Barney Miller: Season 4
Season 4 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of Barney Miller Season 3.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 4 Progress Shield
Goodbye, Mr. Fish (1)
Sep 15, 1977
A neighborhood vigilante group runs amok, and Fish is AWOL on the day of his retirement.
Goodbye, Mr. Fish (2)
Sep 22, 1977
Fish finally shows up for work, but refuses to acknowledge his mandatory retirement.
Bugs
Sep 29, 1977
Listening devices discovered in the squad room may have come from Internal Affairs - or the Nixon administration!
Corporation
Oct 6, 1977
A quixotic environmentalist faces the high-priced lawyer hired by the chemical plant he's been assaulting.
Burial
Oct 20, 1977
Retired Sergeant Fish returns to assist Barney in locating a pilfered corpse.
Copy Cat
Oct 27, 1977
Yemana scours the TV Guide to try to second-guess the felon who's aping the prime-time lineup crime shows; a drunk forgets the most important element in a hold-up - a weapon.
Blizzard
Nov 3, 1977 · 30 min
A blizzard holes up the 12th with an unwelcome guest—a corpse; a self-proclaimed prophet is sure that the weather is indicative of a new ice age.
Chase
Nov 17, 1977
A taxi company is irate when Wojo totals a borrowed cab while pursuing a robbery suspect; Lieutenant Scanlon tries to ferret out 12th Precinct corruption with a drug pusher.
Thanksgiving Story
Nov 24, 1977
The detectives clean up after three mental patients sit down to Thanksgiving dinner at an automat.
Tunnel
Dec 1, 1977 · 30 min
Wojo is buried alive after a tunnel collapses on a burglar burrowing towards the diamond exchange; a homeless Harris is combing Manhattan for a new apartment.
Atomic Bomb
Dec 15, 1977
Neither the bomb squad nor the government recognizes a college student's physics project as a functional atomic bomb - but Detective Dietrich does.
The Bank
Jan 5, 1978
A man charges a sperm bank with murder after the lab unwittingly destroys the man's last sample.
The Ghost
Jan 12, 1978
The detectives are unimpressed with a man who claims he's being visited by a poltergeist - that is, until they lock the man up and strange events begin occurring about the squad ro
Appendicitis
Jan 19, 1978
Yemana is hospitalized with appendicitis; the cage is a stopping-off place for a sugar addict and an aging bounty hunter.
Rape
Jan 26, 1978 · 30 min
The city legalizes off-track gambling, to the delight of Yemana; a woman wants her husband arrested on a rape charge; a master of disguise perpetuates a crime spree.
Eviction (1)
Feb 2, 1978 · 30 min
Barney puts his career on the line by refusing to forcibly evict the tenants of a condemned hotel, while Lugar tries to figure out what to do with his vacation time.
Eviction (2)
Feb 9, 1978 · 30 min
The hotel situation now involves a SWAT team, while Dietrich learns the identity of his amnesic ""girlfriend.""
Wojo's Problem
Feb 23, 1978 · 30 min
Wojo comes to Barney with a problem his superior would rather not know about; the 12th's new female detective has a very jealous husband, suspicious of her all-male co-workers; som
'Quo Vadis?'
Mar 2, 1978 · 30 min
Barney uncovers, if you will, the real reason behind a woman's vehement insistence that a nude-painting exhibit at a local art gallery be shut down; the Millers may be heading for
Hostage
Mar 23, 1978 · 30 min
Harris finally finds an apartment in the Village; a ventriloquist insists he's not responsible for his dummy's insensitive remarks; a prisoner holds the boys at gunpoint.
Evaluation
May 4, 1978 · 30 min
The members of the squad nervously await Barney filling out their evaluation forms. Meanwhile, Harris arrests a numerologist who will only give his name as ""1223,"" and a porno sh
The Sighting
May 11, 1978 · 30 min
A man liquidates all of his assets into gold, much to his wife's dismay; Wojo claims he saw a UFO over Staten Island.
Inauguration
May 18, 1978 · 30 min
Harris does some extensive soul searching when he's offered a job on the mayor's security team.