
In the Heat of the Night Episode Rating Graph
Mar 1988 - May 1995

Mar 1988 - May 1995
7.2
Browse episode ratings trends for In the Heat of the Night. Simply click on the interactive rating graph to explore the best and worst of In the Heat of the Night's 146 episodes.
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The first episode of In the Heat of the Night aired on March 06, 1988.
The last episode of In the Heat of the Night aired on May 16, 1995.
There are 146 episodes of In the Heat of the Night.
There are 8 seasons of In the Heat of the Night.
No.
In the Heat of the Night has ended.
S2 Ep4
8.2
13th Dec 1988
Virgil is delighted when Matthew his former partner from Philidelphia comes to visit.But he soon learns his friend has another purpose for coming to Sparta.Althea is uncomfortable because she and Matthew were romantically involved before she met Virgil and she realizes that he is unwilling to accept the fact that she chose Virgil over him.Meanwhile the F.B.I. enlist Sparta P.D.'s aid in hiding a witness.
S1 Ep2
8.1
6th Mar 1988
The investigation into the brutal murders of a young girl and the suspect in her death, leads Tibbs and Gillespie to the son of one of Sparta's wealthiest and most influential citizens.As they come closer to the truth things become dangerous for Virgil.
S1 Ep6
8.0
5th Apr 1988
An angry Gillespie seeks answers when an old friend is shot.And Virgil narrowly escapes death after trying to ascertain the real reason behind an old adversary's return to Sparta.Nan finds herself in danger after she finds out the truth about her new love.
S1 Ep1
7.9
6th Mar 1988
Virgil Tibbs returns to Sparta and joins the police force as chief of detectives.His arrival is met with resistance from police chief Bill Gillespie - who resents having an officer hired without his approval.Virgil has trouble adjusting to the small, antiquated police force.Tibbs' first case is a racially charged murder case that is soon complicated when the suspect is murdered in his cell.
S3 Ep21
7.9
1st May 1990
Harriet's sister is murdered on the orders of the wealthy white man who fathered her child.
S5 Ep8
7.8
26th Nov 1991
The lyrics to a blues song recall a murder that happened 50 years earlier.The victim - Sweet's grandfather.And the only people left with the answers are the bluesman who wrote the song and a retired sheriff.
S2 Ep3
7.8
6th Dec 1988
The murder of well respected man turns up a shocking secret about his family.
S2 Ep21
7.8
9th May 1989
It seems that a serial killer has been burying his victims in a wooded area owned by a wealthy hermit that Virgil refers to as ""Sparta's Howard Hughes"". Suspicion immediately falls on an eccentric woman who lives in the woods with her pigs and chases away trespassers with a shotgun.The officers ask the landowner's disturbed son for help and Bubba is surprised to find that a woman he attended high school with is working as the man's ""nurse"".Also Parker and Sweet compete with one another to solve the case.
S2 Ep10
7.8
31st Jan 1989
A minister who was integrating his church(by inviting Virgil and Althea to attend services)is poisoned.
S2 Ep1
7.8
4th Dec 1988
A copycat recreates a shocking unsolved murder from the past.Gillespie feels threatened after Ted Marcus suggests that Virgil should become the Chief.The situation becomes more tense after Virgil criticizes Parker and Bubba's actions.
S2 Ep5
7.7
20th Dec 1988
Sweet risks his life to prove that the Sheriff of a neighboring county is guilty of the racially motivated murder of a young man that Sweet was friends with in high school.
S2 Ep18
7.7
4th Apr 1989
Bubba tries to rescue a woman from a rapist, but she mistakes him for her attacker.Gillespie tangles with an ambitious district attorney who plans to use the case to further his career.
S2 Ep2
7.7
4th Dec 1988
Tibbs,Gillespie and Bubba pursue different leads in a bizarre murder case and the Chief realizes that the killer has plans for him.
S2 Ep11
7.7
7th Feb 1989
In this thought provoking episode.Gillespie is surprised when a man he arrested asks to see him on the eve of his execution.He must confront his feelings about the death penalty when the prisoner asks him to witness his death.
S1 Ep3
7.7
15th Mar 1988
The affair between the husband of a wealthy woman and her distant cousin leads to her murder. Virgil immediately suspects the pair.But he has a difficult time persuading Gillespie, who is a long time friend of the man and Bubba, who has been seeing the cousin.Bubba and Virgil clash again and Virgil is frustrated when the Chief rejects his theory about the crime.
S1 Ep8
7.7
3rd May 1988
The Sparta police search for a killer and his girlfriend.But the case becomes personal when they take Althea and the grandson of one of the victims hostage.
S2 Ep14
7.6
7th Mar 1989
The police search for a burglar who preys on elderly women.And the prime suspect is the son of a city councilwoman.
S1 Ep4
7.6
22nd Mar 1988
Racial tensions run high when a married white woman has an affair with a black businessman from New York.Meanwhile Virgil is not happy when the Chief enlists his aid in tracking down Bubba's cousin, a suspected moonshiner.
S3 Ep2
7.6
31st Oct 1989
Virgil struggles to help Althea after she is raped by a fellow teacher.Darnell does not think they can get a conviction because the man's wife has given him an alibi.Virgil tries to control his anger - until the man returns to intimidate Althea.And Gillespie tries to convince the wife to tell the truth.
S2 Ep19
7.6
25th Apr 1989
Sparta grieves after a drunk driver causes a fatal crash with high school cheerleaders on their way home from a game.While the officers try to find other driver, Althea tries to help the victim's families deal with their loss. The accident brings back painful memories for retired officer Tom Dugan.Meanwhile, district attorney Dutton accuses the department of being inadequate.
S2 Ep17
7.6
28th Mar 1989
A bitter strike leads to a murder investigation on a snowy day in Sparta.
S1 Ep7
7.5
12th Apr 1988
In this humorous episode Virgil and the Chief arrest a man for bigamy.It soon becomes a polygamy case after an endless parade of wives come to visit their husband.
S2 Ep12
7.5
14th Feb 1988
The past comes back to haunt JoAnn in the form of an escaped convict.
S2 Ep6
7.5
27th Dec 1988
Bubba is seduced by an alluring writer who has more on her mind than romance.Bill and Virgil worry that he is in over his head.Bubba tries to protect her from her estranged husband, but things get complicated after she shoots someone.
S5 Ep10
7.4
10th Dec 1991
The father of a man Gerard prosecuted kidnaps the DA's daughter.
S3 Ep7
7.4
5th Dec 1989
After a private investigator searching for a missing child is found dead, the evidence points to a local dance teacher - a neighbor that Parker has become very fond of.
S1 Ep5
7.4
29th Mar 1988
Virgil refuses to let go of a grudge against a wealthy former classmate who cheated him out of a scholarship.The man has promised city leaders that he will move his business to Sparta,but not all of his business interests are legal.The nephew of an old friend of Gillespie's finds his life in danger after he steals drugs stored in the businessman's mansion.
S2 Ep9
7.4
17th Jan 1989
Gillespie suspects that JoAnn's new cook is connected to the murder of a young prostitute.But Virgil suspects the culprit maybe a local pimp who has been intimidating the women.
S2 Ep7
7.4
3rd Jan 1989
Virgil is forced to shoot a suspect in an armed robbery.He has trouble dealing with the consequences of his actions, after he realizes the person he shot was a teenaged girl - and no one can locate the gun he believed she was pointing at him.
S5 Ep5
7.3
5th Nov 1991
Virgil's Aunt Ruda is the only witness to a struggle between Bubba and a young robbery suspect that ends in the young mans death.But her prejudice against the police -- and Virgil clouds her memory of the incident.
S3 Ep5
7.3
21st Nov 1989
Sparta P.D. gets it's first black policewoman.
S7 Ep19
7.3
9th Mar 1994
Eugene tries to protect a friend who was an unwilling accomplice to a robbery and in doing so endangers his probation -- and his life.
S4 Ep16
7.3
5th Feb 1991
A story of two brothers one an honor student that Althea has great plans for, the other a dangerous drug dealer as they struggle to influence a younger sibling.
S7 Ep1
7.2
16th Sep 1993
Chief Gillespie is fired by the city council and Sparta's new police chief Hampton Forbes arrives in town.Bill's last case with Sparta P.D. is a murder investigation in which a young boy has been implicated.
S5 Ep11
7.2
17th Dec 1991
Lonnie makes a heartbreaking discovery about a woman he dated in high school.
S3 Ep22
7.2
8th May 1990
Harriet's efforts to bring V.J. Trundel to trial are fruitless.The Chief does not believe they will ever get enough evidence to get an indictment,so he tries another method to bring Trundel to justice.
S7 Ep17
7.2
2nd Feb 1994
Virgil accepts a position at a prominent law firm.But as a former police officer he feels conflicting emotions when he realizes that one of their clients is guilty of murder.
S5 Ep7
7.2
19th Nov 1991
A man murders his business partner and frames the man's illegitimate daughter for the crime in an attempt to gain the man's business and his wife.
S4 Ep4
7.2
2nd Oct 1990
A mild mannered school teacher is accused of child molestation.
S3 Ep4
7.2
14th Nov 1989
An unhappy wife asks her lover to place a bomb in her abusive husband's truck.
S5 Ep4
7.1
29th Oct 1991
A game of high stakes poker ends in murder.
S5 Ep3
7.1
22nd Oct 1991
A flirtatious schoolteacher is stalked by a madman.
S4 Ep10
7.1
27th Nov 1990
Sweet is heartbroken when an elderly woman who befriended him is murdered in her bookstore.
S7 Ep18
5.0
9th Feb 1994
A Rabbi returns to Sparta after many years.Racists vandalize his synagogue and soon after their Torah is stolen.Forbes investigates but the Rabbi refuses to trust Bill because of his inaction while investigating a hate crime many years ago.
S6 Ep16
5.9
3rd Mar 1993
A white supremacist politician plans to have his wife's lover murdered and blame it on black radicals.
S5 Ep21
6.0
12th May 1992
A political prisoner who entered the country illegally,seeks sanctuary in a monastary.Gillespie and Tibbs find themselves at odds with Sheriff McComb when they try to help the man.
S6 Ep18
6.0
17th Mar 1993
A swindlers homecoming upsets his wife and the families of his victims - especially Etta.
S7 Ep14
6.0
12th Jan 1994
Maybelle's new phone sex business is a great success - until one her girls decides to moonlight as a prostitute.
S7 Ep15
6.0
19th Jan 1994
Forbes is delighted when his fiancee Angela comes to see him,but is disappointed when he realizes that they have very different plans for the future.
S7 Ep20
6.0
16th Mar 1994
Harriet tries to stop an arrogant developer from destroying an important archeological site.
S7 Ep23
6.0
11th May 1994
In the Heat of the Night: Give Me Your Life is a film directed by Russ Mayberry released on May 11, 1994.
S8 Ep1
6.0
21st Oct 1994
In the Heat of the Night: A Matter of Justice is a film directed by Reza Badiyi released on Oct 21, 1994.
S8 Ep3
6.0
17th Feb 1995
Acting Sheriff Gillespie must decide whether he should run for sheriff or retire from law enforcement.It soon becomes apparent that the other candidate is corrupt and dangerous.
S3 Ep9
6.1
19th Dec 1989
A young refugee claims to be the son of a Sparta cop who died in the war.But quickly becomes a suspect in a murder/robbery after he accepts a ride with the criminals who actually committed the crime.Gillespie looks into his story, while Virgil and the boys track down the shooter.Meanwhile, the young mans presence triggers a surprisingly bitter reaction from Parker, who views him as a painful reminder of the war.
S3 Ep17
6.2
6th Mar 1990
Maybelle the madam returns to Sparta with her "" nieces "".And sets up shop just out of Gillespie's jurisdiction.Her return is not without controversy and soon one of her most vocal critics is found murdered.
S5 Ep6
6.2
12th Nov 1991
Bubba returns to Los Angeles to testify at a murder trial and is reunited with Pat Day as they try to protect Mike from killers sent to prevent him from testifying.
S5 Ep22
6.3
19th May 1992
Gillespie,Tibbs and Father DiMarco must stand trial for harbouring a fugitive and obstructing justice.
S7 Ep13
6.3
6th Jan 1994
Virgil defends Parker after he is falsely accused of police brutality by a drug dealer.The prosecution's main witness - the man's girlfriend, who was once engaged to Parker.
S7 Ep3
6.3
18th Sep 1993
Wade and Sarah try to keep young Henry from being punished for a crime he did not commit and Forbes and his officers search for the two men who are really responsible.
S3 Ep13
6.3
30th Jan 1990
Bubba refuses to believe that a former teamate embezzled funds from the bank where he worked.And sets out to prove that his friend was framed and murdered.Harriet hopes that art therapy can help the man's traumatized son,who becomes a target himself when the killer realizes he witnessed the crime.
S4 Ep13
6.3
18th Dec 1990
In this Christmas episode the officers share memories with a reporter from the Sparta Herald.
S4 Ep17
6.3
12th Feb 1991
Virgil soon regrets telling an old friend that his new business partners are being investigated by the police.
S4 Ep18
6.3
26th Mar 1991
Parker protects a blind woman who heard her neighbors murder.
S4 Ep20
6.3
19th Mar 1991
Bubba travels to Los Angeles to arrest an arsonist.When the man is murdered to keep him from talking Bubba teams up with a pretty insurance investigator to solve the crime.
S5 Ep14
6.3
4th Feb 1992
Parkers investigation into a purse snatching reveals an abused woman.
S5 Ep16
6.3
18th Feb 1992
Althea fears for one of her students after her mother's boyfriend is linked to a criminal operation that has resulted in the deaths of several truckers.
S6 Ep6
6.3
25th Nov 1992
Lana Gillespie comes to Sparta to claim her inheritance,but is stalked by a mobster who dated her mother.Meanwhile Harriet encourages Bill to talk to his daughter,but Lana doesn't seem to be interested.Officer Randy Goode helps keep the bad guys at bay by playing them a little tune on the guitar.
S6 Ep11
6.3
13th Jan 1993
One of Virgil's classmates from law school is arrested following the death of his former girlfriend, but the man insists that her death was the result of her relationship with her psychiatrist.
S7 Ep5
6.3
30th Sep 1993
A night of revelry at a local pond turns deadly.
S7 Ep24
6.3
11th May 1994
Bill and Harriet return home.The cult kidnaps the girl from her foster home.And Forbes and his men arrest a man who has been supplying drugs used to keep the cult members under control.Soon a standoff develops and the officers realize that they have no intention of surrendering.Sarah is taken hostage.As they attempt to rescue the women and children Lonnie and Parker find themselves defusing a bomb and Bubba risks his life to rescue a small child from the building.
S4 Ep15
6.4
15th Jan 1991
A psychiatrist tells Gillespie that one of her patients has confessed to a crime that another man is about to be executed for, but she refuses to divulge his identity.
S3 Ep19
6.4
20th Mar 1990
Althea does not realize that an old friend from Philly is hiding a dark secret, nor does Sweet who has fallen in love with the woman.
S6 Ep10
6.4
6th Jan 1993
A city councilwoman becomes dangerously obsessed with Bubba.
S4 Ep14
6.4
8th Jan 1991
A bottle of spiked moonshine leads to an accident that claims the life of one teen and blinds another.
S5 Ep18
6.4
3rd Mar 1992
V.J. Trundel's widow takes Harriet to court to gain custody of Eric.But Harriet is determined that her nephew will not be raised in the home of the man who ordered the murder of her sister.
S7 Ep10
6.4
25th Oct 1993
A neglected baby stirs maternal feelings in Luann.
S3 Ep15
6.4
20th Feb 1990
Darnell plans on indicting a teenager for murder after her father is found in the basement and her mother turns up missing.But Gillespie and his men don't believe she is guilty.
S4 Ep11
6.5
4th Dec 1990
Virgil's dream of a better relationship with his Aunt Ruda and her son is shattered when his cousin takes part in a string of burglaries that result in murder.
S4 Ep21
6.5
26th Mar 1991
Harriet tries to keep Eugene from giving up when his father faces the death penalty.And the police search for three suspects in connection to a robbery/murder.
S4 Ep22
6.5
30th Apr 1991
Althea thinks Virgil needs a new line of work after seeing the aftermath of a deadly shooting at a roadhouse.Virgil finds himself in danger when they arrest the man who committed the crime.
S5 Ep9
6.5
3rd Dec 1991
A deputy provides protection for a cotton grower who is running a pot growing operation.But the deputy makes a big mistake when he wounds Bubba's girlfriend.
S5 Ep15
6.5
11th Feb 1992
Racists target a ceremony honoring a civil rights pioneer.
S5 Ep20
6.5
7th Apr 1992
An ex-convict attempts to retrieve his loot from his wife and her new husband in this tongue-in-cheek episode.
S6 Ep8
6.5
9th Dec 1992
Virgil fears for his Aunt Ruda's safety after several killings occur in the hospital where she is being treated.
S6 Ep9
6.5
16th Dec 1992
Singer Eddie Larran returns to Sparta for a concert,but not everyone is a fan.An angry man insists that Eddie owes him money.And their dispute soon ends in violence.
S6 Ep12
6.5
20th Jan 1993
A judge schemes to get rid of his wife after she tries to blackmail him into giving her a divorce and a generous settlement by revealing a secret from his past.
S1 Ep1
7.9
6th Mar 1988
Virgil Tibbs returns to Sparta and joins the police force as chief of detectives.His arrival is met with resistance from police chief Bill Gillespie - who resents having an officer hired without his approval.Virgil has trouble adjusting to the small, antiquated police force.Tibbs' first case is a racially charged murder case that is soon complicated when the suspect is murdered in his cell.
S1 Ep2
8.1
6th Mar 1988
The investigation into the brutal murders of a young girl and the suspect in her death, leads Tibbs and Gillespie to the son of one of Sparta's wealthiest and most influential citizens.As they come closer to the truth things become dangerous for Virgil.
S1 Ep3
7.7
15th Mar 1988
The affair between the husband of a wealthy woman and her distant cousin leads to her murder. Virgil immediately suspects the pair.But he has a difficult time persuading Gillespie, who is a long time friend of the man and Bubba, who has been seeing the cousin.Bubba and Virgil clash again and Virgil is frustrated when the Chief rejects his theory about the crime.
S1 Ep4
7.6
22nd Mar 1988
Racial tensions run high when a married white woman has an affair with a black businessman from New York.Meanwhile Virgil is not happy when the Chief enlists his aid in tracking down Bubba's cousin, a suspected moonshiner.
S1 Ep5
7.4
29th Mar 1988
Virgil refuses to let go of a grudge against a wealthy former classmate who cheated him out of a scholarship.The man has promised city leaders that he will move his business to Sparta,but not all of his business interests are legal.The nephew of an old friend of Gillespie's finds his life in danger after he steals drugs stored in the businessman's mansion.
S1 Ep6
8.0
5th Apr 1988
An angry Gillespie seeks answers when an old friend is shot.And Virgil narrowly escapes death after trying to ascertain the real reason behind an old adversary's return to Sparta.Nan finds herself in danger after she finds out the truth about her new love.
S1 Ep7
7.5
12th Apr 1988
In this humorous episode Virgil and the Chief arrest a man for bigamy.It soon becomes a polygamy case after an endless parade of wives come to visit their husband.
S1 Ep8
7.7
3rd May 1988
The Sparta police search for a killer and his girlfriend.But the case becomes personal when they take Althea and the grandson of one of the victims hostage.