Deadly Cargo

05 Deadly Cargo
March 17, 1979
Music: William Broughton
Writer: Michael Sloan
Director: Cliff Bole

Good grief, how those purty girls do get BJ McKay (Greg Evigan) in all sorts of trouble. After overhearing BJ do the sensitive guy routine with a runaway little boy in a diner, Liz Chambers (Mary Louise Weller) hires him to drive her to Washington D.C., claiming she’s late for her sister’s wedding there. Actually, she has stolen a deadly virus from the laboratory where she works and is desperate to get it in front of a Senate subcommittee, so she can expose her dangerous boss (William Mims).

Joe Maross and Hal Frederick play a couple of cops who inadvertently become involved after Bear stows away in their squad car with Liz’s purse, which contains the virus canister. This eventually leads to the show’s big setpiece, in which BJ has to break into the car (at the sheriff’s station!) to retrieve the canister. Of course, he’s caught, and he and Liz lead several officers on a screeching chase in and around the station parking lot.

For the first time, Evigan receives screen credit for singing the BJ AND THE BEAR theme song. It’s on the same card as Broughton’s composer credit and creator Glen A. Larson’s for penning the theme.