A baby is found abandoned in the Chief's van, following an explosion at an airport. The Chief suspects that the child's mother was the intended victim of the attack, and plans to make her come forward, using the baby as bait.

Ed falls in love with an actress, accidentally caught up in a robbery case. Although the affair is mutual, Vivian Page is a pacifist, and unable to accept Ed's career in the force. Both have to decide what means the most to them, and in the end, separate; whilst the cameras pull back, and curtains fall across the screen, as though it had all been just a movie...!

A policeman's daughter crashes her car after taking cannabis, and her father sets out to catch the man who sold her the stuff. When it becomes apparent that he has framed the man responsible, the task falls to Ironside to decide whether to charge a known pusher or an old and trusted cop who has clearly gone off the rails.

The small daughter of a friend of the Chief's dabbles in witchcraft, and becomes convinced that she is responsible for the death of her parents' landlord. Taking to the case to show her that the truth is otherwise, Ironside discovers that the man arrested for causing the death might be equally innocent.

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.