The Magician (TV Series) Pilot (1973) User Reviews

It still stands up

[simon.conder · 7/10 · 17 April 2006]

After a long long long search I have found the entire two season run of The Magician on DVD.

It was rather odd to sit and watch a TV show that I had such fond memories of from way back in the 1970's.

I have to say that I found the series to still work in many respects. I still loved the music and the opening sequence (first year), I still love the car and the magic.

What is clear watching back to back episodes is that the winning format of the early episodes to me was far too quickly dropped and in so many ways the show went into decline. Some of the episodes are rather tedious with even the magic not lifting them. But all that goes away when the show comes together.

In this day and age of CGI what a cool idea it was that 100% of the magic was real and not fake.

I am really pleased to have tracked down this show from the 1970's. Bill Bixby was always an interesting actor and this show proves.

Great, fun series.

[wkozak221 · 9/10 · 26 July 2019]

I waited for this to com on tv. I really liked the series. I always liked Bill Bixby. He was good in everything he did. I really liked the airplane and the car. They should have stayed in the series. I really didn't like Max. To me he was trying to bring George Jean Nathan back to life. The plot line of having a handicapped son was stretching it a bit. The series should have lasted longer.

The Memory Cheats

[Gislef · 7/10 · 29 March 2020]

Granted, I don't remember seeing the pilot back in the glory days of the 70s. And hopefully the show improves, as I recall it. but the pilot is a bit of a damp squib. I'm surprised that it went to series based on what is seen here.

The plot is pretty eh. The bad guys send Nora from Seattle to Los Angeles and Tony's show for some reason. Or maybe Lucian does: it's not clear who sent her there. But why send her to LA, when everyone operates out of Seattle? It gets Tony involved (maybe Lucien was a fan), but otherwise it's never explained.

Tony is the height of 70s cool: he smirks, twitches, and saunters around like he's king of the hill. Bill Bixby is okay, but it's the least of his four TV-starring performances (Martian, Courtship, and Hulk being the other big three). And there are some things that are hard to imagine passing muster in the 2010s. Like Tony throwing doves into a bad guy's face. Where is PETA when you need them?

There is also some odd crowbarring of sleight-of-hand into the episode. Like when Tony confronts the bad guys in the fallout shelter, and keeps producing (exploding) cigarettes while wandering in a circle around them. They're clearly not paying attention to the cigarette in his hand ("Why is this guy smoking during a life-and-death confrontation?"), so why Tony bothers with sleight-of-handing multiple cigarettes, who knows? And the main thug, Adams, saw Tony three times earlier and saw that he doesn't smoke. But he doesn't wonder about it here.

But there's some indications of modern-day 2010-ish ness, too. If the show was made today, Tony would probably be a gay icon. Notice his lack of interest in the supposed romantic lead, Sally. Max is apparently a liberal columnist, going on about how marriage based on love is a modern-day idiocy. While living with a woman who he takes pains to point out isn't his wife, but birthed his son. And we get the handicapped Dennis, doing the Norton Drake-style wheelchair-ridden genius years before it became a trope on 'War of the Worlds' and other shows.

Overall, the story is pretty weak sauce. It doesn't help that Robert Mandan as a minor and undeveloped baddie looks a lot like a clean-shaven Barry Sullivan. Who is a major baddie in the episode. The first time they showed Mandan, I thought Sullivan's character was watching himself through a pair of binoculars!

But there are some cool scenes, like Jerry's rescue of Tony and Mary Rose via seaplane. Although you wonder why Tony had Jerry standing at the ready: did he expect that Joseph's goons would follow them? Or is Tony just that prescient? Keene Curtis is always a class act. Heck, Bixby is too even if he doesn't have much to do. We never do find out in the pilot why Tony is a stage magician, even though Max explains why Tony is 's rich.

And IMO the show has one of the best theme songs in TV history. Even if it's used a lot. Not only is it play during Tony's show performance, but it's also playing in one of the femme fatale's bedrooms.

So A for effort, C for delivery. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?

promising...

[occupant-1 · 11 December 2001]

but largely unfulfilled premise involving a magician/performer who does well enough to drive a white 'Vette. Presumably, his travels to the next gig provide opportunity to run into new people and situations (rather like Route 66) but the series writing never lived up to the possibilities offered by the smooth Bixby and other good actors.

AMAZING

[spdamon · 8/10 · 14 April 2024]

Soooooooooooooooooooo good

I wish this was available on streaming services bc omg it was so amazing. The whole vibe is super 70s and the action is so entertaining. Bill Bixby is one of the most underrated actors out there I wish he was in more. This was such a good pilot and though I havnt seen the rest of the show I can't wait because it sure it just gets better!!!! I just hope that this stays out there somewhere as it ages more, or that it gets more popular somehow, because this is such a gem. One of my fav pilots of any show ever and though the writing and tricks are at times a bit cheesy, I like to think it aids the whole thing that much more!

A fairly good pilot

[shakspryn · 7/10 · 12 November 2023]

This is a pretty good pilot episode, which I just watched on dvd for the first time. Its biggest asset is, of course, the charming, handsome and sympathetic Bill Bixby. If you really like Bill Bixby, as I do, you are going to enjoy this much more than if you are just so-so on him.

Good things about the pilot: Bill's magician character is someone you like, and for magic fans, you get to see some of that. Having Bill live on a big private jet, which he can afford because he inherited a large fortune, provides an interesting and colorful angle. On the downside, it's so unusual and over-the-top, it does introduce a note of some unreality to the show. It's one of those series concept points, you just have to accept and not question it, if you want to enjoy the show.

Another plus: the music is really, really good! Very mysterious and evocative, fitting well to the subject matter.

Guest casting, for this pilot and then for the 21 episodes that followed is strong: we see many of the best actors and actresses of the 1970's. Probably because Bill was so handsome, and had sex appeal, we get a good number of very attractive women guest stars on the series run, who include: France Nuyen; Susan Oliver; Yvonne Craig; Leslie Parrish; Carol Lynley, in a 2-parter; Brooke Bundy; Lynda Day George; Katherine Justice; Marianna Hill; Jessica Walter, and others.

The main drawbacks I see to the pilot, are the pacing which is on the slow side, and the inherent limitations of Bill having to carry all the action aspects of the story. He's a magician who likes to help people in trouble, not a secret agent in the Mission Impossible way; he's not a private detective or a police detective, so no guns for Bill. He has several associates who help him out with getting background information, and those performers are fine.

I'm looking forward to watching the 21 regular episodes of this series. I have a feeling that the slower-type pacing seen in this pilot is going to be present throughout the series, but we'll see. Recommended especially for Bill Bixby fans.