User Reviews

Read the two previous reviewers and I come down between them. This isn't an especially bad outing but not a good one either. It is routine and mediocre. Much like interaction with his old service buddies, Joe gets to work for a kid about one episode a year. This showing is about a kid who lost a stamp album. As pointed out by another reviewer, despite the ruckus started by Joe's search, nobody bothers to question the contents of the album. Turns out the album contains stamps worth a half million dollars skimmed from a criminal operation by the kid's uncle. Also pointed out by others - why would you give your kid nephew those stamps? Never really explained. The uncle pays for his stupidity with his life. The "routineness" runs from start to finish. Joe takes the case to humor the kid and appease his sense of justice. Peggy works some phone magic to get him appointments. The cops show up at a convenient moment mid-episode to keep Joe from getting killed. Joe doesn't tell Lt Malcolm much. The bad guys have a boat at the same cement pier that they always have a boat at in Mannix episodes. I think it is the same boat too. One bit of "non-routineness" - at the end, the police show up about thirty seconds before they usually do so they actually get Joe out of a jam. Frank Marth has a line "Shoot them. Shoot them both." When he said it, I had flashbacks to the Gestapo agent in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" saying that in Marion's bar.

The cast is fine. Frank Marth is a routine bad guy. Like many before him, he is always about to kill Mannix but never gets there. Richard Bakalyan made a long career out of being a hoodlum. Stanley Kamel, Monk's shrink, makes an appearance. Vaughn Taylor, the first murderer on Perry Mason, has a bit part. Ike Eisenmann as the kid is good. He and Joe have a nice beach walk at the end. I think Mike Connors is uncomfortable acting with kids in heartfelt scenes and it shows a little.

The lesson in these episodes is stay away from old army buddies and kids. Probably the race track too. Anyway, Joe gets knocked out and shot at and doesn't get paid much. Routine. No real harm done so on to the next episode.