Picket Fences

A beloved local man is killed during a stage production of The Wizard of Oz. Suspicion initially falls on the town pharmacist when the sheriff learns the dead man was having an affair with the pharmacist's daughter. The dead man's wife confesses but her confession is suppressed in court. She is then murdered and the Sheriff's department discovers that she and the pharmacist conspired to kill her husband and then the pharmacist killed her.

After a child brings a severed human hand to school for show and tell, the Sheriff's department teams with the FBI to pursue a serial kidnapper, the "Green Bay Chopper", who severs the right hands of his victims.

Max falls for a dwarf who rides into town on an elephant, which the dwarf says was being abused at a circus. Jill tells Kimberly's favorite teacher, Mr. Pankow, that he has a brain tumor.

The candidates in the upcoming mayoral election are using such outrageous smear campaigns that Sheriff Brock considers running for Mayor himself.

A rash of break-ins leads to an investigation of a "serial bather". Suspicion initially centers on "Frank the Potato Man", a vagrant who, it is learned, was tried for aggravated rape 15 years earlier.

When a catatonic housemaid utters the word "murder" after a decade of not speaking, the Sheriff's department learns that the "suicide" of a beloved town figure a decade prior was actually a homicide.

Town doctor Jill Brock, fed up with the mayor's failure to address women's issues, declares herself a write-in candidate in the upcoming mayoral election. Deputy Kenny Lakos arrests a former boxing world champion and convinces him to engage in a charity match before extradition to New Jersey.

An elderly patient is murdered at a nursing home. A "singing serial mercy-killing" nun is arrested, sparking controversy over the ethics and legality of euthanasia.

Jill's father arrives in Rome with his new 26-year-old girlfriend. Wambaugh finds his wife in bed with another man.

Max, Brock, and Kenny investigate the mysterious death of a woman who may or may not have committed suicide.

A rabbi seeks to block the town from staging a religiously-themed Christmas pageant on public property. The town is shocked to learn that beloved teacher Louise Talbot, scheduled to play the Virgin Mary in the pageant, is a post-operative transsexual.

When the Brock family inadvertently finds Kimberly having sex with her 19-year-old boyfriend on Christmas Eve, Jimmy wants to prosecute him for statutory rape. A man claiming to be Santa Claus takes Max and dispatcher Ginny hostage and Jimmy tries to talk him down.

Kenny is seriously wounded by the Frog Man, a burglar who leaves live frogs at the site of his crimes.

When Alice Freeman is charged with murder in the death of her husband, Wambaugh defends her by claiming insanity as the result of menopause. Brock's son, Matthew, begins to experience puberty.

When her friend becomes pregnant, Kimberly fears that she is the victim of incest. However, the man purporting to be her father is actually her husband and they are involved in a polygamous relationship. Max investigates a religious sect that engages in animal sacrifice. Guest Stars: Liz and Jean Sagal

A fugitive doctor seeks a court order to allow him to keep his brain-dead wife on life support to allow her to bring her pregnancy to term. The mayor fires the town dentist for refusing to disclose that he is HIV-positive. Guest Stars: Liz and Jean Sagal

Deputy Max goes undercover when a response to her personal ad leads her to believe that she is being targeted by a serial killer known as "Cupid."

Jill enlists her former fiancé to perform a fetal transplant on a patient with Parkinson's disease over the objections of the town hospital. Jimmy feels threatened when he catches Jill and her former fiancé exchanging a kiss

Carter believes a sheriff who mysteriously disappeared 38 years earlier may have been killed by radiation emitted by an Unidentified Flying Object.

A group of heavily armed Chippewa Indians declares war on Rome, seizes, and barricades the courthouse. Ginny stages a protest when Jill begins administering growth hormones to a short boy. Matthew takes on the school bully.

Kimberly and her best female friend exchange a few kisses during a sleepover, leading to rumors that Kimberly is a lesbian. She turns to her birth mother, who had a lesbian affair in college, for advice.

Max delivers a baby and begins adoption procedures when the natural mother disappears. Jill transplants a pig's liver into a blues vocalist after the woman collapses on stage. Guest star: Della Reese.