Barney Miller Season 8, Episode 8: The Tontine

Paternity

Wojo's proven innocent of a paternity suit, but at a cost; a beauty queen is robbed; an irate theater patron vandalizes the theater.

30 min

Advancement

Luger wants Barney to pen a letter for his mail-order bride; a lottery winner seeks revenge when the ticket seller loses his winning entry; Harris gets a new book deal.

30 min

The Car

A car thief's conscience gets the better of him ... after twenty-five years; Levitt saves a child from a precarious fate; an overzealous sanitation officer goes to extremes.

30 min

Possession

A husband is assaulted for forcing his wife into designer jeans; a disorderly conduct report leads to a man who swears he's possessed by an evil spirit.

30 min

Stress Analyzer

A job fair brings out the worst in a Peace Corps recruiter; Dietrich volunteers for a department stress experiment.

30 min

Games

A manufacturer of computer game processors is accused of espionage; a WAC supplements her income on the street.

Homeless

The 12th is overrun with homeless vagrants on Christmas; a greeting-card writer snaps; a cattle prod is the weapon of choice for a local merchant.

30 min

Examination Day

The detectives don uniforms while Levitt and the others take sergeant's exams; Luger, working with the squad, is overly rough with a collar, and later with Barney.

The Clown

Street clowns fall prey to a serial mugger; a hundred inmates are sneaked out of holding in the middle of the night.

30 min

Chinatown (1)

A murder witness is uncooperative, so he, Harris and Dietrich are forced to share an apartment in seclusion until he talks; Lieutenant Scanlon falls for a wealthy mugging victim.

Chinatown (2)

Unless he confesses soon, Harris and Dietrich's unwilling roommate may witness another murder. Meanwhile, harassment charges are pressed against Lieutenant Scanlon.

Hunger Strike

Dietrich aids an elderly psychiatric patient who may be speaking a foreign language; a nuclear activist goes on a hunger strike to end nuclear arms; Barney declines a deputy inspector nomination.

Arrival

Luger's mail-order bride arrives; an elderly woman mugs a man.

Obituary

A newspaper obituary causes a stir when the subject turns up alive; the detectives snag a modern-day chicken thief.

30 min

Inquiry

Internal Affairs is called in when a charge of excessive force is leveled against Wojo; an angry parent takes action when his child is declined admission into an exclusive kindergarten.

30 min

Old Love

Dietrich's old flame pays a visit; a former child actor clubs an agent with a telephone.

30 min

Altercation

Harris and Arnold come to blows; a mugging victim confesses to a twenty-five year old crush on Barney.

30 min

Bones

A museum presses charges when an Indian retrieves his tribe's ancestral bones from an exhibit; a scoutmaster catches a mugger.

30 min

Landmark (1)

Wojo's discover of an ancient weapon puts the 12th Precinct up for sale.

Landmark (2)

The 12th Precinct is sold; Dietrich arrests the head of a crime school; Luger tries to duck out on his mail-order bride.

Landmark (3)

Friends, foes and felons alike drop by to pay their last respects as the detectives prepare to leave for new assignments; Harris contemplates his resignation when he's assigned to Flushing Meadows; Barney recalls friends departed before he turns out the squad room lights for the last time.