User Reviews

10 Stars.

Every once in awhile, the writers came up with something fun. Bernard Schoenfeld handled this one, who began his career writing screenplays like THE DARK CORNER (1946), starring Lucille Ball as a private eye's crackerjack secretary. Bernard at the time was writing for IRONSIDE, previously MOD SQUAD.

Exceptionally written, and catch the dialogue. All about a distinguished LA psychiatrist who writes a book about his patients and he's TOAST. Was it suicide or murder to look like suicide? Mannix takes the case and has no choice but to check into the real lives of some strange characters the doc was writing about. Interestingly, there are no names, rather letters, such as patient X, Y and Z. By the way, Z is the one who kills women?

Applause for two excellent actors; Katherine Helmond, who began her career in dramatic roles. She plays it straight to the point here and with some solid scenes opposite Mannix. Ramon Bieri guest stars. Bieri usually played lawmen or heavies, a regular on many cop shows in the 70s.

Robert Pratt plays Robert, probably a role written for him. Pratt was discovered a few years earlier by Peter Fonda, later becoming a successful businessman. Look for Flora Plumb as Elaine. She was the older sister of Eve Plumb from the BRADY BUNCH who passed a few years ago.

Written in the style of a contemporary noir -- for sure -- which Mike Connors said many times was the basis for the show. This may be the best example.

SEASON 7 EPISODE 20 remasterd color CBS dvd box set.

I thought the writing and acting for this episode were well done and imo I thought the topics were handled well. I didn't come out with snarky remarks while watching. The issues were handled in a very sensitive manner imo.

So our episode centers on the supposed suicide of a psychiatrist. Well, you know what show you're watching. It's not a suicide, it's murder. This psychiatrist had written a book profiling three cases he had worked on. I must admit that detail is a bit murky because I was thinking of HIPPA or did they not have that in the 70s? It sounds like this psychiatrist was careful...he put his notes in code. But still, if you read this guy's book you might be able to pin point that he's talking about your case.

Anyway, the psychiatrist didn't use names in his book. He refers to them as being X, Y, Z. Could one of them be involved with the murder?

I want to sugar coat this so the review posts. X did very inappropriate things to children.

Y is a musician that you can see her many moods just from the main scene she has with Mannix. I really must give credit to the actress because she was able to slip into this role that requires her to change at a second's notice. She's coming onto Mannix to start with, flips to being defiant, flips to being scared because she's thinking of childhood trauma, and then she gets angry at Mannix for still being there. The performance was incredible and you really would have to see it to get the full picture instead of reading episode descriptions or reviews.

Z is somebody that makes a point of getting close to lonely women and killing them.

So clearly these cases involve people that could've killed the psychiatrist and would have the rage to do so. But they didn't. The killer is a little bit closer to home. The psychiatrist's step son killed him. This is also a man deeply troubled and he believes it isn't gonna take much longer for the psychiatrist to say that the man needs to be committed. No doubt there's been enough discussions going on already and this has turned the mom into a drinker. I won't fault her or judge her. It's nice picturing yourself doing and saying the right thing during everyday of your life but that isn't going to happen. Sometimes you might be in a dark situation where you're torn at what to do or you do know what to do but the thought of doing it is devastating. The mom tried her best. Remember patient X? Well, he ends up being killed by this step son and the death is made to look like he hung himself. The mom was trying to say she killed X. Mannix saw through it because patient X was a heavy man and there's no way she'd be able to lift this man. She tried her best to protect her son but it just didn't work.

I'm skimming reviews and I must say I didn't get the vibe of everybody looking depressed. I think the scenes that required facial acting fit. Remember Y? I'll use her for an example. I liked the expressions on Mike Connors face when he was in that scene. He had a pained expression on his face when it was required of him. Again, one has to see what I'm talking about because words aren't doing it justice.

The episode does involve dark subject matters but I'd still recommend the episode.

"A Rage to Kill" is a very strange and difficult to believe episode of "Mannix". It is entertaining but hard to believe it could be real in any way.

The show begins with a psychiatrist appearing to have died by suicide. But his mistress knows that this isn't possible...someone MUST have murdered him and made it look like suicide. With the help of the Doc's step-son, Mannix investigates the anonymous subjects in the dead Doctor's recent book to see if any of these very dangerous folks could have committed the murder.

Improbable to say the least, suddenly Mannix is a mental health expert and manages to figure everything out a bit too neatly. Entertaining but the age of the show (towards the end of the seventh season) is starting to show with more and more outlandish episodes. Still, it is entertaining.

This is one of the most bizarre Mannix episodes I've seen and certainly the most depressing one. It's a real downer.

It's about a psychiatrist who is initially thought to have committed suicide, but a woman who was having an affair with him believes he was actually murdered and hires Joe to look into it.

The story and mystery are intriguing, but what's really striking is how EVERYONE in the cast looks and acts totally depressed. Maybe this was intentional due to the requirements of the script or maybe it was due to some outside event that negatively affected the cast, but whatever the case, everyone is very somber, and several of the supporting characters even break out crying. This is a very bleak episode, which is unusual for this show. It's by far the most melancholy episode I've seen.

Another strange oddity is Joe's client is never seen again after the initial scene at the beginning where she hires him.

One big problem is there was no motive provided for one of the murders but it was simply left as a loose end.

There are no clichés, which is rare. There's also very little action.

The total body count is three.

Watching this episode is a grim experience. The sense of malaise that engulfs it is astonishing and unprecedented. However, the mystery is interesting, which means the end result is a mediocre episode - not great but not terrible either but certainly unusual.