 The 1989 season was played slightly out of order. The previous  season ended with a cliffhanger. However, Carroll OConnor (qv),  who also served as executive producer, wanted to begin the next  season with the episode in which Althea Tibbs is raped because he  felt that that particular episode had a strong message and that it  should be the season opener. The continuation to the cliffhanger was  shown a few episodes into that season with Gillespie recapping the  events of what happened when he was kidnapped and the events  surrounding that period.