8.6/10161 votes#1 - An Explosive Affair (Part 1)
Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 10/7/1981
After the station receives a bomb threat, Andy sends Johnny and Venus to broadcast from the transmitter tower while the station is being searched.
Director: Linda Day
Writer: Steve Marshall
8.7/10156 votes#2 - An Explosive Affair (Part 2)
Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 10/14/1981
Andy is unable to warn Johnny and Venus when he realizes that the bomb is at the transmitter.
Director: Linda Day
Writer: Steve Marshall
7.8/10128 votes#3 - The Union
Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 10/21/1981
The staff of WKRP considers joining a union. Mr. Carlson is furious and rushes to his mother for advice, while Andy tries to appear neutral in this labor-management conflict.
Director: Linda Day
Writer: Blake Hunter
8.2/10126 votes#4 - Rumors
Season 4 Episode 4 - Aired 10/28/1981
While his apartment is being fumigated, Johnny accepts Bailey's offer to stay at her place, causing everyone at the station to think that the two are sleeping together. Johnny's also afraid that he's in danger of losing his time slot to Rex, the afternoon DJ, and when Bailey tries to cheer him up, he mistakes her friendliness for a come-on.
Director: Linda Day
Writer: N/A
7.5/10124 votes#5 - Straight from the Heart
Season 4 Episode 5 - Aired 11/4/1981
Herb tells everyone that he's going on vacation, but Les and Jennifer discover that he's actually checked into the hospital for heart tests.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.2/10138 votes#6 - Who's on First?
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 11/11/1981
With Herb in the hospital, Mr. Carlson pretends he is Herb and is impersonated by Les for an advertising client.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.7/10130 votes#7 - Three Days of the Condo
Season 4 Episode 7 - Aired 11/18/1981
When Johnny receives $24,000 in a legal settlement, Venus convinces him to use the money to invest in a condominium at Gone With the Wind Estates.
Director: Linda Day
Writer: Lissa Levin
8.4/10159 votes#8 - Jennifer and the Will
Season 4 Episode 8 - Aired 12/2/1981
Colonel Buchanan, Jennifer's elderly gentleman friend, dies suddenly. As executrix of his will, Jennifer must deal with the press and with the Colonel's money-grubbing, rumor mongering relatives.
Director: N/A
Writer: Blake Hunter
8.6/10188 votes#9 - The Consultant
Season 4 Episode 9 - Aired 12/30/1981
Mama Carlson hires a professional radio consultant to evaluate WKRP. The man she's hired, Norris Breeze, is an old friend of Andy's who also runs a radio programming service. Andy soon realizes that Breeze intends to give the station a bad report unless it subscribes to the service.
Director: N/A
Writer: Hugh Wilson
7.9/10133 votes#10 - Love, Exciting and New
Season 4 Episode 10 - Aired 1/6/1982
Andy starts taking Mama Carlson out after hours in the hopes of getting her to pay for a new transmitter for the station. But he begins to suspect that she might have more-than-businesslike expectations of him.
Director: Frank Bonner
Writer: Lissa Levin
7.7/10129 votes#11 - You Can't Go Out of Town Again
Season 4 Episode 11 - Aired 1/13/1982
Mr. Carlson goes with Carmen to a college reunion where he learns the disillusioning truth about how he and Carmen first met; Bailey is frustrated in her attempts to get a computer for billing; Venus can't get a moment alone in the booth with his latest date.
Director: Howard Hesseman
Writer: N/A
8.2/10133 votes#12 - Pills
Season 4 Episode 12 - Aired 1/20/1982
Herb sells ad spots to a seller of ""diet pills""; after it turns out that the pills are a legalized way of selling speed to teenagers, it also turns out that the station can't legally get out of running the ads.
Director: Asaad Kelada
Writer: Steve Marshall
8.0/10132 votes#13 - Changes
Season 4 Episode 13 - Aired 1/27/1982
When Venus learns that he's going to be interviewed by a militant black magazine, he adopts a new wardrobe and manner in order to seem more in touch with black culture. Meanwhile, Jennifer offers to change Herb's image, starting with picking out new, tasteful clothes for him.
Director: Will Mackenzie
Writer: N/A
7.6/10129 votes#14 - Jennifer and Johnny's Charity
Season 4 Episode 14 - Aired 2/3/1982
When a fire destroys the kitchen at the Vine Street Mission, Johnny recruits Jennifer to help raise the $40,000 dollars to rebuild it. Jennifer throws a party for her rich friends and asks them to contribute, and everything is going fine until the contributors meet the people involved.
Director: Will Mackenzie
Writer: Blake Hunter
8.0/10124 votes#15 - I'll Take Romance
Season 4 Episode 15 - Aired 2/17/1982
Herb fixes Les up with a date through his latest client, the I'll Take Romance Dating Service. Les hits it off with his date immediately, not knowing that the dating service is a front for prostitution.
Director: Asaad Kelada
Writer: Lissa Levin
7.7/10131 votes#16 - Circumstantial Evidence
Season 4 Episode 16 - Aired 2/24/1982
Venus's latest date gives him an expensive diamond earring as a gift and then runs out on him; it turns out that she's a thief who has used the stolen earring to frame Venus as her accomplice.
Director: Frank Bonner
Writer: N/A
8.1/10127 votes#17 - Fire
Season 4 Episode 17 - Aired 3/17/1982
Herb and Jennifer are trapped in an elevator when a fire breaks out in the Flimm Building.
Director: Will Mackenzie
Writer: N/A
8.0/10128 votes#18 - Dear Liar
Season 4 Episode 18 - Aired 3/24/1982
When Bailey writes a news story on the Northside Children's Clinic, Les steals it and reads it on the air. This turns out to be a blow to the station's integrity in more ways than one when Bailey admits that she fictionalized part of the story.
Director: Frank Bonner
Writer: Steve Marshall
8.3/10135 votes#19 - The Creation of Venus
Season 4 Episode 19 - Aired 3/31/1982
When Venus lets it slip that he was a schoolteacher before he came to WKRP, Andy has to tell Mama Carlson the truth about how he hired Gordon Sims as a DJ and how they came up with the persona of Venus Flytrap.
Director: Gordon Jump
Writer: Blake Hunter
7.8/10120 votes#20 - The Impossible Dream
Season 4 Episode 20 - Aired 4/7/1982
On his birthday, Les announces that he's going to New York to pursue his dream of becoming a world-famous broadcast journalist by auditioning for The CBS Evening News.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.3/10131 votes#21 - To Err is Human
Season 4 Episode 21 - Aired 4/14/1982
After Herb screws up an important advertising account, Mr. Carlson finally intends to fire him, but Jennifer takes pity on Herb and tries to help him keep his job.
Director: Linda Day
Writer: Lissa Levin
8.8/10173 votes#22 - Up and Down the Dial
Season 4 Episode 22 - Aired 4/21/1982
Just as WKRP hits #6 in the ratings, Mama Carlson announces that she plans to switch the format of the station to 24 hours a day of news.
Director: George Gaynes
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati Season 4
Every episode of WKRP in Cincinnati Season 4 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati Season 4!
When a Cincinnati radio station switches from sedate music to top-40 rock 'n' roll, its staff of oddball characters is forced to switch gears quickly....
Genre:Comedy
Network:CBS
Season 4 Ratings Summary
"An Explosive Affair (Part 1)" is the best rated episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" season 4. It scored 8.6/10 based on 161 votes. Directed by Linda Day and written by Steve Marshall, it aired on 10/7/1981. This episode is rated 0.1 points higher than the second-best, "An Explosive Affair (Part 2)".