Season 5

E1. Wedding

Nov 2, 1981 · 60m

Billie gets a marriage proposal from Baseball scout Ted McCovney. Lou meets up with his youngest daughter Janie, who feels he's always neglected her for work.

E2. Execution

Nov 9, 1981 · 60m

Kitty Larsen, a young woman on death row, picks Rossi to tell her story. Although hesitant at first, he soon begins to like her. But Lou has personal feelings against her because she killed a reporter from the Trib.

E3. Reckless

Nov 16, 1981 · 60m

Lou is arrested for driving under the influence. His sentence includes attending a group meeting which culminates in a drunk driving test. Charlie sets up a 'Private Eye' hot-line at the Tribune for people to phone in crimes. Rossi is asked to write a success story about the initiative even though he is very skeptical about it's accuracy.

E4. Hometown

Nov 23, 1981 · 60m

When Lou goes back to his elderly home to settle his aunt's estate, he meets an old flame and gets his first story assignment in years from Charlie.

E5. Risk

Nov 30, 1981 · 60m

Sharon McNeil gets a story about child pornography by promising not to reveal the names of her source. A promise her superiors at the Trib and the L.A. police department soon want her to break. Art goes out on a helicopter jump with some volunteer rescuers and young reporter Lance has big dreams involving dating Billie and becoming the first newsman in space.

E6. Doublecross

Dec 7, 1981 · 60m

Billie suspects the gold cross found in a time capsule has been switched for a fake. Her investigations unearth the reasons behind an old family feud between the extremely rich side and the less rich side of the Matheson family.

E7. Drifters

Dec 14, 1981 · 60m

Charlie's nephew Scott comes to stay with him, and turns out to have a mental condition. But the young man refuses to take his medication. The staff is busy tracking an escaped zoo bear called Ziggy.

E8. Friends

Dec 28, 1981 · 60m

When his lawyer friend Burton Cary becomes a political candidate, Rossi finds learns he's not as clean-cut as he thought. Meanwhile the entire staff becomes a bit suspicious of Art after an argument with Jerry Hollister leads to the latter suing Art as well as the Tribune.

E9. Jazz

Jan 4, 1982 · 60m

Rossi runs into a bass player that used to be in the famous Sonny Goodwin Quartet and sets about reuniting the four of them. Tribute reporters Crosley and Banks split up when Banks retires and Crosley soon falls behind on his assignment. This leads Lou to team him up with Billie.

E10. Ghosts

Jan 11, 1982 · 60m

Billie investigates the death of a woman in a house that is said to be haunted. This leads her to attend a séance and search out the owners of a Ouija board.

E11. Cameras

Jan 25, 1982 · 60m

A stick-up at a Mr. Ginty's fast-food restaurant turns into a hostage situation with a group of birthday party kids. The possible trauma caused by this becomes a big part of the subsequent trial. Billie thinks one mother in particular is telling her son how to react and feel, but when she writes it down Lou finds her story too soft and rewrites it.

E12. Review

Feb 8, 1982 · 60m

Charlie becomes a member of a news council and finds one member who seems to have a grudge against him and the Tribune. Mrs. Pynchon asks Billie to help her write an autobiographical piece but refuses to talk about one important subject: her taking over from her late husbands at the newspaper.

E13. Immigrants

Feb 15, 1982 · 60m

The Tribune hires an old acquaintance of Animal's from 'Nam: photographer Lee Van Tam. But Tam's domestic troubles interfere with his work. Lou tries to get out of meeting visiting relatives.

E14. Hunger

Mar 1, 1982 · 60m

Rossi makes a bet with that he can get a story from anyone on the street. And the person he chooses is a woman who goes through the garbage who gets used by still viable food. He learns that she's a nun who runs a soup kitchen and feeds indigents. But he shifts the focus of the story to how people in a Third World country are starving which doesn't make the editors happy. And Mrs. Pynchon is instructing the staff to be less wasteful which makes them crazy.

E15. Recovery

Mar 8, 1982 · 60m

Rossi pursues a story about land claims by Japanese-Americans who sold cheaply prior to their forced internment during World War II, but Lou and Charlie try to stop him from following through with a key source. Billie traces a scam to a politician.

E16. Obituary

Mar 22, 1982 · 60m

At the last minute, Billie is pulled from a plane that crashes. She writes the obituaries of four Tribune staffers killed. Animal has to face the dilemma of reporting the impending extinction of a moth without tipping bug collectors to its location.

E17. Blacklist

Apr 5, 1982 · 60m

When one of the paper reporters' father comes to town to perform. It seems he was a folk singer in the 50's and he was blacklisted during the Communists Witch Hunts. They learn that one of the paper's reporters may have been involved with his blacklist.

E18. Law

Apr 12, 1982 · 60m

The proliferation of litigation on various fronts is pursued: Billie's story on a political recall movement leads to people she named in her story being sued by the target of the recall; Lou hires Animal's brother to represent him in legal action against a crooked plumber; meanwhile, the Tribune considers switching law firms.

E19. Fireworks

Apr 19, 1982 · 60m

Billie covers a story about a fireworks bill from the Tribune's Sacramento bureau where she encounters her ex-husband, who is now an aggressive lobbyist on behalf of the fireworks industry. Meanwhile, Lou raises ethical questions about the sponsor of an award for which the Tribune is nominated.

E20. Unthinkable

May 3, 1982 · 60m

As the Tribune covers the fate of a girl being treated in a burn unit, the possibility arises that a confrontation in the Middle East will lead to a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and the burn unit is mobilized.

E21. Suspect

May 17, 1982 · 60m

A rookie reporter gets in over his head when covering the death of an environmental agitator that might not have been accidental; meanwhile, Lou dates an unfaithful woman.

E22. Beachhead

May 24, 1982 · 60m

The Tribune is blamed for inflaming rivalries between surfer gangs. Billie and Ted differ on the place of a group home in their neighborhood.

E23. Victims

Aug 30, 1982 · 60m

Lou is shot by a robber, who is in turn killed by policeman Vince DeMayo. Both Vince and Lou have a difficult time getting their life back in order.

E24. Charlie

Sep 13, 1982 · 60m

A bad day for Charlie involves firing misfits and dealing with static from reporters over their assignments; meanwhile, Donovan suspects his girlfriend is pregnant.