A sleazy magazine prints stories against the SFPD, and Ironside in particular, using the tale of a vanished actor as an example of the department's uselessness. When those involved with the story start receiving parcel bombs, it becomes clear that somebody does not want the disappearance investigated; and the Chief is all the more determined to uncover the truth.
The teenage son of a friend of Fran's appears to commit suicide, however the evidence seems to point in a number of different directions. Did he kill himself, or was it a murder made to look like suicide? Or, alternatively, was a suicide made to look like it could have been murder? The Chief has to unravel the story, but he has little real evidence to help him along.
The Chief meets Alexandra, an old girlfriend with whom he is still very much in love. When he finds that the feeling is mutual he hopes to be able to settle down with her, even though he knows that she is an incorrigible thief, and that she is after the ancient Chinese statue he has been detailed to protect.
A lawyer turns up at Ironside's door late at night, badly bruised and unable to remember what has happened to him. All that he can recall is that a man who needs rescuing is trapped in a sinking boat; but he cannot remember where the boat is, or who the man might be. The Chief begins a race against time to find the victim before it is too late.
A scientist disappears, sparking fears at the research centre where he works that he might have defected. Suspicious at the nature of the evidence and concerned for a wife clearly devoted to her missing husband, the Chief investigates further, and finds that another of the scientists at the centre is developing some very dangerous technology indeed.
The Commissioner's niece makes a bet that she can sleep for one night in the master bedroom of a haunted house, then disappears without trace. The team decide to stay the night as well, but the Chief also vanishes. He finds himself alone, surrounded by ghostly figures, sinister statues and whispered messages, whilst Ed, Mark and Fran try to find out where he has gone.
Fran Belding's Mexican cleaning lady turns out to be an illegal immigrant, brought into the country against her will by an employment agency who are little more than slave traders. The team tries to help her, but she may be too scared to accept their help before it is too late.
A small boy witnesses a crime, but proves to be an awkward witness due to a mental condition that doctors cannot explain. An attempt is made on his life whilst he is under the Chief's sole care, and in order to capture those responsible, the story is put out that the boy is dead, and that the Chief has retired through a sense of guilt. Putting it about that he has new evidence, he sits back to wait for somebody to make an attempt on his life, whilst spurning the efforts of his friends to help him. It looks as though his attempts to make it look as though he is turning to drunkenness and depression might just be costing him his life.
While Fran, Mark and Ed are at a night club, a psychic sees details of a recent fire. When the Chief becomes interested, he visits the psychic to try to see more, and discovers that he has been pursuing an arsonist for some time, unable to convince the police that his visions are for real.
A returning Vietnam vet sees his supposedly dead father at the airport, and initiates a search for him against the Commissioner's wishes. The father, a one time member of the SFPD, turns out to be in hiding from a crime family eager to kill him for his part in their downfall, and the last thing that he wants is to be found.
A violent gang kills two men during a robbery, and the Chief enlists the help of a regular informant in order to capture those responsible. The informant, Baxter, is a happy-go-lucky gambler with a wife and child, who has been keeping his duel identity a secret for years. This time, however, it looks as though his secret is going to become known to everybody.
A friend of Mark's is being unfairly shaken down by a crooked loan shark with crippling interest demands. Worried for his friend Mark goes undercover, despite objections from the Chief, and sets himself up as a potential customer in the hope of digging the head of the operation out of the woodwork.
A packet of heroin goes missing, implicating Carl Reece and his partner Don Boyden in a possible cover-up. When Boyden is killed in a freak car accident, the evidence begins to point firmly at Reece, and Ironside and the team must prove his innocence before the DA decides to press charges.
A robbery goes wrong and one of the thieves is killed, whilst another, an unlikely sort to be taking part in a robbery, is arrested. The third thief manages to escape with the money, but when the young daughter of the arrested gang member is kidnapped, the ransom being the unrecovered money from the heist, the team faces a race against time to capture the missing man.
The work of a quartet of musicians is being pirated, and whilst Ed and Fran are investigating, a member of the group is murdered in front of them. Their investigations lead them into the backgrounds of all those involved at the recording studios where the three survivors work, but all of the possible suspects appear to be friends with the group, and therefore unlikely candidates.
An elder in the Chinese community is murdered, and a young man is held to be responsible. The Chief calls in his friends in the community to help him find the young man in question, whom he believes has been framed in order to cause a rift between young and old in China Town.
The Chief attends his high school reunion, only to find two of his old classmates recently murdered, and somebody apparently after his own neck. With Ed and Fran to help him, he searches for some clues, which soon prove to be leading him back to the accidental death of another old friend in 1940.
A girl thought to have died years previously turns up at the home of her mother just as her brother is found murdered. Clearly somebody is trying to kill the family off, but is it connected to the girl, and is she really who she says she is?
A philosophy student commits suicide, and her death leads to strong criticism of her college professor. When it seems that the life of the professor himself may now be in danger, Ed brings in the team to try to protect his old friend.
When a woman crashes her car into the Chief's van after suffering a minor heart attack, doctors discover a bullet lodged in her chest, where it has apparently been for several years. When she claims to have no knowledge of ever being shot, the Chief investigates, and soon links her case to that of an unsolved murder.
Ed gets grounded in Reno whilst transporting a murder suspect back to San Francisco, and knowing gunmen to be on his tail he hides out in an abandoned bar to await assistance from the Chief. As he soon discovers, however, there are other dangers besides hit men for him to worry about, before he can meet up with his colleagues and deliver his prisoner to jail.
A man dies of a heart attack whilst flying his plane, but the town medical examiner, a charmingly eccentric Cuban doctor, is convinced that there was foul play. By chance Ironside and Ed are on their way to visit and soon become involved in his investigations; but between pregnant ducks and volatile banana cocktails they have their work cut out as never before.
The promotion of a new Chief of Police leaves an opening for a new Chief of Detectives, and the front runner for the job is Lieutenant Amy Prentiss. Much of the force is opposed to her appointment, but she is determined to prove them wrong. With Ironside and his team alone in supporting her, she has to make her mark in a difficult case beset with problems, whilst at the same time convincing her male dominated staff to accept her as their new leader.
