Episode
Ironside: Buddy, Can You Spare a Life?
Overview
Meeting with a man imprisoned for manslaughter seven years previously, the Chief begins to doubt the evidence which he himself once collected. Faced with extreme opposition from members of the DA's office, including the DA himself, Ironside sets out to review the case; and hopefully to prove a man innocent. The Chief continues his to try to reopen the case, struggling to convince a young mother to come forward and admit to her part in events that she would rather try to forget. Meanwhile he comes ever closer to the truth, as somebody tries to ensure that he never finishes his investigations.
Details
- Series
- Ironside
- Season
- Season 6
- Episode
- Episode 8
- Air date
- 1972-11-16
- Runtime
- 120 min
Episode context
Buddy, Can You Spare a Life? is Episode 8 in Season 6 of Ironside. It aired on 1972-11-16. The runtime is 120 min.
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Episode 7: Nightmare Trip
Ed goes to LA to fetch a prisoner, but when confronted by a pair of hostile beat cops after a mugging, he loses his cool and ends up in the County Jail. Caught up in a blatantly unfair system, he begins to doubt his own integrity as a representative of a law that is clearly failing so many people; and refuses to allow the Chief to bail him out.
Episode 9: The Countdown
A scientist is given a irremovable belt containing explosives, and the man responsible demands the release of three men from prison in return for the key to the device. The Chief sets out to find and trap the man before time runs out and the bomb explodes, taking an innocent person with it.
More episodes from this season
Episode 6: Riddle Me Death
A man dies in what appears to be an accident, but his estranged daughter is convinced that the story is not nearly so simple. A complex Japanese puzzle appears to be the only clue to the truth and the Chief struggles to solve it alone. Meanwhile the daughter of the murdered man has problems of her own; but these can only be solved by Ed's special touch.
Episode 10: The Deadly Gamesmen
A series of cleverly orchestrated crimes in a section of San Francisco leads the Chief to the conclusion that a pair of bored society beaux have turned the city into a giant chessboard, and are playing a game with the citizens as their chess pieces.
Episode 5: Camera...Action...Murder!
The Chief receives a series of films showing the murders of young women, and his investigation is assisted by a filmmaker currently wooing Fran Belding. This man becomes the Chief's prime suspect, much to Fran's distress; but trouble looms larger when Fran herself is marked as the next victim.
Episode 11: Who'll Cry for My Baby?
The Chief meets a man whose daughter has been murdered, and who is unable to rest until the killer is found. Moved by the old man's predicament as a victim lost in the system, Ironside decides that, since one of his statistics now has a face, he will do all that he can to see justice done.
Episode 4: Down Two Roads
Mark's graduation from law school coincides with the arrest of a caretaker that he has befriended. Believing the man innocent, he finds the weight of the law stacked against him, and quickly becomes disillusioned with his new career. Should he turn his back on law altogether, though, or should he just find another way to devote himself to justice?
Episode 12: Cold, Hard Cash
When the team gets word of a kidnap plot, Ed goes undercover as the wheel man; but he soon finds himself battling with a fellow gang member who wants the victim dead, and is happy to kill Ed too if he gets in the way. Meanwhile the Chief struggles to gain the trust of the victim's mother, a film star whose head is being kept firmly in the clouds by her manager.
Episode 3: Programmed for Panic
After a murder is committed in a San Francisco park, the Chief takes part in a live TV broadcast in the hope of provoking such a panic in his prime suspect that the man will make a mistake, or lead Ed to some hard evidence.
Episode 13: Shadow Soldiers
Whilst in London at a conference with the Chief, Ed witnesses an assassination, and promptly becomes the killer's next target. Meanwhile he and Ironside have to work with the local forces to find the assassin, but find themselves hampered by the Superintendent on the case, an old friend of the Chief's who seems to have a hidden agenda.
Episode 2: The Savage Sentry
A man with an uncanny ability to tame vicious guard dogs commits a series of robberies in San Francisco. The Chief has a plan to stop him, but it calls for a dog of his own and a willingness to put himself right in the line of fire.
Episode 14: Ollinger's Last Case
The Chief receives a worrying phone call from Ted Ollinger, an old friend, and he sends Ed to investigate. In the tiny town of Grant Bay Ed can find no sign of his former colleague; but he soon discovers that the locals are determined to hide something from him and that at least one of them will stop at nothing to keep him from the truth.