Emergency!: Season 05  (1975)

Theatrical Release Information:
Emergency!: Season 05

Most of the familiar Emergency! characters are still on staff as the series enters its fifth season on NBC. The one noteworthy exception is Boots, the canine mascot of L.A. Country Paramedic Squad 51. But worry not: the firefighters quickly adopt a new dog, named Henry in honor of the squad's skipper, Captain Hank Stanley (Michael Norell). The season opens with the series' first two-part episode, "The Wedworth Townsend Act," which dramatizes the launching of Los Angeles' first paramedic program in 1969. (This two-parter has been removed from most of the series' syndicated packages). Other season four episodes are more in keeping with the established Emergency! formula: paramedic Gage (Randolph Mantooth) falls in love with a stewardess whom he met during a standard rescue mission; a man tumbles into a vat of sulphur trioxide; the paramedics lose a heart attack victim due to faulty equipment; a master chef inadvertently sets his kitchen on fire; legendary DJ Wolfman Jack guests in an episode wherein Squad 51 tries to prepare for an inspection amidst a sea of crises; a cosmetician undergoes a bizarre personality change after ingesting too many diet pills; and Ramparts' Dr. Brackett (Robert Horton) becomes a patient himself when he is bitten by a rare and potentially poisonous fish. Although Emergency! was still performing admirably in the ratings, its producers (including Jack Webb) began to feel that the series had run its course, and thus intended to call it quits at the end of season five. In anticipation of this event, the series' Saturday-morning animated counterpart, Emergency + 4, was yanked from NBC's Saturday morning schedule -- prematurely as it turned out, since the producers changed their minds at the last minute and okayed a sixth season for the nighttime Emergency!. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide