Luann Corbin, played by actress Crystal R. Fox, is introduced at the end of this episode as having just been brought that day from Jackson, Mississippi, to become the newest member of the Sparta Police Department. Fox is listed in the closing credits of the previous episode, 'Murder Most Ancient', and was shown sitting in character at her desk in the office of the Sparta PD.
Missing/Anniversary
At the end of season 2, when Dugan is shot, he is shot while facing the two men in the masks who were shooting him, which would mean he was shot in the chest or front of his body. However, in this episode (the episode when Dugan is found), the Chief finds his body in the woods laying on his stomach, with blood stains on his back, making it look as if he had been shot in the back and bled through his shirt.
My Name is Hank
When Lonnie finds Mr. Perkins shot in the liquor store, he checks his pulse, even though Mr. Perkins is breathing and moaning out loud.
Triangle
When the father and daughter are driving to the cabin in the station wagon, in the first shot she is not wearing her seat belt (it is visible off to the side). When the camera angle changes and in subsequent shots, she is wearing it.
Indiscretions
When Althea on the phone asks her friend Regina where she is and the woman says 'Marshalsberg' from a (fictional) map, the word is misspelled 'Marhalsberg.'
Child of Promise
The character played by Temi Epstein identifies herself as 'Lori' in this episode, but she's listed as 'Terri' in the closing credits.
Laid to Waste
The character of the plant manager is named 'Preston Donner'. Yet at the very end of the episode, Gillespie refers to him as 'Grafton Donner'.
Country Mouse, City Mouse
As Chief Gillespie walks toward the loud music coming his office, two marked spots of tape on the floor can be seen behind him for Officer Parker Williams and Cpl. Lonnie Jamison to stand.
The Creek
When the Chief is talking to Jimmy Dawes in his jail cell, Jimmy goes back and forth between sitting on his bunk and leaning back on one elbow whenever they change camera angles.
Sister, Sister
In the opening scene, when the camera's back shot shows a naked J.D. Sinclaire stepping out of the shower, she wraps a towel around her head and you can see the edges of the shield covering her breasts on either side just under her raised arms.
Fairest of them All
In the opening scene, Lizbeth stumbles out of a car so drunk she can barely walk. After she sees Bubba and gives him a hug, she now is able to walk normally.
First Girl /Murder Most Ancient
Although Officer Luann Corbin, played by actress Crystal R. Fox, is introduced at the end of this episode as having just been brought that day from Jackson, Mississippi, to become the newest member of the Sparta Police Department. Fox is listed in the closing credits of the previous episode, 'Murder Most Ancient', and was shown sitting in character at her desk in the office of the Sparta PD.
Missing/Anniversary
At the end of season 2, when Dugan is shot, he is shot while facing the two men in the masks who were shooting him, which would mean he was shot in the chest or front of his body. However, in this episode (the episode when Dugan is found), the Chief finds his body in the woods laying on his stomach, with blood stains on his back, making it look as if he had been shot in the back and bled through his shirt.
My Name is Hank
When Lonnie finds Mr. Perkins shot in the liquor store, he checks his pulse, even though Mr. Perkins is breathing and moaning out loud.
Triangle
When the father and daughter are driving to the cabin in the station wagon, in the first shot she is not wearing her seat belt (it is visible off to the side). When the camera angle changes and in subsequent shots, she is wearing it.
Indiscretions
When Althea on the phone asks her friend Regina where she is and the woman says 'Marshalsberg' from a (fictional) map, the word is misspelled 'Marhalsberg.'
Child of Promise
The character played by Temi Epstein identifies herself as 'Lori' in this episode, but she's listed as 'Terri' in the closing credits.
Laid to Waste
The character of the plant manager is named 'Preston Donner'. Yet at the very end of the episode, Gillespie refers to him as 'Grafton Donner'.
Sparta Gold
When Jamison and Sweet are sitting in their car on stakeout, they are discussing how long the marijuana business has been going on. The Chief responds to them over the radio from the station, even though neither officer had made their remarks over the radio.
Harriet Delong Actor
Love, Honor and Obey
When Parker goes to jail to see Jennie, he wears his pistol into her cell. No police officer would be allowed to take a firearm into a cell.
By Means Most Foul
Ronald Cousins and Brian Moss both said the Chevy Camaro belonging to Moss had a 351 engine. A 351 is a Ford engine, while a Chevy would have a 350 cubic inch engine. Only one cubic inch difference in size, but a completely different engine.
Family Reunion
When the police are following the Purdys and the Paxtons, Parker tells Bubba that the only thing on that road is 'Hush You Heroes.' Lonnie responds to his comment and asks Parker what that is, even though they were in different cars, and Parker had not made his comment over the radio.
Family Reunion
After hitting Carl Purdy over the head and depositing him on the sofa, Roy Paxton reaches out the door and picks up Purdy's shotgun. When viewed from the exterior camera, he only has the shotgun in his hand. When they switch to a camera inside the room, Paxton suddenly has both the shotgun and a baseball bat in his hand.
The Law on Trial
When Sheriff McComb was on the witness stand, he was allowed to make offhand remarks and offer opinions that no defense attorney would have let go unchallenged.
Random's Child Detective conan prelude from the past english patch.
When Lana Farren is about to leave the hospital, she has a severe bruise under her right eye. Igo8 gps software download. When she arrives at the Tibbs house a short time later, the bruise is almost completely gone.
The Leftover Man: Part 2
Ron Dubois (Michael Genevie) refers to 'Sparta County High School' but Sparta is in Newman County.
The Leftover Man: Parts 1 & 2
Luann Corbin's character is seen with corporal stripes on her police uniform in 'The Leftover Man: Part 1'. When she is wearing her police uniform in part 2 of the episode, there are no corporal stripes on her uniform.
By Duty Bound
Frank Cole drives a car into the water off of a dock that is not only wide enough and strong enough to hold a full-size car, but is also ramped up into the air. The next day the dock appears narrower, and is level.
By Duty Bound
A closeup of the heart rate monitor while Hector is lying in his hospital bed indicates that his heart rate is 24 beats per minute. Moments later, his rate drops to zero and he dies. In reality, hospital staff would have installed a pacemaker to prevent his heart rate from falling so low.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/InTheHeatOfTheNight
Go To
In the Heat of the Night was a 1988–95 Police Procedural series set as a distant sequel to the 1967 film of the same name, itself based on a 1965 novel by John Ball.
The TV series picks up twenty years on, with a newly-married Detective Virgil Tibbs moving to Sparta, Mississippi after his mother's death. Turns out that at her funeral he was signed on as Chief of [nonexistent] Detectives by the town's opportunistic mayor. It's the 'New South', and everyone's anxious to seem racially progressive. Except, initially at least, his old pal Chief Bill Gillespie, and Gillespie's new (not to say considerably younger and hunkier) squad of flatfoots. Also, of course, several dozen bad guys. Like the parent film it pulls no punches with Southern racism, the seedy underbelly of small-town life, and the Culture Clash between big city detective Tibbs and The Sheriff Gillespie.
The series ran for five seasons on NBC before channel hopping to CBS for a further two seasons and four Made-for-TV Movies. It was kept interesting by brilliant casting choices, including Carroll O'Connor as Chief Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Tibbs.
The TV series contains examples of:
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: The two-parter 'A Small War' has a gang of these coming from the 'big city' of Jackson (the state capital) and setting up shop in Sparta, especially among the high school kids.
- Alan Smithee: Carroll O'Connor was also the series' Story Editor, using the pseudonym Matt Harris.
- Alas, Poor Villain: 'Prisoners.' When finally charged, the Knight Templar sheriff who had some inmates fatally beaten gets a big-time Villainous Breakdown, crying loudly and wrecking his office while yelling that he has no friends left.
- all lowercase letters: The show's title card is stylized this way.
- And This Is for..: Virgil's ex-partner comes to visit and proceeds to murder several men. Before he kills the last one, he declares 'This is for my brother Paulie.' note
- Big Eater: When polygamist JJ Jefferson is poisoned inside his jail cell in ‘'A Necessary Evil'' finding the culprit becomes difficult because each of his six wives had arrived with a snack for him (cookies, cake, pie etc). This turns Up to Eleven once it turns out that None of them poisoned him and instead he died from eating his cellmates poisoned fudge after finishing all of his own food besides a little the deputies took.
- Black Gal on White Guy Drama: City Councilwoman Harriet DeLong and Chief Gillespie date and eventually marry in season 6. Of course, this being small-town Mississippi, their union brings a lot of disapproval, drama, and death threats.
- In a Season 2 episode, Bubba's nephew and Virgil's niece hit it off, much to their mutual uncle's displeasure because of this trope.
- Blind and the Beast: Discussed in an episode in which a beautiful blind woman becomes a key witness to murder; in the process she and Parker, the overweight and awkward comedy-relief deputy, become a couple.
- Book Ends: 'Raped' begins with Althea being assaulted in her kitchen by a co-worker. It ends with her finally working up the nerve to walk in there—only to find him waiting for her, ready to attack her again. This time, she's able to fight him off.
- Chase Scene: Bordering on Once an Episode, to the extent where it's cheerfully lampshaded in later seasons.Chief: No high speed chases!
Bubba: .. Well, Sweet, tell the Chief I tried. - Christmas Episode: 'My Name is Hank' and 'Blessings.'
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
- Junior Abernathy was dropped after Season One.
- Joanne St. John was dropped after Season Two.
- Wilson Sweet was dropped after Season Six.
- City of Adventure: Sparta, according to one of the characters. 'I should join the Marines..I'd see less dead bodies.'
- Clip Show: A Christmas episode had a reporter coming to town to profile the police department, prompting numerous flashbacks.
- Country Mouse/City Mouse: The very title of an episode that has Bubba's nephew and Virgil's niece visiting and initially clashing because of their respective tropes (the racial difference doesn't help either) before growing to like each other.
- Culture Clash: A big part of the series. One episode has a local girl get murdered and you see the contrast between Tibbs' big-city detective approach and the small-town life: one of the deputies cuts the girl down when she's found hanged because he grew up with her and couldn't look at her like that, and Tibbs is furious at him for contaminating the crime scene. Tibbs then shocks the part-time coroner with his totally nonchalant inspection of the cadaver's privates to check for evidence of sexual assault.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Gillespie had an affair with a woman who married another man and left Sparta. She was pregnant and never told him. He meets his daughter when her mother is murdered.
- Dark Secret: A hell of a lot of these get revealed in nearly every episode. Such as a girl's suicide attempt being because her grandfather had been molesting her and had done so to her mother, etc.
- Deep South: Played up even more than in the movie, by way of contrasting old attitudes with new.
- Derailing Love Interests: When Virgil returns to Sparta without Althea, he tells Bill that 'she hated it here, hates my work, hates her work, isn't interested in making our marriage work', etc., a stark contrast to the loving and supportive wife she'd always been. Although she had gradually become more disillusioned as time went on, hatred seems like an extreme leap to explain the character's absence simply because her portrayer no longer wanted to be on the show.
- Domestic Abuse: One episode combines this with Parental Abandonment. A woman kills her abusive husband, flees to another city where she changes her name and gets a new life, all while she left her daughter behind in an empty house. Also the episode 'Love, Honor, Obey', which deals with the typical plot of a battered wife who's too afraid/ashamed to admit to it.
- The topic is also hinted at in several other episodes. Among them is 'Triangle,' where a man murders his wife and her lover after walking in on them. Throughout the episode, the man's son, upon learning that his mother is dead, tells authorities and a teacher he knew this was likely coming: He had heard his parents argue in the past and that he had threatened to kill her several times.
- Drunk Driver: The subject of several episodes, most notably, 'Forever Fifteen.' In this Tearjerker episode, three teenaged girls, all members of the Sparta High School cheerleading squad, are killed when their car is forced off the road by a drunk driver, with one of the girls dying in one of the officer's arms; a fourth is left in a vegetative state and will likely die. As the town grieves the girls' deaths, the officers search for the suspect, all while being hounded by a publicity-seeking district attorney who accuses them of failing to arrest the drunk driver. Eventually, the officers realize the district attorney was the drunk driver, his admonitions being a way to cover his tracks.
- Driven to Suicide:
- 'Fairest Of Them All', a young pageant contestant kills herself over threats from a rival's mother to reveal the girl's dark secrets (that friend's mom had engineered, as it happened). Another episode has a teenage girl's suicide attempt leading to the revelation that her grandfather had been molesting her, after years of doing the same to her mother.
- 'Perversions of Justice,' after a young teacher has been accused of molesting one of his students. Even though by episode's end he is cleared of the accusations and other circumstantial evidence is found to have explanations, his reputation is ruined and his chances at moving anywhere to rebuild his career are less than zero. With death threats continuing to mount and worried that he will now be told to stay away from his surviving family (his parents had died several years earlier in a car accident), the teacher locks himself in his garage and starts his car .. and only when police do a welfare check hours later will reveal the outcome.
- Drugs Are Bad: Several episodes focus on this and how it's destroying Sparta (it was the 90's; see also Real Life Writes the Plot below). The most blatant example is probably 'Cracked', wherein a clean-cut, rather naive thirteen-year-old girl tries crack, rapidly gets hooked, and dies horribly over the course of only a few weeks.
- How We Got Here: 'Indiscretions' pairs this with a Framing Device. It begins with the Tibbs' and Sweet leaving a funeral. Althea begins to read the diary of the friend who they just buried and we promptly get multiple flashbacks that tell us how she came to this sad fate.
- Knight Templar: The gang of vigilante police officers from 'Brotherly Love.' While they do target actual criminals like murderers, rapists, and drug dealers, they are also perfectly fine with taking out anyone who gets in their way, like nosy fellow officers, and even a little old lady witness.
- Long-Lost Relative: Chief Gillespie's daughter, Lana. She initially hates him for Disappeared Dad reasons, but the two grow close over the course of the show, and are amiable by Season Seven.
- Oh, Crap!: An epic one at the end of 'Hello in There' when the killer is confronted by the son of the man he murdered (who was an old teammate of Bubba's), who had witnessed his murder, which had initially been ruled a suicide and who had been rendered mute by the murder. The kid walks up to him, pulls out his gold watch (which he had seen when his father was murdered) and finally says these words 'You killed my daddy.' Gillespie then says 'The child speaks.' and the villain literally looks like he's about to crap his pants.
- The Only One: The local police force vs. FBI variant is the central plot of one episode, in which the Sparta DA's daughter is kidnapped and Gillespie's force—using their small-town savvy—competes (almost literally) with by-the-book FBI agents to locate her.
- Noble Bigot with a Badge: Parker, the most laid back and affable of the officers, turns out to be shockingly racist towards Vietnamese people (and possibly Asian people in general) in 'My Name is Hank.' It turns out that he has a Dark and Troubled Past that involves being captured and brutally tortured during the Vietnam War.
- Pædo Hunt: Deconstructed. In one episode an older male teacher is accused of molestation by a child; the Sparta PD are forced to take it seriously when it turns out the teacher has a previous conviction as a sex offender and had left a previous teaching position under unknown circumstances. Despite the lack of evidence, and partially thanks to an overzealous reporter, a witch-hunt ensues, with people harassing him and shooting at his house (Deep South, remember?) Eventually he is Driven to Suicide .. whereupon it's discovered that the previous charge was about his mooning someone as a stupid teenage pranknote , that he left the previous job upon suffering a nervous breakdown (his parents had been killed in a car accident and he never returned from a voluntary leave of absence), and the child in this case had only accused his teacher so he could spend more time at home with his father, who was raising him alone and had recently been switched to second shift at work. Tragic stuff.
- Even more tragically, nobody wants to accept the fact that the teacher was 100-percent cleared of any wrongdoing. The school principal adamantly refuses to lift the teacher's suspension; even after she is pressed on whether she had ever done anything dumb and stupid, she is still adamant about throwing him under the bus, insisting that the teacher's indecent exposure charge from years earlier was proof of his pedophillic character, and that the matter was in the school board's hands. At episode's end, the aforementioned newspaper reporter, wanting to do a follow-up, says that maybe it was a good thing that the teacher killed himself .. after all, it surely proves he's guilty, right? Chief Gillespie quickly and angrily sets the reporter straight and tells him he was just as responsible as everyone else for ruining the teacher's name, reputation and chances for finding another job. The only one to show any remorse is the teacher's accuser, and this is only after Chief Gillespie prods his conscience and helps him understand that, in essence, the accusation such as what was made against his teacher was very serious and that, even if said accusation is proven false, his reputation could be permanently ruined. The boy begins to cry and says he's sorry, after which Gillespie takes him aside and comforts him.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot: 'Just a Country Boy' and 'Unfinished Business' were this for Bubba.
- Put on a Bus: Eventually, Rollins' addiction-fueled unreliability became critical, so Tibbs became a lawyer and left Sparta to pursue his new career. He returned a few series later as an occasional guest star, having decided to join a practice in town.
- Rape as Drama: Althea is brutally assaulted by a misogynistic coworker. The rape isn't forgotten about after one episode—although she recovers and moves on, it remains a permanent part of her psyche and years later, contributes to an offscreen separation from her husband.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: An unfortunate series of interruptions in both leads' careers — O'Connor's heart surgery, Rollins' struggles with addiction — led to one or the other of their characters frequently being away at 'conventions' or 'seminars'. Given that O'Connor's son Hugh, who played Sgt. Lonnie Jamison, was also a heavy drug user (leading directly to his suicide shortly after the show ended), it's not difficult to find the apparent inspiration for the show's numerous Drugs Are Bad-themed episodes and general heavily anti-drug stance.
- 'The Reason You Suck' Speech: Gillespie delivers a memorable one to a young, overzealous editor just hired at the Sparta Herald. Already the police force and newspaper have had a love-hate relationship, although Gillespie and his staff are willing to work with the Herald to inform the public and have a grudging respect for each other. However, in 'Perversions of Justice,' when the editor goes too far and way oversteps his boundaries, Gillespie gives him a piece of his mind, telling him that he convicted a young teacher, accused of sexual molestation of a child but later proven innocent, without a trial or even criminal charge, and that it helped drive the man to his suicide. When the reporter says that he has a right to harm a man's reputation just because he's the press (under the guise of 'informing the public'), and that he can do the same to Gillespie, the chief really blows his top: 'I am legally obligated to suffer you and protect you, but I will surely fail in my duty unless I stay away from you .. AND YOU STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!' (Gillespie is so angry, in fact, that after the editor leaves, he is literally shaking as he puts his glasses and hat back on.)
- He also gives a very good one to the wife of Althea's rapist, not only blasting her for her denial and blind loyalty to him, but outright telling her that she's as bad as her husband.
'You may as well have been in the Tibbs' kitchen with your husband, holding down Mrs. Tibbs! I know you for what you are! You're a sadistic silent partner and you make me sick! You make me SICK!' - Red Herring:
- In one episode, a minister's murder is believed to be because he wanted to integrate his church. It turns out to be because he was sleeping with several of the female parishioners. Further herrings included his lovestruck secretary, cuckolded wife, and the husband of one of his lovers being completely innocent despite being enraged at his behavior (and in the secretary's case, also furious that he'd never given her a second look). The killer turned out to be the equally furious father of one of his lovers.
- In A Necessary Evil, None of the six wives of the just outed bigamist killed him. His death was a case of Murder by Mistake when he ate some food which had been intended to poison someone else.
- Serial Rapist: In 'Rape' Chief Gillespie's hunch that Althea's rapist has done it before (he thinks the particulars of the crime scene show signs of experience) proves key to cracking the suspect's alibi. Indeed, the investigation discovers that he was accused of rape in two other towns where he taught. The common thread is his wife providing him with an alibi.'It's not over for Althea Tibbs. And it's not over for the next woman your husband rapes. And we both know he's going to rape someone again, don't we?'
- Shown Their Work: 'The Rabbi' gets all the relevant details about Judaism correct.
- Social Services Does Not Exist: Averted as Althea is a social worker and many episodes involve her helping the police with talking to the family members of victims, helping the kids at Sparta High, and random people in the community. Social Services is called in (from the big city of Jackson) as the plot requires, usually in the case of abandoned children.
- Stage Mom: The aforementioned 'Fairest of Them All' features one of these so determined that her daughter win a local pageant that she arranges for someone to drug the girl's chief rival, take nude pictures of her, then threaten to leak the photos to the press unless the girl drops out of the pageant.
- Suspiciously Clean Criminal Record: The infamous episode 'Perversions of Justice,' in which a young teacher is accused (falsely) of inappropriately touching a student's private parts. As a witch hunt ensues, the officers do a background check, and all they find is an indecent exposure charge.. back when he was in college, said incident having been part of a drunken late-night romp. (Gillespie and his officers let it slide, as they recall their own drunken, dumb-and-stupid antics as young college-aged adults.) One other incident that comes up, however — a heretofore unexplained resignation from a previous job — wasn't even for criminal reasons: The teacher was grieving the deaths of his parents in a car accident and had a nervous breakdown in the classroom; the teacher's former boss reveals this to an officer, Capt. Bubba Skinner. Unfortunately, neither the revelation of these facts nor the accuser later admitting the accusation was false will do anything to restore the teacher's reputation.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In the episode 'The First Girl', Sparta gains and loses it's first black female police officer within a matter of days when the inexperienced officer is killed in a shoot-out. By the episode's end, her replacement is another black female who looks very much like her.
- Sympathetic Murderer: The Mercy Kill-driven doctor in one episode. He truly wants to end his victims' pain, and he only acts if they consent first.
- Teen Pregnancy: one episode has a girl concealing her pregnancy and when she has the baby, throws it in a dumpster and it dies.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In the Season 2 episode 'Missing,' acting police chief Tom Dugan is — in the final scene — ambused and killed by two men wearing pig masks in a secluded forest area after he is given a false tip in connection with a series of race-related murders near Sparta. (Dugan — whose character had been created after Carroll O'Connor took a health-related leave of absence — had been working undercover for the FBI to solve the case. By the number of gunshots heard just before the Fade to Black .. Dugan was shot at least 18 times; needless to say, he doesn't survive.
- Throwing the Fight: Subverted in S3E10, 'King's Ransom'. Ex-boxer Conrad 'King' Baylor told some friends a story: Mobsters approached him the night of a fight, and gave him $2,000 to throw his match. He took the money, then bet it on himself, intending to go out there and screw over the mobsters. Unfortunately, his opposition was a little better than he thought, and he wound up losing. The mobsters met him post-fight, and gave him another $3,000 'for making the knockout so real'.
- Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Virgil and Althea's twins.
- Victim of the Week: It's a Police Procedural. That's a standard of the genre.
- What the Hell, Hero?: After Ainslee, Althea's rapist, gets bailed out of prison, he goes and bothers Althea again at a church. Virgil storms out, beats the crap out of him, and nearly strangles him, only for Gillespie to pull him off of Ainslee and ream him out because it's not going to help and an assault charge against Virgil is only going to make it harder to nail Ainslee to the wall.
Index
