After a short bit deciding who will buy coffee, Malloy and Reed are joined by snarky Officer Ed Wells. He's even snarkier than usual because he's about to go on his first patrol in a helicopter.
There is then a rather long segment set at roll call. A special guest from the Helicopter Patrol Astro Division spouts the many positives that will come from using helicopters to help fight crime. He even has photos for all the cops at roll call to pass around. Obviously the use of helicopters was then, has been and is now most definitly a huge help for police. There's just a whole lot of talk in this build up and it's not about to lead to much whirly action.
Finally out on patrol, surely M & R will have quick need of some helicopter help. Unfortunately, helicopters have a difficult time with flying into the basements of ritzy-neighborhood mansions. That's where the next segment takes us, drops us off and then abandons us.
This storyline, set in a truly massive basement which looks like it belongs at the bottom of an L. A. Skyscraper, just drags on and on. From an initial encounter with a language barrier to a conversation with a neighborhood Doctor, this scene just takes forever to get going. It turns out that upstairs, the mansion has been ransacked. It's believed that the owners of the mansion, an elderly couple, might be locked up in their own safe. Eventually a bunch of other Police Officers and Safe cracking experts show up. Malloy and Reed stay in the background twiddling their thumbs while the camera focuses and refocuses (and then focuses again) on the safe's door handle and combination spinner as the experts attempt to gain entry into the safe. Eventually they get the safe open revealing the elderly couple passed out inside. Incidently, there are no helicopters in the safe.
The next segment finds the partners responding to a robbery in progress at a jewelry store. They get there just in time to see the bad guys getting away on a motorcycle. Reed calls for assistance in tracking the cycle and finally, here comes the helicopter. Officer Wells, up in the Police Bird, directs Adam-12 to a short-cut and they manage to catch up with the bad guys.
There's a decent chase seen with Adam-12 behind the cycle and the cycle behind a Television Film Vehicle. We get a chance to see the shadows of the Film Vehicle and the Camera Crew aboard it. (Isn't that goofy?!) After a prolonged scene which takes place on and below a pedestrian bridge, Wells and the helicopter show up and via loudspeaker, convince one of the bad guys to give up and surrender to Malloy. He does, commenting that criminals don't stand a chance with them there Police helicopters patrolling from above. Reed, getting one of those rare chances to actually drive the squad, successfully captures the other bad guy without the aid of the helicopter. Reed is later rewarded for the capture by the Station House Coffee Machine which gleefully steals his nickel.
A lesser episode of Adam-12 which introduces an interesting concept at the show's opening. That concept is then ignored for quite some while. When that concept is finally featured in full, it's not really all that exciting. One might think the concept of policing in a helicopter would be better if Malloy and Reed were actually shown as riding along in the helicopter. That in fact does happen in a two-part storyline in a later season. However, in those episodes, M& R basically end up being back-seat passengers, all but ignored as the episode focuses more on the copter pilot, another Officer, the helicopter itself and the scenery and sights of Los Angeles, California.
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