Mannix is Coming! (All things Mannix w/spoilers) (9 Viewers)

[jompaul17]

The Odds Against Donald Jordan

Liked this one. Mannix solved a complicated riddle with all sorts of false clues. Nice little romance with Susan Oliver, perhaps best known as the green gal in Trek's The Menagerie. What electric blue eyes she had. Joe Mantell does well as the sidekick. It was also nice to see Paul Winfield, who later went on to play many roles, including Martin Luther King Jr. in a miniseries, as was as a Captain in Trek's Wrath of Kahn. The ending was somehow touching. I liked how Mannix was trying to make things a little better with these troubled characters. I think I'd rate the episode a B+.

Ben,

This is also an episode that held one of those classic Mannix-one liners that went against convention on race. At one point Joe says to the Paul Winfield character "a little heavy on the racial overtones." And, of course, that character is hiding behind race -- using the excuse of racial bias to hide his buddy's gambling problem. In addition, at the end Joe accuses all of them of being enablers to the gambling.

How far ahead of its time was all of that?

 

[jompaul17]

Last Rites for Miss Emma

I like how they often use real money on this show. So many shows from this era use such obviously fake money that it destroys some of the illusion. The chemistry between Peggy and Mannix was good in this episode. And it touched on one of my pet peeves of crime dramas starting about this time. Sometime in the 1970s, I think, it was decided that you should usually have white men doing the crimes. Certainly white men do commit a lot of crimes, but based on a lot of crime and detective shows from the 1980s to today it sometimes seems like c. 60-80% of all crimes are committed by white men. On TV, the bad guy role doesn't seem to be an equal opportunity profession. Ironically, in the attempt to not offend anyone and be progressive, it's ended up give a lot of good jobs to white male actors. The other pet peeve I have is how often in American dramas it's an upper class British man who is the baddie. You'd almost think that half of all plots for world domination are hatched by graduates of Oxford or Cambridge. Anyway, that's a very long-winded windup to saying that this particular episode took a different view. Sometimes it was a little awkward and strained, but ultimately I found the drama compelling. Good episode with a large role for Peggy.

Ben,

This episode has the powerful scene where Peggy accuses Joe of racism, right in her own apartment, and Joe just grabs her by the arm and glares at her. This episode aired in early 1969! And, again, like so many things in Mannix, this scene is so brief -- if you're not paying attention, you miss it.

How many series would have turned their conflict into an entire episode? Here, it took place in the seamless context of the crime Joe was trying to solve -- the brief moment that outweighed what the story was supposed to be about.

Think this was by accident?

Turns out, there are lots of promotional photos out there for this episode, unlike other episodes of that time.

I also love the way Joe reveals that Peggy's love interest is for the baddie via that dictation in her apartment -- and the way he horns in on what he knows could well have been a romantic evening. That's pure guts combined with class.

If you pay further attention, there is lots of nuance to MC's acting in this scene -- look at his facial expression the whole time and even his hand movements.

As far as the Brit being the baddie, well, especially in the twentieth century, nothing symbolized hierarchy and the quest for world domination quite so well as an upper-class Brit!

And, keep in mind, TV series were not recorded in those days -- they had to rely upon stereotype, to some extent, to tell stories in a short period of time. That's no defense -- I just described how much I love Mannix for the nuance and the way it went against stereotype. But, that is the reason for the common short-cut.

 

[jompaul17]

The Solid Gold Web

Another solid episode. At this point the Mannix show seems like it was a well-oiled machine, producing good episodes nearly every single time. This one had as a guest star Sally Kellerman, who was in the Trek episode Where No Man Has Gone Before 4 years earlier. I liked the love story and the sketch of Mannix. Seemed like some pretty jazzy cinematography. JP's idea of Mannix putting himself at risk for people because he cares even more than because of the money seems esp. true in this one.

Excellent PQ with these DVDs—equal to the best of any television show I've ever seen.

Ben,

Mannix is, indeed, legendary for its PQ.

Note the scene where Joe runs on the rocks -- just shouting Diana over and over. It's as good as any scene without dialogue in any movie -- and for the utterly graceful moves MC makes on those rocks. How many actors could do that? And, where was the camera?

If you like Joe putting people and principle ahead of money, you ain't seen nothing yet...

 

[jompaul17]

I just finished season seven and noticed something about the opening credits. One episode--I think it was on the second or third disc--had different opening credits from the rest of them in the set. This episode had different footage in the "i" and "x" portion of the credits, which makes me think it was a true season-seven opening and that the rest of the episodes just had the season-six credits slapped on them.

Dan,

No, it's actually the opposite -- we discussed this in the thread awhile back.

Season 7 had no full opener of its own, because of that godawful packaging they did that cut the full opening + something like a minute of the actual episode (you can see the latter effect in the runtime of the season 7 episodes to this day).

So, what Paramount likely did was use the season 6 opener for the season 7 DVDs, since the season 7 episodes had none of their own. But, when it came to that one episode, they went to the season 8 opener by mistake.

Those different scenes you are referring to are actually from episodes in season 8.

 

[jompaul17]

FYI Mike Conners fans, someone has posted a number of Tightrope episodes on Youtube.

David,

And those are interesting -- because you can see some of Joe Mannix emerge in there. It's not a full-blown Joe, but some of the facial expressions start to emerge as the series progresses.

MC always had a fondness for Tightrope -- that's the reason Joe Mannix started to hide his gun behind his back.

BTW, Tightrope was another series that was canceled despite being successful.

 

[jompaul17]

I remember the black cat and Mannix coming on first followed by Barnaby Jones. I don't remember Mannix ever being associated with Cannon. A quick look at the schedules of both series over the years shows that the only time the two series even came on the same night were two months (July 75 - August 75, the last airdates for Mannix) when Cannon came on Wednesdays @ 9 followed by Mannix @ 10.

Wiseguy,

That could well be true, although the schedules out there are not always accurate. It's amazing how many errors are out there, in general. For example, as of this date, Mannix' Wikipedia page has incorrect dates for the airings of its first and last episodes.

But that is one reason I phrased my post "with series like Barnaby Jones and Cannon" -- because I tended to lump those both together, even as CBS seemed to at some point.

 

[jompaul17]

Mission: Impossible did indeed use the western street in one of the last episodes appropriately called "The Western." (March 2, 1973)

Wiseguy,

That's amazing. Very recently I saw those Western Streets in a couple of episodes of Bonanza. If that set was not built for Bonanza, then that long-running series at the very least became strongly identified it. But for Mannix they converted that set to a ghost town over and over!

Actually, I just love discovering the way they put that series together. You'd think it would ruin things to picture the facades and know that the Paseo was just to the left of those streets, and that the ghost town was actually behind that aluminum wall. But it does not, somehow. If anything, it amazes me how much I paid attention to the story, and was so ready to overlook the reality.

For me, that says a lot about life.

 

[jompaul17]

I noticed the "Cinnamon" song in three 3rd-season episodes: "Return to Summer Grove," "Walk with a Dead Man" and "Who Is Sylvia?" In addition I've noticed some tracks of the Mannix soundtrack used repeatedly such as "End of the Rainbow" in the episodes "A Sleep in the Deep," "Missing: Sun and Sky," "Who Is Sylvia?," "Only One Death to a Customer" and "Once Upon a Saturday." The track "Hunt Down" can be heard in "A Sleep in the Deep" and "A Chance at the Roses." "Warning: Live Blueberries" can be heard in "Missing: Sun and Sky" and "Harlequin's Gold." "Beyond the Shadow of Today" can be heard in "Once Upon a Saturday." All in the 3rd Season!

Wiseguy,

When I was growing up I simply identified this as "Mannix music" without thinking about what I heard when. Now, of course, I've seen the episodes enough times to know when certain themes first appeared and when they re-appear.

It's amazing, to me, the way the music still enhances this series. For so many series of that era the music now seems to get in the way. But, going back to the high PQ, the music in Mannix was high class as well.

Curiously, there seems to be less new music as the series goes on -- this is especially noticeable in season 7, where they go back to some classic music that I swear they did not use since season 1!

 

[jompaul17]

My MANNIX DVD-buying was detailed in the earlier parts of this thread, but I'll reiterate it here in the interest of keeping a good thread alive.

When I heard that MANNIX, Season One, was being released on DVD, I was really eager to get hold of it. Why? Well, it was a fondly remembered series from my young adult era. Those Saturday nights when the show premiered were part of a killer lineup on CBS and MANNIX capped it all off. The idea of him working against (or in spite of) these giant computers was appealing to me, and the show's pedigree was that it was a sister show to favorites STAR TREK and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

So when it was announced that MANNIX was starting up on DVD, I noted the date and headed to the nearest Best Buy at lunchtime to grab a copy. I was delighted with the clean, clear presentation of this colorful show. MANNIX began as color TV was becoming a force, and was made with an eye to be colorful on those TVs of the era. And nothing was more colorful than the credits with its colored squares and rectangles, now presented with an even bolder, more colorful picture than ever on today's better televisions.

I watched a number of the shows on Season One, but it somehow lost its emphasis in my watching routine as other series DVDs came along to dilute my interest in MANNIX.

When Season Two was announced, I sort-of made a mental note to pick it up someday if I saw it, but I was concentrating on another series purchase at the time. I think it was MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, whose later releases were concurrent with MANNIX. It was just more important for me at that time to complete my MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE collection than it was to continue with MANNIX.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE was indeed a different kind of show, but one that I really enjoyed, and had regretted that it hadn't been released in the VHS and LaserDisc eras. It had been a long time since I'd seen the show and I was really enjoying seeing them all cleaned up on DVD. With the frequent releases, I had to budget my money so it was MANNIX that would have to wait.

Though I continued following this thread when updates were posted, I wasn't really active at all in MANNIX watching, particularly as discussions turned to Season Two and beyond.

Finally, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE's Season Seven was released, and that series was essentially completed. The revival series wouldn't be out for a few more years. So it was time to perhaps concentrate on MANNIX. But by this time, I was keeping closer watch on my budget as I'd just retired, so again, MANNIX would have to wait, particularly with the semi-expensive prices that were being charged.

Sometime in 2011, I think, we ate breakfast at a new Denny's in the neighborhood, which was attached to a Pilot truck-stop. After breakfast, we wandered over to the truck-stop store and saw a bin of DVDs of TV series at a sale price of $14.99. My prize that day was finding Season Three of MANNIX, which I picked up and proudly placed it alongside my Season One set.

Looking through the episode list, I spotted "The Sound Of Darkness" where the blurb mentioned "Mannix is blinded." That was all I needed to know I wanted to revisit that episode. You see, in all of my MANNIX-watching during its run on CBS, the episode where Joe lost his sight was the only plot I recalled - the only episode out of all of the episodes made, that made enough of an impression on me that I remembered it all those years later.

It was just as powerful watching it on DVD as I'd remembered it, and it got me into wanting to watch more of MANNIX, so I delved back into the Season One set concurrently with watching the Season Three episodes. And those two held me for awhile. It wasn't until April of 2012, that I found a deal on Season Two on Amazon, and I ordered it to fill that annoying gap between Seasons One and Three.

While viewing episodes of these early seasons, I'd check into this thread every now and again and was aware of the gap between season releases. Fortunately that was all ironed out before I needed to purchase further seasons. Ultimately, I took advantage of a Deep Discount DVD sale to order three seasons at once. At the time, most MANNIX seasons were selling north of $30 and the Deep Discount price was somewhere in the $25-$27 range, so I decided to bite and bought Four, Five, and Six all at once. This was in June of 2012.

When I began watching Season Four, I encountered a bad first disc, and then went about fighting with Deep Discount about an exchange, which took forever. While that was in process of exchange, I watched most of Season Five, then went back to Four to finish that up, then back to the end of Five to finish THAT up.

Meanwhile Season Seven was being released, and I grabbed that one that July, even though I wasn't yet ready for viewing it, nor was it particularly cheap. And then Eight came along that December to conclude the series, and I added that one as it was released as well. I finally finished off that first run through the series - though it was, at best, a hopscotching pattern of viewing.

I think at some point in time, I will go back and attempt a straight-through viewing of all of the episodes in order. Meanwhile, this thread pops up every now and again and keeps the subject of MANNIX at the fore.

Harry

Harry,

Here's hoping you go back to watching Mannix from beginning to end again.

 

[jompaul17]

Don't know if this has already been mentioned, but as I was recently looking through Kmart's inexpensive DVDs I came across the Here's Lucy Best of Collection which featured 7 episodes. The first thing I thought of was the Mannix episode but thought it unlikely it would be included here but was surprised to see it was indeed one of the 7 episodes so I picked it up for $5. For those who want the episode but would rather not buy the entire 4th season of Here's Lucy this would be an alternative.

Some oddities:

...The set is released by MPI Home Video not CBS/Paramount.
...The first episode has the actual 1968-69 Paramount logo. The Paramount logo is not featured in any other episode. This episode also mentions Desilu in the copyright notice even though it was broadcast in 1969.
...The Mannix episode has a copyright date of 1969. Don't know if these are the original copyright notices or "recreated" for the DVD. Someone may have transposed the last two letters of the Roman numeral: MCMLXIX instead of the correct MCMLXXI.
...The final 4 episodes feature a Warner Bros. distribution logo at the end.

Wiseguy,

I'm actually very curious about these copyright dates and will have to follow-up. Someone pointed out that a copyright date I once thought was 1968 turned out to be 1988 (or some such thing) because the original episode had no copyright and was only copyrighted later. It seems Desilu did not bother to copyright all of the episodes of all of its series, including (I believe) four of Mannix which wound up being released on VHS tape in (I believe) the 90s.

 

[jompaul17]

I finally watched that HERE'S LUCY episode on Hulu, and it was fun. It's not something I feel I need to own though - a little of latter-day Lucy goes a long way. What was interesting was the set used for Mannix' office. They sort of got the window behind the desk looking fairly similar, but the door off to the side was way off. I wonder if Joe's office set was being used for some dictator on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE that week, so they had to do a re-create.

On another old matter, long ago we discussed a music group appearing on MANNIX "recording" in the studio. It was in the second season episode "Who Will Dig The Graves?" The group was The Peppermint Trolley, and I'd mentioned that I was familiar with the song, called "Trust" from the rare A&M Records album by the composer, Roger Nichols & The Small Circle Of Friends. Someone's posted the section of the song performance on MANNIX from a tape from TV Land:



What's even more interesting is that this group is reportedly the ones that recorded the theme for THE LOVE BOAT and - wait for it - THE BRADY BUNCH! Yet another connection between MANNIX and THE BRADY BUNCH.

The album from which this song comes had been released on CD:

http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Sun-Peppermint-Trolley-Company/dp/B001T46TPG/

Or if you prefer MP3s:

http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Sun-Peppermint-Trolley-Company/dp/B002ANB14Y/ where you can just grab the single "Trust".

Harry

Harry,

One reason they did not use Joe's set for the Lucy episode was because Lucille Ball moved the filming of her show off the Paramount lot after she sold Desilu -- I heard (can't remember where now) that it was too painful for her to stay there. I can't remember where she moved her show. But, in the spirit of the precedent I Love Lucy created, she likely retained ownership of Here's Lucy when Desilu was sold.

Another likely reason is because Here's Lucy was, if I remember correctly, filmed before a live audience. Mannix, of course, was not -- so its set was in a studio (actually, I believe it was stage 17 on the Paramout lot) without seats for an audience. Notice how the audience gives a big cheer when MC walks onto the set -- Mannix was at its height of popularity when that episode was filmed.

Now, you'd think they could have arranged the office better, even having to rebuild the set. But, likely the odd arrangement with the door on the side also had to do with the live audience, because they had to have MC enter through the back for that one scene.

Strangely, when I first watched that episode, I didn't like it. I thought it was kind of silly and my childhood memory was of Joe acting silly as well. But, now that I see it again, it seems very well done! MC does a very good job staying in character despite the craziness -- how many people can you say that of who do a guest shot in a Lucy episode? Actually, the Lucy people must have thought so as well to put it on that DVD of special Here's Lucy episodes -- and I do think it is worth the money for that (no surprise!).

You know, I occasionally come across an episode of The Brady Bunch and find I am enjoying it for the occasional appearance of one of those Paramount sets shared by Mannix, among others.

But, my current goal -- my current holy grail -- is to find the original movie or TV series for which most of the facades that formed The Paseo were originally built. In early 2012 I discovered that episode of Mission: Impossible that was filmed during Mannix's first season, the one with Jim Phelps driving in front of the Paseo but of a golden color and without the terracotta, vine or sign.

The Paseo was built for something else. What was it?

 

[jompaul17]

Count me as a member of the Mannix eight-season club. I just watched "Hardball" last night to finish off the series. Thanks to JoAnn, Harry, and others in this thread for making the Mannix experience even more enjoyable.

Dan,

This is great!

 

[jompaul17]

For anyone on the fence regarding MANNIX, someone on YouTube named "Mannix Full Episodes" has uploaded some complete episodes. They're not the best quality, but if you've never seen an episode, it's a good way to sample a few.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MannixClassicTV

Harry

Harry,

How do they get away with this? Does Paramount not care about its copyright anymore?

 

[jompaul17]

I have been recording The Millionaire from the new Heroes & Icons channel. They recently showed a 1956 episode called The Victor Volante Story starring Touch Connors.

JMas, I didn't know there was a Heroes & Icons channel -- but Verizon Fios recently removed CLOO from its lineup, and CLOO was the last channel that I know of to air Mannix episodes. Actually, the fact that Verizon had CLOO but Comcast did not is the reason I became a Fios customer in the first place! Ah, those hacked up, sped-up episodes don't seem like real Mannix to me anyway... That Millionaire episode would be fun to see -- but, alas, I don't seem to get that channel, despite its intriguing name. I get all sorts of other tremendously watered down, hyped up crap though -- a real example of how more can be less, but we knew that before. There are only so many intellectual resources to go around, just like other resources.

 

[Mark Collins]

JoAnn Welcome back!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jompaul17]

JoAnn Welcome back!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark

 

[Wvtvguy]

Just curious. I've now purchased season 2, 4, & 5 since discovering Mannix two years ago. (I vaguely remember watching it when I was 5.) Is there a drop in quality in the last seasons? Most shows have a slide when they've been on that long. I've enjoyed the seasons I have & haven't noticed any decline. Just wondering because I'd like to get the whole series. Thanks!

 

[jompaul17]

Just curious. I've now purchased season 2, 4, & 5 since discovering Mannix two years ago. (I vaguely remember watching it when I was 5.) Is there a drop in quality in the last seasons? Most shows have a slide when they've been on that long. I've enjoyed the seasons I have & haven't noticed any decline. Just wondering because I'd like to get the whole series. Thanks!

Wvtguy,

This is a great question and thanks for asking it.

Mannix has this quality of being subtly different from season to season, and even sometimes from half-season to half-season, while always staying true to its central themes of tough, compassionate individuality. But, while it is sometimes very different in tone, it is one of an elite few series that ran for so long and never degraded in quality.

There are, I believe, two reasons for this.

First, MC was committed to that character as if it was his alter ego. I heard him in a radio interview a few years ago where he said that acting required all of your vitality -- and that comes across. He could never seem to tire of playing a character that was so built around him.

Second, the producers, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, were really writers who seemed to have a sense of classic story and did a lot of re-writing of scripts. They seemed to understand the way each episode worked best as a mini-play (since they were playwrights). But instead of being an anthology the series was one where the reason people tuned in was to watch the exploration of this central character -- as mentioned on this thread before, to see Joe being Joe.

Together, they never seemed to tire of this, and, amazingly, they never went off the rails with some sort of "jump the shark -- let's just get the viewers in at all costs" attitude. They seemed to have a sense of the classic, to the point that few references in the series are dated.

After season 1, which is of course of the different format, there is a kind of progression in seasons 2-5, well, sort of. Early in season 2 we see Joe as this action-oriented good guy, but the relationship with Peggy also starts to get developed in there somewhere. That hits its peak in early season 4, and cools off again for awhile. Season 5 emphasizes plot twists mixed in with subtle scenes of toughness such as the one in "The Man Outside" where Joe faces the thugs he encounters in his office. The producers seem to acknowledge that we know who Joe is by now, so they weave sweetly rewarding scenes mixed in with plot. Exceptions to this mix are "A Choice of Evils" and "Death is the Fifth Gear" -- which are great for Joe being Joe from beginning to end.

Now, when you get to season 6, the pushback on violence in television really changed the tone of the series. When I was growing up I distinctly remember feeling the series changed then and I thought it might be in some sort of decline. The ratings actually went down for that season as well (just barely finishing out of the top 30), but that was due to all sorts of timeslot things.

Curiously however, as an adult, I find myself going back to season 6 all the time -- some of my favorite episodes are in there, but for more subtle reasons. The same is true of some episodes of other seasons that I did not connect with as a kid, but love as an adult -- "A Gathering of Ghosts" from season 4 is a great example of this. Season 6 is pretty much like that from beginning to end -- actually opening with an incredibly sweet, but subtle, scene when Peggy enters Joe's office in "The Open Web." The whole season is more subtle in tone. For example, there is one episode where Joe is Joe in every sweet way, going forward when everyone, even his client, Peggy, and the kid he is trying to help are all in his right face ("See No Evil"). But, as a kid, that episode held no special qualities for me. By contrast, as an adult, I love paying attention to what is like to be in that kind of situation and see the way Joe responds -- season 6 is actually filled with sweet scenes that capture the essence of the character, such as the one in "Light and Shadow" where Joe is punched in the gut and then tells Peggy to relax because "we must be doing something right" or the one in "The Crimson Halo" where the Burgess Meredith character insults Joe for being a lowly PI and then tells him he wants someone who will follow orders. Joe takes this with the kind of grace that I can only imagine having someday before I die, then gets up and calmly tells him, "Then you don't want me." Sweet.

But, having said all of that about season 6, season 7 takes a dramatic change in tone back to action. It is as if the producers said, to heck with this pushback we're getting from the networks, we're going back to our roots. So, we see Joe in all kinds of peril in season 7, a season that includes "Climb a Deadly Mountain," "The Gang's All Here," and "The Dark Hours" -- making it one of the best seasons of Mannix. The latter episode is probably why MC was nominated for an Emmy again that season, and I still can't think of another series all these years later that had an episode structured quite like that one that relied so heavily on MC's ability to act with his eyes alone.

Curiously, all of these episodes also involve key scenes with Peggy, including "The Dark Hours" which ends with Peggy taking on some properties of her boss in his absence.

Gee, as I start to get back to thinking about this series again, I just can't express enough my admiration for the way they did those incredibly rewarding, subtle scenes for those people who paid attention to the particular qualities of those characters.

The ratings went up for season 7 as well.

So, we get to season 8, which no one knew would be the last season of Mannix. Its ratings go up yet again, to the point this eight year old series re-gains the top 20. But season 8 is a different kind of season again! Early on, we have the incredibly sweet "Walk on the Blind Side" with that closing scene where Joe and Peggy actually get to fully embrace each other for the first time in the series.

By the way, I noticed season 3 was not on your list. That's a mistake, since you are cheating yourself out of "The Sound of Darkness" -- which many feel is the best episode of the entire series! Season 3 also has a young adult kind of tone to it, where the series seems to find itself, even as it starts to explore the relationship between Joe and Peggy.

But, back to season 8 -- it has "A Word Called Courage" where we actually get to see our hero tortured -- and yet another cool scene between Joe and Peggy -- but it also has two episodes that are sweetly comedic, "The Survivor Who Wasn't" and "A Choice of Victims" -- episodes I just love for the way they play off of our knowledge of Joe by now -- the producers know we know Joe by now and give us credit for that!

But, remember, the viewers really did know Joe then. In this age of so much choice, it's easy to name a popular series or character that no one really knows. Back then, characters like Joe Mannix were iconic -- they were a part of our culture.

Now, even though the ratings went up again for season 8, there are quite a few episodes where Peggy goes missing, Joe is out of town, and, frankly, I didn't enjoy those episodes so much. In m research for the series I discovered that part of the reason for this could be because they planned to send Joe out of town a lot during that season -- even to Australia. Probably budgets were cut so he just went to New Mexico and other unnamed places in California -- but those episodes, for me, lose their feel. They seem ordinary to me -- like any other action series.

Seasons 7 and 8 also have the two sets of two-part episodes which seem like filler to me, and I want nothing to do with them. It isn't clear whether those episodes were actually intended to be filler because 24 episodes per year became too many, or whether they were trying to explore some things -- but they do not work for me and I remember thinking it was evidence the series was running out of time.

But, always after that type of episode ran, it would recover and run a series of episodes that was right on -- Joe being Joe again. Season 7 ran "The Dark Hours" right after its two-part "Race Against Time." Season 8 ends that way as well after its two-parter runs late in the season, to include some good, classic Joe being Joe episodes and even some very nice and mildly suggestive (for the times) scenes between Joe and Peggy.

I do think that PQ was challenged more in season 8 than any other season. I remember MC saying that they started to shoot episodes in half-days (starting a new episode in the afternoon when they finished one that morning) which was squeezing the number of days for production of an episode from 7 to 6.5.

But, even as I look at season 8, finally with an eye that can watch it again, not just since it was withheld from us for so many years, but because it remains painful that it was the last season of Mannix when it was still going strong -- I can see that it was still exploring, just like all of the seasons before it, still a fresh view of the character of this guy, Joe Mannix. For that, just consider the wonderful scene in "The Survivor Who Wasn't" where Joe is lying on his couch, after being hit in the head the night before with a piece of pipe -- and episode, by the way, that was written by Ben Roberts.

Season 8 was a top 20 show, and it was far, far from a dud -- it includes some great scenes and episodes. But, season 7 is what truly amazes me -- the way it just felt so different from season 6. Just look at those two seasons side by side and you can see the way these people absolutely cared about this six going on seven year old series to the point of re-inventing it back to its roots and then some. That remains amazing to me.

But, the bottom line may be this. For all of the series TV I watched growing up, an amazing amount, in retrospect, Mannix was the one and only series where I would sit down in front of the TV and know it was going to deliver something high quality and true to itself while always somehow being fresh. I came to expect that -- and it never failed me, unlike, really, every other series I ever watched.

Hope this helps.

 

[Wvtvguy]

Thanks for the great response! Definitely want to get the entire series. I've been surprised by how much I've enjoyed a show I last watched when I was 5!! I had no idea Mannix had such quality stories, great acting, fine wit, & an abundance of style! I've really enjoyed rediscovering this series. As to why I don't have season 3 yet. I watched Mannix with my mom as a kid. Put my sports coat & tie on & loaded up my toy gun & jumped off the couch every week. Probably the first show I remember watching. It went off & I didn't see it again for more than 20 yrs. In 2011 I got a craving for some old tv. I loved TV land when I first got it in the late 90's but it had moved away from older shows by this time. I started buying DVDs. I'm always looking for new shows that might be interesting. Some I remember but many aired before I was born. At some point I remembered Mannix. I'd seen a bit of one episode on TV Land a few years earlier but it was from season one & was nothing like I remembered. I decided I'd pick up a season just to see what the show was like. Amazon was having a sale so I got season four. No real reason as to why four. Anyway, I really enjoyed the show, sometimes I watched two episodes a night! I never do that. I knew I'd run through season four fast at that rate so I bought season two. I'll definitely buy season 3! I enjoy Mannix too much! The last two episodes I watched from season 2, "Death in a Minor Key" & "End Game" have been outstanding. I'll get season 3 soon since I'm almost done with season 2. I try to stretch these series out. Would you recommend season 1? I know it's the oddball season. Thanks again!

 

[Dan McW]

Dan,

No, it's actually the opposite -- we discussed this in the thread awhile back.

Season 7 had no full opener of its own, because of that godawful packaging they did that cut the full opening + something like a minute of the actual episode (you can see the latter effect in the runtime of the season 7 episodes to this day).

So, what Paramount likely did was use the season 6 opener for the season 7 DVDs, since the season 7 episodes had none of their own. But, when it came to that one episode, they went to the season 8 opener by mistake.

Those different scenes you are referring to are actually from episodes in season 8.

OK--thanks, JoAnn.