Night Court

- Season 5

(1987)

Christine's about to start her first day as a judge but she's preoccupied with finding Harry to tell him that she convinced the Mayor to reappoint him. But he left before she could tell him and is planning some childish prank. And her first session doesn't turn out so well and she freaks out. And they try to keep anyone from finding out Harry's not around but when the Mayor calls Mac has Dan pretend to be Harry. And when someone comes to begin Harry's reappointment and when he sees Dan talking to the Mayor, he assumes Dan is Harry and he wants him to sign something ...

As part of his grand prank, Harry prepares to hang-glide from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Statue of Liberty. He gets side-tracked when he meets Gus Melman, who's about to commit suicide by jumping. Back at the courthouse, Dan has to masquerade as Harry for his swearing-in ceremony.

Bull is struck by lightning, and is clinically dead for a few minutes. After recovering, he says God has told him to give away everything he owns to the poor.

After Roz dumps her boyfriend, Christine tries to make friends in order to comfort her. The two end up sharing a wild night at a male strip club.

While practicing an escape act for his Halloween party, Harry accidentally locks himself inside a safe and nearly suffocates to death; Dan thinks it's a joke when a man in a devil costume gives him $100 in exchange for his soul, but becomes afraid when the man seems to know everything about his past life.

Mac faces a dilemma when an old Army buddy who saved his life in Vietnam asks him to delete his prior record to avoid sending him back to prison. A Japanese businessman drops dead in court, and Bull installs the body in a motorized wheelchair to take it to the morgue, leading to it wandering all around the courthouse.

An aged actor famous for his Lone Ranger-type character refuses to take off his mask, even after his studio obtains a court order barring him from appearing as the character in public. He threatens to commit suicide by dropping a two-ton air conditioner on himself. Dan is tortured by the closeness of District Attorney Daniels's very sexy, very willing, and very off-limits niece, Kitty.

Dan is crushed when he is afflicted by impotence. Harry hires Joy, a blind woman, as his personal assistant, whose abrasive manner drives nearly everyone to thoughts of homicide.

Roz is diagnosed with diabetes, and the new limitations on her lifestyle lead her to quit in frustration. When she accidentally takes an overdose of insulin, she wanders around the courthouse in a delirious stage, in danger of falling into a coma or dying. Meanwhile, a crazy man holds an original draft of the Constitution hostage with a cigarette lighter.

A delirious Roz is frolicking around on the edge of the courthouse roof, and Dan, Christine, and Roz's doctor have to talk her down to medicate her. Down in the courtroom, Harry has to stand between the crazy hostage taker and a squad of trigger-happy federal agents.

A blizzard outside and a broken boiler inside puts the court staff and all the defendants in danger of freezing to death.

A man with a grudge handcuffs a dynamite-filled briefcase to Dan's arm; Bull walks around the courtroom in a blindfold, trying to empathize with Joy's blindness.

Christine's father, Jack, retires his taxicab and trades his apartment for a motor home, but stays with Christine while his R.V. is being outfitted. He soon drives her crazy, especially by making best friends with Dan.

Buddy's patronizing younger brother, Phil, convinces him to commit himself to a mental hospital for the rest of his life. Harry angrily objects. Meanwhile, Dan has accidentally destroyed Harry's entire collection of Mel Torme records, but tries to make up for it by shackling the man himself in Harry's office until Harry returns from Buddy's hearing.

Christine is throwing a party to celebrate the anniversary of Prince Charles and Lady Diana and invites the gang. But they don't really want to go so Harry tells them they have to. She learns what Harry did and freaks out. She runs into a guy who's an Anglophile and invites him to the party. When the gang arrives and meets him, they discover he's wearing a handcuff. That's when a detective arrives and informs them, he's a witness and there's a contract on him. So they are told to just sit tight. But when the hit man takes a shot, they try to get word to the police.

In another "day in the life" episode, the court staff has to finish 207 cases by midnight. If they do, the 207th defendant, a Texas millionaire with a gambling compulsion, will pay the money to save an orphanage from foreclosure.

An old girlfriend from college visits Harry at the courthouse. They end up in a passionate clinch in his chambers, with Harry in a half-dressed condition, when she lets slip that she's married.

Yakov needs a visa to re-visit the Soviet Union and see his sick mother. When he is denied, Harry takes up his cause, but is stunned by the arrival of a beautiful Russian consul. Christine is crippled by embarrassment when Harry makes an offhand remark about a near-invisible birthmark over her eye.

Roz is ordered to enroll in an anger management group. At the first session, the group is taken hostage by a scared teenager fleeing a failed armed robbery.

Harry starts feeling his age when a young turk breaks his record as the youngest judge ever appointed, and vies for his title as the courtroom's greatest prankster.

Mac inherits 2 million from his grandfather and then quits. And the gang has to deal with an incompetent replacement, who turns the court room upside down. Mac comes for a visit and showers the gang with expensive gifts. He is then sued by the owner of the building where Mac and Quon Le had their restaurant, which got damaged because of them. And they are being sued for more than what they have. And he goes out on Quon Le because it was her fault. And he wishes he can come back but because he gave his resignation he has to apply and wait for an opening.

It is revealed in this episode that Dan is a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves. When ordered to report for duty, he is terrified that he is being sent to a war zone, and goes to absurd lengths to get out of it. When he finds out his assignment is on a Caribbean island with a buxom female officer, he changes his mind, but all his tricks catch up with him and as punishment he is reassigned to the Arctic Circle. A few days later, the court receives a message that his plane has crashed in Alaska, and he is presumed dead.