Original air date: 10/4/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
Copyright ©1994-1998 by Mike Quigley. No reproduction of any kind without permission. Original air dates are taken from information supplied by the Iolani Palace Irregulars and Karen Rhodes' Booking Five-O.
= One of the very best episodes, a must-see. = Better than average, worthy of attention. = Average, perhaps with a few moments of interest. = One of the very worst, a show to avoid.
260. A Lion In The Streets
Original air date: 10/4/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
The last Five-O show of any real quality, directed by Reza Badiyi. This two-hour episode focuses on Hawaiian nationalism and the efforts of Andy Kamoku (Paul H. Smith), a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, to keep the United Resort Workers from being taken over by Johnny Mio (Harry Guardino), a mainland thug connected with Hawaiian mob boss Anthony Joseph ("Tony") Alika (Ross Martin). This show introduces William Smith as James (later "Kimo") Carew, who is trailing Mio from the mainland, since Mio has connections to the man who murdered former Boston cop Carew's wife and child. It also introduces Moe Keale as Truck, a cop from HPD who goes undercover in the union for Five-O. I wonder why he does this, since Truck jokes that he's well-known to restaurant owners! Both these actors have horrible pictures in the main credits -- their faces seem distorted. Kamoku gives McGarrett a lot of static about the unfairness of "haole law". McGarrett replies, "Don't think for one moment that anyone's race or color makes any difference to me, my friend.... No one wants to see your union stay yours more than I do." There is plenty of sparring between McGarrett and Smith, who turns in an excellent performance. Carew tells McGarrett, "You're really a hell of a detective, McGarrett," and McGarrett replies, "And you have a big mouth and bad judgement, Mr. Carew." McGarrett later tells Carew, "I don't especially like you." Fed up with what he sees as McGarrett's ineffective attempts to enforce the law, Kamoku gets a kahuna (witch doctor) to make McGarrett kapu (cursed), which means that no one like Duke, Truck or even Tony Alika can talk to McGarrett! When Duke explains the kapu to McGarrett, he says "This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do." McGarrett is shocked, saying "This is the twentieth century!" (Duke is revealed to be a college graduate with two degrees.) The Governor calls the kapu "something out of the dark ages." Kamoku and his union goons go on a vigilante rampage. There is a great scene where the beefy Carew intimidates Alika on the beach after punching out Billy Swan (Jerry Boyd), Alika's bodyguard. The ending, where the infuriated Kamoku arrives at Alika's waterfront house and puts three thugs out of action in a phony fight (don't they have guns?) is a bit much, as is McGarrett's final pleading speech (though this is not as corny as the scene where McGarrett quotes Shakespeare to Kamoku). As the episode ends, there are hints that Carew will join the Five-O team. McGarrett says "I'm not asking you to marry me, for God's sake." There are a few gorgeous shots of Hawaiian sunsets during the show. In the opening credits, the Waikiki movie theatre's marquee features "Valley of the Dolls" -- a movie from 1967 (probably a stock shot). A precursor to the fax machine with the phone plugged into a modem-like device is seen in the Five-O office. When Alika is talking to Mio in one scene he uses the expression "Ain't no big t'ing, bruddah." The score by Morton Stevens is excellent.
261. Who Says Cops Don't Cry
Original air date: 10/11/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
Sharon Farrell delivers an emotional performance as policewoman Lori Wilson, the widow of a cop who was going to join the Five-O team, seeking vengeance on the gang who gunned her husband down during a cheque-cashing-booth robbery. Her jogging to take her mind off his murder seems inappropriate and Kimo's attempts to get her "back on track" become tiresome. (McGarrett is out of town for about half of the episode, testifying before a federal grand jury in San Francisco. When he phones home, the credit card number is 177 3881 184A CC.) Logic is stretched when she uses the designer blouse of the woman gang member killed during the holdup to link to a fashion show at the restaurant owned by Ben Dawson (Alan Fudge), whose brother Lloyd (Darrell Fetty) just happens to be the boss of the gang that pulled off the heist. Lloyd lives at 1010 Koko Place, Kahala, by the way. The bad guys tail Farrell -- who drives a red Mustang, license number 1A-633 -- in a much more subtle way than Five-O usually does. When she arrives home, she peels off her skirt (seen from her shapely legs down), but keeps her high heels on, walking into another room. Surely the first thing she would take off would be her shoes! The way Lori figures out the location of the next robbery after she finds a bag in the trash at Lloyd's house is stupid. (Jori Remus appears as the maid.) At the show's finale, both Kimo (William Smith) and Lori join Five-O (Truck isn't in the show, though McGarrett talks to him on the phone). The episode is directed by Jack Lord -- as was the last one starring Farrell, "Why Won't Linda Die? -- with an excellent score by Morton Stevens that occasionally hearkens back to "The Bells Toll at Noon."
262. Though The Heavens Fall
Original air date: 10/18/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
The bad guys in this show are members of an exclusive club operating out of the Sportsmen's Game Country Club in Honolulu. They engage in "eye for an eye" vigilante justice against those who get off criminal charges on technicalities. Their motto is "fiat justitia, ruat cælum," which means "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall." Richard Slade, played by Robert ("Brady Bunch") Reed, is the group's leader. At the beginning Slade scams a crook who beat the rap ... but how does Slade know where this guy is in the seedy part of town, and how does he know that the crook will follow him into a parking garage? At the beginning of the show, McGarrett comes into his office complaining "Who made the coffee, or is it left over from last night"? Lori says "Not me." (No one else speaks up.) When he goes to check out the club, McGarrett runs into Diana Webster (Elyssa Davalos -- any relation to Dick in #208?), whom he met at a governor's ball a couple of years before. He compliments her, "You're pretty." She says "My, how much you've grown," to which McGarrett retorts, "Touché!" When McGarrett speaks to Diana's father Elliott (Dennis Patrick, who looks like the Man from Glad), McGarrett says he knows a friend who needs a job at the club (Truck, who will be undercover). Patrick asks, "Dark skinned?" McGarrett says, "Does that make a difference?" When Lori arrives at the office after stopping to check out a crime on the way there, Kimo asks her "What're we doing? Keeping banking hours, police lady?" (She doesn't respond, which is unusual, because during most of the show she acts very hyper.) While Kimo and Lori are giving protective custody to Howell (Michael Strong), a potential victim of the vigilante group, Kimo goes into Howell's house to use the phone -- doesn't he have a radio in his car? The conversation between Kimo and Lori as they wait in their car while Howell reminisces over his dead wife's possessions is very dull. Howell takes a lot of smart-mouth abuse from Five-O over the fact that he murdered his wife and got off becaues he wasn't read his rights. After Howell gets abducted by the vigilantes who climb a cliff behind his house and up the back balcony, McGarrett is very pissed at Kimo, screaming, "Well, that was dumb, Kimo, really dumb!" Kimo replies, "Look, I know that ... I said I was sorry." McGarrett replies, "Sorry, hell!" concluding sarcastically with "OK, we'll never find him standing here, will we, Kimo. Get on it ... Truck might need some help, eh?" Kimo looks like he wants to kill McGarrett, but instead goes undercover, impressing Diana as an archery expert -- get serious! -- and she gets him a job at the club almost immediately. Kimo says to her that the vigilant group members are "male chauvinists." When Kimo and Truck are captured, she says, "What do you think those macho clowns will do to them?" She tells McGarrett that the vigilantes' hideout is near "Chinaman's Hat on the North Shore." Last time I looked at a map of Oahu, Chinaman's Hat was on the east side near Waikane. Truck gets shot by one of the vigilantes, and rather than pick up Truck with his helicopter (number N789PR) and take him to the hospital, McGarrett merely tells him and Kimo "Well done, see you at home, fellows!" (Thanks a lot!) During the helicopter chase, one of the stunts looks very dangerous. McGarrett makes a "profound speech" at the end to Slade, telling Kimo to make sure that he reads Slade his rights. At the beginning, a toy monkey clapping cymbals is seen. Brian Graham-Jones, who took part in this episode, sends along some interesting anecdotes.
263. Sign of the Ram
Original air date: 10/25/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
A follow-up to episode #240, Horoscope for Murder, with Jayne Meadows playing Jessica Humboldt, a "professional colleague" of Agnes du Bois, the astrologer in the previous show. Joe Moore plays Pete Shore, a boxing contender whose life is totally ruled by Humboldt's predictions. (Although he is a major character, Moore's credit at the end is smaller than the "guest" stars.) Humboldt describes McGarrett as "stubborn, disbelieving and a very handsome fellow," and keeps getting his sign wrong. At the end when she finally figures out he is a Capricorn, she calls him "stubborn, opinionated, tenacious and goat-like." McGarrett replies, "Yes, and loyal too." One of the gangsters trying to buy a piece of Shore uses the line "I've got an offer you can't refuse." When Eddie Marco (Anthony Ponzini) is overselling "interests" in Shore to the tune of 240%, the music by Richard Clements sounds very much like Marvin Hamlisch's arrangement of Scott Joplin in the film "The Sting." When Lori figures out the angle at which Toby Wilson (uncredited), who owned a piece of Shore, was shot, Kimo says "That's a good girl, Lori." She later muffs her lines when referring to "a picture of Eagleton, the guy who got aw... off on parole." When he encounters Fiddler (Sonny Westbrook) above the boxing arena at the end of the show about to assassinate Shore with a rifle, McGarrett is uncommonly harsh: "Put it down or I'll blow your brains out!" I like the scene where Galen Kam as Lee Ting gets a massage from a woman in a bikini walking on his back (she looks like she is about 16). Overall, a mundane episode, though the color photography is stunning.
264. Good Help is Hard to Find
Original air date: 11/1/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
The final show featuring Ross Martin as kumu boss Tony Alika, which also sews up some plot elements from #260, A Lion in the Streets. At the same time he is trying to import angel dust into the islands, Alika arranges for several "tips" to be given to Five-O through Truck's cousin Joey (Dave Lancaster), all of which turn out to be hoaxes which make Five-O look ridiculous. One of them features a kids' ukulele band with a sign "Welcome McGarrett and his Keystone Cops." Sharon Farrell as Lori says "When this hits the telly, we're gonna look like a bunch of fools." (Amen to that!) Similar to Ben Kanakea in #231, Tall On The Wave, Joey wants to get a recommendation from McGarrett for the police academy, despite the fact he failed the entrance exam three times. Ross Martin has some good scenes as Alika, incorporating the same kind of menace we find in Nehemiah Persoff's gangster performances. The boxing announcer from the previous show, Les Keiter, plays hard-hitting KLB-TV commentator Mark Maynard, whom McGarrett detests. McGarrett says Maynard "exploits freedom of the press for personal glory." In a broadcast, Maynard calls McGarrett "a joke ... a man of such personal vanity that good men have been resigning in disgust [is this a reference to Danno perhaps?] and have been replaced by incompetent sycophants." Five-O has to deal not only with Alika (Kimo tells him: "You'd fool around with kitten skins if you could turn a buck.") but also an Internal Affairs investigation targeting Kimo, who left the police department in Boston after his wife and child were murdered there. (McGarrett points out to the obnoxious Lieutenant Dexter (Jason Evers) handling the investigation that Kimo was allowed to resign "without prejudice." Dexter's part is little more than a plot device.) McGarrett also has some strong words with the Governor over the investigation. There is a lapse in logic at the beginning of the show -- who took the picture of Kimo and Truck about to shoot at the jack in the box which appears in the newspaper and gets sent to Alika? The ending is full of horribly banal dialogue. With ominous music by Stevens (an exceptional score, by the way), Kimo recognizes Guido Marioni (John P. Ryan), Alika's mobster pal from the mainland , who was responsible for the murder of Kimo's family. There is no corresponding moment of truth when Marioni recognizes Kimo, however! The finale where Marioni falls off a cliff is awkwardly staged (again, like the finale of Tall on the Wave). As Marioni hangs by his fingertips, Kimo grabs his sleeve, which of course rips, sending the gangster to a grisly death. Kimo: "I really tried [to hold him] ... but I wish somebody would tell me why." McGarrett: "Because you're a cop, and that's what cops do ... we leave the rest up to the courts." Kimo: "Yeah, I guess that's it, Steve. It's really strange. I dreamed of nothing but revenge for years ... but I don't feel good now." McGarrett: "Revenge is a cruel word, Kimo ... it hurts only the people who practice it." Have mercy!! At the finale, McGarrett arrests Alika, charging him with Joey's murder -- on what evidence?!? The safety deposit box used to frame Carew (which looks very similar to one I used at the Ilikai Hotel!) is number 2261. When discussing Marioni's whereabouts, Alika pronounces his name correctly, but his manservant Billy Swan (Jerry Boyd) calls him "Mariano." Kimo uses the expression "ironical, isn't it?" At the beginning of the show, McGarrett is in Los Angeles giving a lecture on police security.
265. Image of Fear
Original air date: 11/8/79 -- Plot -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
This could have been a good "contemporary issues" show (divorce and its effect on kids), but -- alas -- it degenerates into another twelfth season mess in the fourth act. Linda Marsh is Joan Carter, formerly married to Assistant D.A. Gary Carter (Guy Boyd), both of them old friends of McGarrett. She is being harassed by Robert Kwon (Soon-Teck Oh, in his final Five-O appearance), a criminal that her ex-husband successfully prosecuted several years before, who was recently released from jail. Unfortunately, every time McGarrett and the Five-O team come to check on the incidents, there is no evidence they can use to put Kwon back in jail. Everyone is starting to wonder if Joan is heading towards a nervous breakdown such as she suffered a few years before during her tempestuous marriage. It's eventually revealed that the person behind Kwon's actions is the Carters' young daughter Annie (Katy Kurtzman) who's after a large inheritance currently in a trust fund. One has to seriously wonder if the kid is really capable of masterminding such an elaborate scheme (which is what McGarrett wonders about Kwon!). (When he talks to her at the beginning of the show, McGarrett tells Annie, "You're a big girl now ... a pretty one too.") The finale at Sea Life Park, after the money-grubbing Kwon is finally nabbed by McGarrett and HPD, is hideous. Annie appears accompanied by childish music (shades of Alex North's score to a movie on a similar subject, The Bad Seed) and McGarrett comes out with several stern statements. To the parents he remarks "That's gratitude for bringing up a child in the lap of luxury." To Annie he screams, "You just walked by your mother!" After the kid denounces her parents, McGarrett makes a big speech to her, saying "Stop it and face it!" which causes Annie to break down and momentarily reconcile with her parents. Then McGarrett tells Kimo to "book" the kid, muttering "Sorry ... sorry..." to her father!!!! There are a couple of major continuity goofs. The first is when McGarrett is on his way to Sea Life Park. He's seen driving down the road on the ocean side of the Ilikai Hotel (note the Canadian flag in the foreground) which leads to a dead end, and in the next scene he arrives at Sea Life Park, which is actually out in the sticks on the southeast corner of Oahu, about 10 miles from the Ilikai! The second is when McGarrett arrives at Joan's house to stop her from delivering money to Kwon and is confronted by Annie who sends him temporarily on a wild goose chase. Annie is holding a popcorn box with Sea Life Park written on it, an important clue which McGarrett flashes on later (why didn't her mother, who also saw it earlier?). In the shots of Annie from behind, she is holding the popcorn box with her left hand so that it's up by her shoulder, but in the shots of her from the front, she has both hands at her side and is holding the box in front of her! There are also a couple of odd plot points. When Joan takes the money out of the bank for Kwon, why does the bank call Gary? After all, it was left by Joan's late mother for Joan to keep in trust for Katy. When she's off to deliver the money to Kwon, Joan searches in vain for a gun which her husband gave and which she put in a drawer -- what happened to it? It seems a strange coincidence that the amount of money Kwon asks from Joan -- $100,000 -- is the exact amount in the trust fund. The score by Don Ray momentarily quotes the Five-O theme at one point, a rarity for later-season episodes. The parrots which meet an untimely end in the show are called Nanday Conures. Joan's house number is 526. Don Ray's score incorporates not only the Five-O theme, but also the "trombone interval" theme.
266. Use a Gun, Go to Hell
Original air date: 11/29/79 -- Plot -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
A surprisingly good show (for the twelfth season, anyway), with an interesting, occasionally rhythmically complex score by Broughton and a performance by William Smith as Kimo which suggests he's actually interested in the proceedings! This is not a "gun goes from one person to another" episode like #167, Diary of a Gun. Andrew Duggan portrays Roger Bancroft, whose stolen gun was used to assassinate a senator who lived next door to his beachfront estate at 6501 Pahane Street, Honolulu 96815 (protected by Pointsettia Security Sys., 808-555-6889). Bancroft is very much opposed to gun control, saying he "can't get police protection." He and his former neighbor were "violent political enemies." The gun ends up in the possession of blond surfer Rolly (Paul Koslo) who blackmails Bancroft. Rolly arranges to meet Bancroft to pick up the blackmail money at Lookout Point on Tantalus Drive (which is on a mountain above Honolulu), but they actually meet on "Poinsettia approaching Skyline Drive" which is near the ocean! At the beginning of the show, Rolly's friend Tanami (Richard Dimitri) shoots Sunada (Harry Chang), a bakery owner, who complains to the media and Five-O when Tanami is treated better by the cops than he is. McGarrett is also pissed when Tanami is released for lack of evidence. Tanami is later shot and killed when he and Rolly are horsing around, and then Rolly plugs his girl friend accidentally, killing her! (When the cops broadcast an APB for Rolly, how do they know he has blue eyes?) McGarrett spouts off numerous anti-gun statements. He talks of the fifty to sixty million guns in use in America, "every one of them capable of death and destruction." To the mother of a little girl who is shot when her brother finds the gun where Rolly has chucked it on the beach, he says "The guns are out there everywhere ... and all the pointless pain and suffering could be prevented." At the end, when the senator's killer is revealed to be Bancroft's son Elliott (Jack Stauffer) who wanted to show his dad he had a "life of his own", McGarrett launches into an incredible rant: "Please don't give me that old cliché that 'Guns don't kill people, that only people kill people' ... that's nonsense, absolute nonsense! If there were no hand guns available out there, a hell of a lot of innocent people would still be alive. What is this love affair, what is this fascination Americans have for guns? It happens nowhere else in the world. When and where do the rights of you gun lovers stop and the rights of the public and the protection of life and limb begin?" At the finale, McGarrett commands Kimo to break down the door of the room where Elliott is reloading his father's gun. There are two new lab technicians, a white guy named Keoni (presumably Kevin O'Connor in the end credits) and an Asian one called something like "Hani." A sign in Rolly's room reads "Girls Topless Girls." McGarrett is seen driving in a car other than the Grand Marquis.
267. Voice of Terror
Original air date: 12/4/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
Yet another -- and probably the worst -- show featuring Five-O's own brand of "radical revolutionaries". Cal Bellini gives a ridiculous scenery-chewing performance as Karl (as in "Marx," no doubt), leader of the "World Liberation Army," who have connections to the mid-east and Germany, where they blew up a school bus of children. One has to seriously wonder about this group when at the beginning they are seen driving around in a Cadillac and wearing trendy clothes while making statements like "solidarity forever, brothers." Following a shootout, Karl kidnaps HPD female officer Sally Dean (Mary Angela), referring to her as "little girlie pig," and demands to speak to McGarrett, saying "Put me through to your head pig." Karl taunts McGarrett, slapping Sally around, saying "I'm not a sadist and I don't particularly enjoy torture." When McGarrett finally gets to talk to her, he says "Hi, honey" on the police radio. (At the end, when Truck is about to shoot Karl's co-conspirator Willa (Anne Zimmelman, who looks like Josie Over), McGarrett tells her "He means it, honey.") The Governor is very concerned, saying "Our ability to maintain law and order is at stake." He demands that McGarrett get quick results, which results in the death of a police officer, something the Governor apologizes for later. Both McGarrett and The Governor look very old and tired. When Karl tries to get Sally to say nice things about his cause on the radio, she turns and yells, "You can drop dead, you murderous punk!" He belts her in the face. McGarrett's technique for dealing with the hostage taking is to prolong it as long as possible, which is something that could be said about this show in a major way! When Willa reacts positively to the impending arrival of one of their arrested buddies Mark (Kaz Garas), Karl tells her to "Shut up and keep watching." The leather-capped Mark tells McGarrett that Karl has "put his bloated ego above our revolutionary goals." Augh! The music by Michael Isaacson with military overtones at the beginning when the terrorists are marching to the beach tries a bit too hard to make a point, but is generally good. The license number on the cop car that Karl commandeers changes from 8B-5002 during the shootout near the beginning to 8B-5001 when Truck is chained to it near the end. The first shot of "Central Dispatch" in this show for some reason is in almost total darkness!
268. A Shallow Grave
Original air date: 12/11/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
University student Mike Harper (John David Carson) comes to Hawaii from the mainland and keeps seeing peculiar visions which may be connected to a robbery which happened twenty years before, just as one of the participants in the crime, Phil Coleman (John Ireland), is being released from prison. With the help of a psychologist who is into hypnotic regression as well as his mother (Electra Gailas) who reveals that he was adopted and was visiting the islands many years ago, Mike is able to join all the dots together and help McGarrett solve the case, which just happens to be one that the Governor as district attorney prosecuted way back when. Kimo's performance in this episode is particularly stupefying -- he admits he doesn't know what "déjà vu" means and at one point when McGarrett passes the conversation over to him, we are holding our breath! McGarrett orders his staff around in a very annoying manner, especially Lori, who is made to act like his maid. Perhaps this explains her slouching posture in the Five-O office. Bill Edwards, who once played Washington bigshot Jonathan Kaye, here plays John Tarnow, who was involved with Coleman in the crime, in an indifferent manner. The final scene where Mike stumbles into the shed full of mannequins (which have been haunting him in flashbacks throughout the show) is far-fetched -- would they have stayed hanging from the ceiling for twenty years? The music by Ray during the hypnosis is extremely banal, incorporating the children's song "This old man"; at other times the composer uses the "trombone interval" theme from earlier seasons to excess. The opening hotel scenes are filmed at the Ilikai. Coleman is murdered in a room at the War Memorial Natatorium -- it takes several minutes for the viewer to figure out who got knocked off, since the body is seen only briefly from an odd camera angle and no one mentions any names until the next act. During Mike's flashback scenes, the sun can be seen shining behind the manufactured rain. The subject matter makes the show interesting, but the finale is too cutesy-poo for words.
269. The Kahuna
Original air date: 12/18/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
This terrible episode takes place mostly at the fictional Lono Bay, a couple of hours away from Honolulu by helicopter (although Kimo can pick up a phone there and say "patch me through to McGarrett" and be connected within mere seconds without even giving the phone number!). Cathy Lee Crosby plays medical examiner Dr. Karen Lynch, who wants to know why two local kids suddenly died, but finds herself thwarted by local superstition and burial customs, not to mention the police on this "company island." The beginning of the show has similarities to #227, The Big Aloha: it opens with a funeral featuring Aloha Oe, and the company doctor is a 70-year-old who is accused of having "missed something" when he signed the two kids' death certificates. When Dr. Lynch meets with McGarrett in his office, he leers at her just before the "wave". There is a sub-plot here where Truck is supposedly contaminated by radiation while on a Honolulu case. I say "supposedly" because Truck says "Lucky we found it [a radioactive cannister under the car seat] before I had to chauffeur him [a local industrialist] home." During this investigation, Kimo is doing surveillance in the best Five-O tradition from about twenty feet away, talking on the radio to McGarrett with an open window. As a result of the contamination, Truck -- who Kimo says weighs 260 pounds -- becomes ill while investigating at Lono Bay. He thinks he is "kapu", under the spell of the local kahuna or witch doctor. As in previous episodes like #132, Anybody Can Build a Bomb, the effects of radiation are inconsequential, here similar to a bad case of the flu! The HPD bomb squad is on the scene to check out the cannister containing the radioactive material, but they don't seem to know what it is. It takes McGarrett to prompt them into checking, and then the squad has a Geiger counter at the ready! One of the cops holds the cannister with insulated gloves, but the other holding the Geiger counter has bare hands. At the beginning, McGarrett says he will arrange with Truck's divisional commander to hold Truck over for another special assignment, suggesting that Truck wasn't a full-fledged member of Five-O at this point. Doug Mossman plays Lono Bay Chief of Police Kaana who is indifferent to Dr. Lynch's concerns. Don Knight appears in his final Five-O role as George Lamb, the proprietor of the Lono Bay store who is responsible for the deaths of the kids. Lamb's character development leaves a lot to be desired. After doing little for most of the show, he goes totally crazy near the end, nearly molesting Crosby and threatening her with a gun while hysterically blabbing away about murdering the two kids, who were threatening a multi-million dollar coral harvesting operation he was undertaking. McGarrett shows up on the island at the end in his black leisure suit. This episode features a shot of Kimo similar to the one in the credits -- the angle is slightly different. There are some beefcake scenes with William Smith in a swimsuit, and Crosby is pretty shapely herself. Whenever Kimo is with Lynch, he can't keep from grabbing her. Moe Keale has a few good lines as a travelling "discount man," but overall, the script is depressing. Directed by former director of photography, Robert L. Morrison, who should have stayed behind the camera. Morton Stevens' score is far better than this episode deserves.
270. Labyrinth
Original air date: 12/25/79 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
This episode features what must be one of the stupidest lines in all of Five-O. James Olson, playing Dr. Kenneth Ames, "the dean of plastic surgeons," doesn't want to admit to Five-O that his wife has been kidnapped and suggests that she is on the mainland. This causes Kimo to blurt out, "Yeah, and I'm the Queen of the May." (Ames considers Kimo's response to be "insolent.") The scene before the first commercial "wave" must also rank as one of the least suspenseful act endings in the whole series. There are so many plot twists in last act that leaving the room is not advisable. Anthony Innéo plays the effeminate hairdresser Georgio, lisping that Olsen's wife Christine (the very sexy Tricia O'Neil) was "an absolute dog to work on" (is this an in-joke referring to her performance in #254, The Bark and the Bite?) and "not a happy woman." When one of his co-workers makes a remark about O'Neil's nail polish (an important clue), Georgio minces, "Gloria ... get lost!" Lori later refers to the hairdresser as "Gorgeous Georgio." Some of the dialog is bizarre. When he returns from dumping the ransom money in the ocean, Ames asks Kimo, "Are we having a luau? You should have told me, Mr. Carew, I'd have roasted a pig." Olson's performance -- both for us and for McGarrett -- is totally unconvincing. The music by Robert Drasnin suffers a momentary lapse into Post/Carpenter cheapness at the end when the Five-O crew run to the shack on the beach where Ames' wife is in bondage. (How she managed to get into this state in light of subsequent events is a good question.) Christine's Texas driver's license (number D37143) says that her address was 1240 Rodeo Rd., Dallas 75149. It expires on her birthdate in 1980, there are no restrictions, her date of birth is 12/22/42, her height is 5'6" and her eyes are brown. Private eye Nick Rossiter -- who calls Christine a "fruitcake" -- has the phone number 808-555-6340 on his business card, and lives at 1246 Opaka. A Craig portable tape recorder, similar to those used in Mission: Impossible (the control switch is in a V-type hollow), is used -- interestingly, director Barry Crane did several episodes of that series.
271. School for Assassins
Original air date: 1/1/80 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
A show with a script straight out of The A-Team. The coincidence of Jennifer Fair (Pamela Susan Shoop) feeling faint and walking into the San Francisco airport executive lounge to meet oil billionaire Jack Ellington (Monte Markham), then later meeting him on Waikiki where she foils an attempt on his life is just too much. (The sight of Shoop wearing a bikini while surfing is interesting, though.) And then there is the terrorist school run by Colonel Avery (Lloyd Bochner) in suburban Honolulu! Bochner, who was around age 55, seems too old to be scaling walls and leading a motley crew in an assassination attempt on an OPEC minister. Avery's main man Kelsey is played by "special guest star" Gary Lockwood whose performance is a waste of time. During a practice run at the beginning of the show (which delays the appearance of the main titles by over three and a half minutes), Kelsey puts a picture in front of a security camera using a clamp which fails to take into account the focal length of the camera lens! The security provided by Five-O and HPD for Ellington at his palatial estate for a meeting with the Mideast oil sheikh Ahmed is unbelievably bad. When Ellington escapes from his house in his "old college classmate" Ted Morley's (Christopher Law) Honda, why don't the cops recognize him? The bad guys also seem confused, saying "Morley's come out," and they proceed to tail him to the beach, even though they are after Ellington himself. Why do the cops let Morley in to visit in the first place, or why do they admit the blond terrorist Idra Dassan (Lynne Ellen Hollinger) posing as an OPEC security agent? Unreal! When Idra shoots Truck (taking her gun from a garter-belt holster reminiscent of a western), he says "She just nicked me ... she ruined my best shirt!" in a nominee for all-time worst Five-O line. The security for Avery's house is also pretty mediocre, since Kimo can infiltrate it in the guise of a telephone repairman with little difficulty. The ending is terrible. Ellington offers McGarrett a job running his oil company, saying "You could have been a rich man" when McGarrett refuses. McGarrett says "I am rich, in many ways" -- the freeze frame has him smilingly contentedly. Silent-screen actress Dorothy Mackaill, who also appeared in #202, Target -- A Cop, is in this episode as an old lady who likes to snoop on her neighbors (including Avery) with her telescope.
272. For Old Times Sake
Original air date: 1/8/80 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
With a little more care, this episode could have been developed into an interesting one, but the finale turns it into yet another dreary twelfth season show. English-accented Willie McFee (Peter Bromilow), previously known as Monty Pearson, is an ex-counterfeiter currently employed by the halfway house/school Hale Maluhia (House of Safety) as gardener and handyman. He decides to come out of "retirement" because the school owes $15,000 in back taxes. The show features three wayward girls who use expressions like "dumb-ass" and "lame." The boss of the halfway house, Dolly (Neva Patterson), is an old pal of McGarrett. She tells him: "You missed your calling, you should've been an actor." Willie spends two of his bogus $20 bills in the Hula Supply Center, and it just so happens that Kimo also visits the same place getting items for a luau and gets the bills in change (oh, please!!). McGarrett and Kimo play a game of "Hawaiian poker" comparing serial numbers on the bills, which seems a bit out of character for McGarrett! Willie visits his old partner in crime, Eddie Riford (George Herman) who runs a Honolulu print shop. It seems odd it took Willie 18 years to look up his old pal. Willie also calls some of his other old cronies from overseas -- Joe Morgan from Miami Beach (Dick Fair), Sam Chong from Singapore (Yankee Chang) and Pierre Soule (Michel F. Martin) from Monte Carlo. Why Willie does this doesn't make sense, since he seems quite capable of printing the bogus bills on his own at the show's conclusion. When two brutal thugs (one of whom, Rick Marlow, played a hairdresser in #124, One Big Happy Family) threaten Willie and Dolly, she stupidly blurts out "It's an art, well it is, engraving is!" The show ends up at a shack on the waterfront. The thugs shoot Joe Morgan and threaten everyone else for an interminably long period of time while McGarrett ties a rope attached to a motorboat around one of the shack's legs, and Kimo drives the boat away, causing the shack to collapse. Kimo seems to get back to land very fast. McGarrett seems totally indifferent to the fate of Joe Morgan. The banal and sentimental finale has McGarrett meeting Willie in jail. Bill Bigelow is seen as a jewellery salesman.
273. The Golden Noose
Original air date: 1/15/80 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
A very bad episode -- its primary attraction is Irene Yah Ling Sun (a major babe) playing Nadira. At the beginning of the show, after her boyfriend James Weaver (Joe Moore) says "I love you," she replies, "We'll explore that later..." When the governor meets the representatives from "Baradak, SE Asia" at the airport, he has sideburns and his hair is ruffled by the wind. The supposedly Irish accent of mercenary Jonas Halloran (Ed Lauter), who is accompanying the Baradak prime minister, drifts all over the place. He is very annoyed that Nadira has pursued him to Honolulu ... and that McGarrett is "taking the word of a native girl -- a jilted native girl -- over mine." When Halloran's East Indian bodyguard follows Nadira in Honolulu, at the curb he pushes her, she falls to the right and he drops to the left, but in the next shot she is shown standing up, and the bodyguard falls on the street in front of a truck and his turban is knocked off and not seen -- a major mess of continuity. After Nadira overhears Halloran talking to the junk dealer The Dutchman (John A. Hunt) about trafficking in arms, how does she know where to find him -- does she know this is the name of his scrapyard which she could get out of the Yellow Pages? Nadira gets into the scrapyard through a door while others are going home from work and locking the main gate right beside her. When McGarrett knocks the large gate down, his car -- which is not the Mercury Grand Brougham -- doesn't seem to have suffered much damage. There is another continuity lapse as McGarrett and Kimo corner The Dutchman with their car. The whole procedure getting the gold by shooting a laser through the floor of the bank and causing the gold to melt, running down ceramic tubes into molds, is idiotic. Why do the people operating the laser machine have to always wear thick gloves? I like the way that McGarrett gets a map of the city under the bank in the middle of the night in about 10 minutes. At the end, McGarrett tells Kimo to "see if you can spot them [the bad guys] from top side" -- not taking any risks himself as usual! Ed Fernandez, who played the Consul in #7, The Ways of Love, plays Baradak stooge, P. Sandifer. The music, by Les Hooper, is crappy throughout, especially before the waves. A good McGarrett quote to Halloran: "My game is lawbreakers ... what's your game?"
274. The Flight of the Jewels
Original air date: 3/1/80 -- Opening Credits -- End Credits
A show with an interesting idea -- clever university students steal the royal jewels of Hawaii from an exhibition using remote-controlled planes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of lapses in logic. After a plane hits the outside museum wall and blows a hole in it, cops are shown running towards the museum. Nick (Linwood Boomer), one of seven guards inside, who is also one of the clever students, yells out through the hole "Poison gas!" and the outdoor cops seemingly split. In the next scene where the second plane arrives to pick up the jewels, the cops aren't there. But when it takes off a couple of minutes later, the cops are all back with weapons drawn, pointing at the hole in the wall. Nick and the museum's security boss rush outside to join the guards who all point their guns at the hole ... what do they think the plane was doing there? While the gas-masked Nick is grabbing the jewels and loading them in the plane, shouting instructions over his walkie-talkie to co-conspirator Neal (Jeff Daniels) on the roof far away, no one seems to notice or hear, and it's not that smoky or noisy inside! A cop car on the way to the robbery flips over another vehicle. When Five-O analyzes the video tape of the robbery action, it's the same as what we have just seen -- there's no way these shots could have been filmed by the museum's video cameras! McGarrett refers to the remote-controlled planes as "adult toys." He talks of analyzing the video footage with an "electronic filter" which can supposedly penetrate the smoke. When Tommy Fujiwara, playing Mohai, the boss of the exhibit, tries to pay the ransom, the music by Drasnin sounds like James Bond. Kimo and Truck have a comic scene getting the list of airplane club members at the university. Kwan Hi Lim plays the slimy money launderer Hank Yamura. He takes the jewels from Nick, Neal, et al, saying "Ten million in a plastic jar -- you punks are all class!" The final scene where Yamura's car is tailed by the plane down the mountainside is questionable -- could McGarrett and the students really see the car from that angle? The plane crashes in front of the car with a tiny explosion which causes the car to skid violently (the camera looks sped up) ... Yamura and his thugs are totally incapacitated until Truck arrives moments later! McGarrett has a big speech to the students at the end, saying "You're felons -- indelibly marked!", concluding with "God, what a waste..."MORE TRIVIA:
- McGarrett wears the black leisure suit; he also has a Julius Caesar haircut briefly.
- At a meeting in the Five-O office, McGarrett gives Kimo instructions on things to check, but Truck leaves instead of Kimo, who stays to talk to McGarrett.
- Unlocking the museum doors is controlled by the security boss's palm print -- a bit too sci-fi.
- Jerry Otami (Mike Miyashiro), one of the students, drives a cool yellow Mustang convertible, license number N-5903.
- Nick refers to Jerry as "Jerry-san" at one point.
- When the students worry about whether McGarrett will notice a minute and a half of footage from the video tapes which is missing, Nick says, "If it's good enough for Nixon, it's good enough for us."
275. Clash of Shadows
Original air date: 3/8/80 -- Opening Credits
This show centers on efforts by both McGarrett and Nazi war criminal hunter Yuri Bloch (George Ralph DiCenzo) to track down "death camp butcher" Emil Klaus, who's living in Hawaii surrounded by an entourage of blond-haired young men. Albert Paulsen plays Klaus (a.k.a. Adrien Cassell), looking somewhat emaciated and very much older than his appearance in #27, Just Lucky, I Guess. Generally speaking the show is confusing, but it's totally sabotaged by Paulsen's laughable, incomprehensible accent and William Smith's loathsome performance as Kimo. At one point when McGarrett flashes on the "final solution" (no pun intended), saying excitedly "Wow! I think I see a pattern emerging," all Kimo can come up with is a totally disinterested "I'm glad you do, Steve." When Kimo checks out Bloch's hotel room, not only does he not have a warrant, but he picks up various items while looking through the room and throws them on the floor. There are several questions: If Yuri Bloch is so famous, why does Anne Chernus (Elaine Giftos) not recognize him? When Anne goes to Bloch's hotel to pick up his mail, why doesn't the clerk say anything ... this is some time after Kimo enters the room, gets punched out and follows one of Klaus's blond boys down the fire escape. Surely the hotel would suspect something fishy with this guest and his room! When McGarrett comes to visit Klaus, why does he leave the front door open? And does Klaus's female cohort really work in the bank for three years with the intention of safeguarding his interests? Winston Char as Harry the coroner tries to delay an Israeli agent played by Lou Richards and is beaten up for his trouble -- he later says that he "picked a nice peaceful profession." At the end, as some of the Klaus-jugend are busted at the airport, McGarrett tells them "Auf wiedersehn, kamaraden!" Lloyd Bochner, who appeared in #271, School For Assassins, makes an appearance as the bearded Israeli Secretary, looking like The Wolfman.MORE TRIVIA:
- The bank manager in this episode is named Mohai (played by Daniel Taba), the same name as Tommy Fujiwara's character in the previous episode.
- Klaus and his entourage are in the process of moving to South Africa (how appropriate!).
- Two of the pre-commercial waves are preceded by shots of toy soldiers.
- Jack Lord is seen in a Julius Caesar style hairdo in a shot at the beginning.
276. A Bird in Hand... [NO STARS!]
Original air date: 3/15/80 -- Opening Credits
An unbearably bad show -- my nomination for worst Five-O episode of all. The moronic writing at the beginning of the show with the bird-watching tourists is reminiscent of The Dukes of Hazzard. Why do the tourists take pictures of the old sugar mill while the bus's flat tire is being repaired? It doesn't seem to be even remotely interesting! The bad guys in this show following the orders of the hyper-paranoid Howard Hughes-like "con artist of the century" Anthony del Vecchi (John Dehner) give new meaning to the expression "ubiquitous" -- they know more about what is going on than Five-O usually does. They not only manage to get back to the tour bus company's drop-off point before the bus arrives, but also park themselves on a nearby boat (do they own it?) to take pictures. At her apartment, newspaper reporter Angie Walker (Lara Parker) dries her hair (though it doesn't seem wet) which conveniently covers up the noise of her apartment being broken into. After she discovers the cut-out hole in the sliding door glass, why doesn't she call the cops? Instead, she opens up her closet (one would suspect she is familiar with what's inside) and freaks when the ironing board falls out. Why doesn't she tell her editor that her apartment was broken into when she talks to him on the phone shortly after? As Kimo and Angie drive away from the scene where the cowboy singer and his wife were murdered, a large truck pursues them in a scene reminiscent of the movie Duel (1971). When the truck forces them off the road, the perspective behind them is totally wrong in one shot (the protective fence is on the left, rather than the right) and at the end, the car is nowhere near the edge of the cliff, despite a closeup from below which shows it just about falling over. The tour bus company's office is conveniently burned down. As he quizzes the bald Seth Sakai about the student on the bird-watching bus, McGarrett seems to be flubbing his lines: "Uh ... where does ... uh ... this student live?" After the student is shot, how does his body get to the top of the beach so quickly? Angie's gasps as she and McGarrett check the film in her apartment are too much! When Del Vecchi's henchman, the burly Santos hides in the back seat of Angie's car, why doesn't she see him ... the car isn't that big! Kimo visits the sugar factory pretending to be a building inspector -- why don't the all-knowing bad guys recognize him? One has to wonder why Del Vecchi just pays off the employees who were helping put the gold in pineapple cans --- wouldn't he kill them instead? McGarrett -- not taking any risks -- tells Kimo to grab one of the cases in the pineapple warehouse. And then he tells Kimo to rescue Angie from the grasp of Santos. Interestingly, Kimo gives instructions to McGarrett using Santos' walkie-talkie, which Del Vecchi surely could hear. When Del Vecchi falls off the balcony near the end, Kimo says "he's dead" almost immediately. Horrible, horrible banalities at the end, with McGarrett reading a poem which goes on for almost a minute. He starts by saying "When I was a boy, my father used to give us a penny a line to learn poetry." Terrible!!! (This actually happened in Jack Lord's real life, according to one article I read.) Kimo and Angie walking beside him are at a loss for words. The acting by Kimo and Truck in this episode is zombie-like. The end is near...MORE TRIVIA:
- Bogus blowup techniques are used to get a closeup of del Vecchi from one of the tourists' photographs.
- Check the top-heavy female fans getting autographs from the country and western singer near the beginning of the show! As well, the tan line on the student's girl friend suggests an ill-fitting costume.
- McGarrett wears the black leisure suit.
- Where did the bad guys get the $100 million in gold which they are shipping in pineapple cans to Paraguay?
277. The Moroville Covenant 278. Woe to Wo Fat JUMP TO ANOTHER SEASON
Original air date: 3/29/80
This would probably be the worst episode if it weren't so unbelievably boring ... the cast seem to be on Valium! The plot [sic] deals with an up-and-coming Senatorial candidate with a secret (though not particular shady by today's standards) in his past, including a couple of ill-handled flashbacks. McGarrett has a couple of quotes of interest: "It's a rotten business ... politics" and "Virtue is the only good and self-control the only means of achieving virtue," the latter a comment from a famous ancient Greek cynic (please!). The car that the Senator-to-be was driving 24 years before was an Edsel ... what a sneaky way to mention Ford! When McGarrett and Kimo are quizzing one of the suspects, there is a huge echo in the interrogation room. The final confrontation between Paul Burke, Diane McBain (playing Burke's wacko girlfriend from way back when) and Helen Funai is embarrassingly bad and the music by James Di Pasquale is insipid. Danny Kamekona appears as a police lieutenant. Check the closeup of the tire near the beginning ... you can see the WD-40 which one Five-O director said was used to help make the well-known squealing noise! (The license number on this car is 8E-271.) There is reference to KGMB-TV, an actual TV station in Honolulu. Both Sharon Farrell and William Smith seem a bit more enthusiastic than normal, perhaps because this was actually the second twelfth season episode filmed.
Original air date: 4/5/80
A very disappointing final show, at times reducing everything to the level of a comic book. The hardest thing to swallow is McGarrett's disguise as Professor Raintree, the "world's foremost theoretical physicist." Is the evil mastermind Wo Fat so stupid he can't see through McGarrett's disguise from the beginning? Wo sprays his imprisoned scientists with "compliance ration" (some kind of gas which makes them into blissful cult followers) and they never seem to come back to reality, whereas McGarrett/Raintree manages to wake up the first night he is Wo's guest and shuts the vent the mind-numbing fumes are pouring from! McGarrett's Rambo-like blasting of Wo Fat's lab is silly (a great explosion afterwards, though). How can McGarrett sneak up on the guard outside the door? The final conflict between the two (obviously stuntmen during the fight), complete with heavy-handed statements from each, is ludicrous, as is the final "booking" of Wo, complete with "striped pyjamas." The absence of any other Five-O regulars, especially the Governor and Duke, just adds to the disappointment. About the only good thing is the score by Morton Stevens.