User Reviews

If there was ever an average Mannix episode, this is it. Joe gets hired to find someone with the real reason not revealed. His employer is not as clean as he appears. Peggy works her phone magic to provide timely, important information. The police are fairly useless until they show up in the final scene to arrest everyone. Joe get knocked out (again!) and Joe doesn't get paid (again!). Have you ever noticed that Joe orders Peggy about a lot? It starts out with a killing in a bedroom. An intriguing beginning but it doesn't last. Anyway, Joe is hired by Alton K Moore (John Colicos) to find his son, a college basketball player. Joe goes there first. Bing Russell (Kurt's dad), as the coach, provided info to start Joe off. Joe gets to shoot a basket over Gail Goodrich and learn some valuable information from Lew Alcindor before he became Kareem. Those two players don't need to be there. It is almost like the producers and writers knew this was a mediocre episode and threw them in to get audiences to look. Kareem has a good line when he says the team needs the kid back on the team for the playoffs. You have Kareem and Goodrich on the team and you need the kid? Seriously? Mannix episodes tend to be timeless so it is easy to forget they were made 50 years ago. However, indications sometime creep in. Earlier episodes had Joe wearing an Apache tie, a brief fashion craze from around 1970. He looks silly. In this show, he says "do pot or drop acid". Kind of funny to hear it. Joe is also shown to be a good college b-ball player. Even an old lady librarian remembers him from back in the day! We recently learned Joe was a great running back and now a hoopster. This season we also found out Joe is a licensed pilot and a judo expert. Joe has many hidden talents. From Kareem, Joe learns the son has a secret girlfriend and Joe tracks her to the library. He learns her name and her address. From the police Joe learns a business associate of the father was recently killed. Initial indications seem to show the kid might be involved. As Joe chases the girlfriend down he gets beat up by two thugs so figures there is more to story. Turns out Dad is involved in a crime syndicate and the kid overheard the bedroom hit being planned. He takes a book with all the information needed to send people to jail and runs. The book has no connection to murder but is a plot device to make people want the kid. Joe gets the girlfriend and father and they all agree to meet the kid in the harbor. There is a heart to heart between father and son. Alton Moore is a tragic figure filled with regret. You can see what is coming from a mile off. Mannix shows often have a twist and a nice one here would be that the father doesn't die. Of course, he does, and in keeping with the spirit of the episode, it is rather routine too. The cops show up and arrest everyone. Joe get to go swimming. A father is redeemed, somewhat. John Colicos tends to be hammy (see Star Trek or the original Battlestar Galatica) but he is fine here. Bing Russell is always a good trooper. Chuck Hicks and Charlie Picerni make two of their many appearances as thugs. Charlie's brother, Paul Picerni (The Untouchables) will be in the next episode. Sam Chew Jr as the son is not quite up with the others but not bad. Tiffany Bolling as the girlfriend Ann is suitably conflicted and very loyal. Robert Reed is there to give Joe info on the bedroom killing and arrest everyone at the end. Why is it when the police are called, it is the police lieutenant of the episode who leads the charge? In an emergency, wouldn't the nearest patrol car get there first rather than the cops from headquarters. Just an observation. Again, not a horrible episode but you've seen it before - on this show and about a hundred others.

Joe takes a dive ...or two A distraught father - on the outside a successful businessman but in reality a laundromat for mob money - hires Joe to find his son, a straight arrow college basketball star who has seen something he should not have seen. Papa wants Joe to find the son before the hoods do, but of course, doesn't level with Joe about why he needs his son found. Mayhem ensues. The plot on this was straightforward but there were nice touches. Mike Connors, a college basketball star himself, got to show his stuff on the same court as Lew Alcindor, better known as Kareem Abdul Jabar, and Gail Goodwin. Bing Russell (Kurt's father) makes a believable basketball coach. For those who love the action, Mannix gets tailed, beat up, etc, but the real fun was seeing Mike Connors, and it was Mike Connors, take three dives into the water and swim after the bad guys. I generally watch Mannix more for the character than the action, but I did enjoy the water chases. Those brief scenes alone should put to rest the rumor that Connors wore a toupee. He earned his money on this episode, hauling himself in and out of the water and playing the final scenes dripping wet.

There is some fun back and forth between Joe and Tobias at the beginning (they have good chemistry). The father, played with intensity by John Colicos in one of his many Mannix appearances, gets it before the end, thereby leaving Joe once again without a paycheck. It is a good thing Paramount paid him, as his clients rarely did. Arline Anderson of the sparkling blue eyes had a small part as an older college librarian who remembers Joe's glory days on the court. An interesting footnote - Anderson has a co-writing credit for the Mannix episode Once Upon a Sunday. Considering how very few women wrote for Mannix, that was a coup.

This one is about a businessman who hires Joe to find his son.

The stupidity here is just mind-blowing. Why would Alton discuss a murder plot in his own house WITH HIS SON THERE? Then he acts surprised when he learns his son overheard the plot. What!?1? I mean, this guy is as dumb as a rock. And why didn't Cal call the police after overhearing the plot? And why did Cal steal the book when he HAD TO KNOW the hoods would come after him for it?

The plot holes are endless. How did the hoods know Joe was looking for Cal and how did they always know where Joe was? If they were following him, why didn't Joe notice this or do anything to lose them? How do the library staff always know where Ann is? And how did Joe know which beach house was Ann's or where the Rodriguez house was? Then at the end, the police rush in even though NO ONE CALLED THEM so they had NO WAY OF KNOWING what was going on there.

Wow, is Cal ever annoying with his cockiness, self-righteousness, dumb angry looks and THAT VOICE. I HATED him. Too bad the hoods didn't catch him and rub him out. It would have made the episode much better and I would have easily given it a couple more stars just for that.

Peggy screws up one of her lines and invents a new word in the process when she refers to Joe's "alma motta" instead of alma mater.

Just like in The Crime That Wasn't, Tobias doesn't seem to be taking anything seriously here. He can see all the plot holes and knows what a turkey this episode is and is just trying to make the best of it.

Joe takes quite a beating as he gets into several fist fights and gets beat up and knocked out. Those fight scenes are good so I'll give it credit for that but everything else is trash.