Joe's latest client gets shot while making an on-air phone call to a controversial TV talk show host. The prime suspect: The dead man's beautiful blonde mistress whose gun the victim was shot with and who was caught fleeing from the scene mere moments after the killing took place. Is she guilty? Of course not.
Another twisty MANNIX caper... but one marred by several narrative missteps such as the sequence where Joe -- fleeing from a trio of dangerous gunmen -- scurries for shelter into the apartment of a lonely single woman who not only instantly agrees to help him, she offers to put her life on the line by acting as a diversion for the three killers.
After knowing Joe for all of five minutes.
Riiiiight.
Too bad for Joe she's maybe the stupidest woman in Los Angeles. But LUCKY for Joe the gunmen are even stupider. Moments before they see him hiding out in the woman's dresser, one of gunman peers down from the third-story window and assumes (for God knows what reason) that Joe leaped from the window and broke his leg!
"Let's go," the gunman says excitedly. "How far can he get?!" And off they go in pursuit of their "hobbled" quarry.
See? Stupid.
It also doesn't help that the woman cast as Joe's would be "protector" in this scene is playing the part for slapstick.
C'mon Goff & Roberts, what gives??
Also, does THIS remark seem far-fetched to anyone but me:
Joe, to a woman he suspects of being the REAL killer regarding why she would hire him to investigate a murder her sister was recently arrested for: "It makes a perfect cover," Joe says. "A sister who's worried sick so she calls in a private investigator."
Huh?? Joe, why would this woman believe she needed "cover" when the most likely suspect (her sister) was already in CUSTODY at that point?
And the resolution is terrible. In the final scene, why would the actual killer (the arrogant talk-show host) be dumb enough to pull a gun on Joe in the belief that no one but Joe knows he's guilty...
-- when Joe was just on the phone with a video engineer who had helped him establish the man's proof of guilt?!
Madness.
It's still MANNIX so it's watchable, but this is one of the weakest episodes of the season.
Another twisty MANNIX caper... but one marred by several narrative missteps such as the sequence where Joe -- fleeing from a trio of dangerous gunmen -- scurries for shelter into the apartment of a lonely single woman who not only instantly agrees to help him, she offers to put her life on the line by acting as a diversion for the three killers.
After knowing Joe for all of five minutes.
Riiiiight.
Too bad for Joe she's maybe the stupidest woman in Los Angeles. But LUCKY for Joe the gunmen are even stupider. Moments before they see him hiding out in the woman's dresser, one of gunman peers down from the third-story window and assumes (for God knows what reason) that Joe leaped from the window and broke his leg!
"Let's go," the gunman says excitedly. "How far can he get?!" And off they go in pursuit of their "hobbled" quarry.
See? Stupid.
It also doesn't help that the woman cast as Joe's would be "protector" in this scene is playing the part for slapstick.
C'mon Goff & Roberts, what gives??
Also, does THIS remark seem far-fetched to anyone but me:
Joe, to a woman he suspects of being the REAL killer regarding why she would hire him to investigate a murder her sister was recently arrested for: "It makes a perfect cover," Joe says. "A sister who's worried sick so she calls in a private investigator."
Huh?? Joe, why would this woman believe she needed "cover" when the most likely suspect (her sister) was already in CUSTODY at that point?
And the resolution is terrible. In the final scene, why would the actual killer (the arrogant talk-show host) be dumb enough to pull a gun on Joe in the belief that no one but Joe knows he's guilty...
-- when Joe was just on the phone with a video engineer who had helped him establish the man's proof of guilt?!
Madness.
It's still MANNIX so it's watchable, but this is one of the weakest episodes of the season.