Mannix (TV Series) The Gang's All Here (1973) User Reviews

Surprisingly original considering it came in season 7.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 19 January 2016]

Another reviewer, pkfloydmh, has been watching and reviewing "Mannix" episodes and I've noticed that for the past few episodes, we don't agree in the least. This does mean if you read the reviews you'll get differing opinions and that should help you at least a bit! They apparently really, really hated "The Gang's All Here" and, once again, I am not at all in agreement! Neither one of us intends to disagree so much...it just seems to happen that way!

When the show begins, Joe is trying to apprehend some murderous thug. Not surprisingly, Joe gets slapped around in the process and eventually after a chase, Mannix shoots the baddie. A local gang of hoodlums see this. On one hand, they are impressed...Joe is certainly a tough guy. But, on the other, the leader of gang is the brother of the man Joe just shot! Not surprisingly, they decide to kidnap Joe and kill him. But instead of just shooting him (they NEVER seem to do this in this program!), they plan on killing him in front of another gang to show they just how tough they are. Too bad their new gang initiate is a bit of a wimp and Joe manages to run away and is shot while fleeing. For the rest of the episode, the punks scour the neighborhood looking to finish the job.

My only real complain about this episode is that the 'hoodlums' look like 1970s TV hoods...very clean-cut and looking about as menacing as members of "The Partridge Family"! Still, despite this, there is a lot of action and the writer managed to keep it interesting throughout. Even the somewhat weak side story about the wimpy kid's father isn't bad. Well worth seeing.

A wonderful episode. Of course, it's from season 7.

[seriesappgaming · 10/10 · 18 March 2022]

I thought that this episode was pretty good, Mannix (Mike Connors) kills a notorious thug, Red Dietz, who's been the focus of the law for quite some time, I assume. Anyway, the plot quickly turns when the gang members, who idolized Dietz plan to kill Mannix, as way to intimidate their rival gang and to show a new member, on how to get the job done, their style. Mannix, who's on the ropes with the gang attempts to escape them, but instead ends up getting shot. Within the process, Mannix escapes them and tries to find help while the gang members tempt to find him, nearby there's a phone booth, Mannix gets inside and dials a phone number but two gang members who are searching for him come outside from a building. Mannix, sees them and runs without being seen, as the gang members continue to search for him Mannix enters a building, where a man happens to be Mannix of course ask the man to go outside and dial for police headquarters, but the man has no money. Strangely, a dozen of coins turn up and the guy is tasked to phone up the number, but the guy does not do that, in fact he goes to a bar and buys a drink, basically leaving Mannix there for dead, after that, Lt. Malcolm gets word about the criminal activities the gang's been up to, and while he attends to his work he runs into a waitress, whose kid happens to be the new member of the gang, who's searching for Mannix. Lt. Malcolm learns some things including factor and motive that explains the situation Mannix is in, from here things get better especially for Mannix, when the kid who shot him finds him in the building, Mannix then explains to the kid what his father did the night he was killed, of course I forgot to mention that. Anyway, Mannix explains to the kid what happened and that sort of makes things twist, the kid decides not to kill Mannix, not only that though, but to not join the gang and then two of the main gang members walk into the building where Mannix and the kid are, Mannix who hides in the bathroom overhears a conversation, which involves a brawl up between them, then the episode concludes with the kid getting knocked out and Mannix saving him, after setting a fire to get the two main gang members away. The main part of the episode concludes with Mannix waking up in the hospital, Peggy happens to be there and tells him that his father has come to see him. Not a bad episode after all that.

RUN JOE! THE NOMADS WANT TO GET YA!

[tcchelsey · 8/10 · 18 October 2022]

Lots of thumbs down about this episode, but it's the stuff us kids grew up on in the 70s. The sentimentality wins out, at least for me. I give it 8 Stars, if anything for the actors.

Since the MOD SQUAD was also shot on the Paramount lot, there's a good chance this script may have been lifted from the series (which had since ended). The same was done with MISSION IMPOSSIBLE scripts as you will see. Joe versus a tough gang of teens and twentysomethings who think the're soooo cool. He shoots their beloved rogue leader, Red, played by popular actor Paul Carr.

Carr was everywhere on tv in the 60s and 70s, best remembered for his appearances on STAR TREK, later BUCK ROGERS.

Only debit (and, yes we are used to it by this stage).... with all the guns and knives, Joe should have been toast. Period. That said, some very talented young actors on board, again going back to the style of MOD SQUAD. Lots of talking here, and that reminds me of the classic line from the GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY; "If you're gonna' shoot, shoot, don't talk." Then again, all the jibber jabber may have saved Joe's life in the first place.

Poetic license 101. You be the judge.

Two memorable senior actors to note, Eddie Firestone, a staple in many tv shows and movies, playing a homeless person who crosses paths with Joe. Also heavy Paul Picerni as the police sergeant this time around. Ward Wood returns, which may the best news of all!

SEASON 7 EPISODE 5 CBS/Paramount remastered color dvd box set.

Dreadful...appalling...embarrassing...The worst episode of the entire series!

[pkfloydmh · 1/10 · 15 April 2015]

This is by far the worst episode of the entire series. It's filled with overacting, poor acting, cringe-worthy sentimentality and numerous mistakes. Avoid this one like the plague, because it's ugly.

The episode gets off to a very bad start in the scene in Dietz's apartment, when he attempts to escape from Joe by crashing through a window, but the stunt clearly doesn't work as the stuntman is initially pushed back and has to do it a second time to get it to work. If that wasn't bad enough, the window also appears to be fake as it looks like it's made from a couple of flimsy pieces of plywood! Unbelievable and very, very sloppy, but it only gets much worse from here.

Then when Joe is chasing Dietz in the streets, it's obviously a stuntman he's chasing since his hair looks nothing like Dietz's. Then right after the black car skids in front of Dietz, a parked tan car appears out of nowhere, and after Dietz is shot, the police rush right in when they had no way of knowing what was going on or where. Then right after the shooting, the gang of kids refer to Joe by his last name when they had no way of knowing what that is.

When Joe is running away from the gang of kids who kidnapped him, he gets shot in the back by one of the kids and falls down momentarily and then gets up again and starts running again, and as he's doing this he's clearly holding his back where he was shot. He then briefly finds a hiding place and as he's getting up out of it, he's now holding his stomach which is now bleeding instead of his back even though he was NEVER SHOT in his stomach!! Also, for the rest of the show, you can see two bloody bullet holes in the back of his suit coat even though he was only shot once and that wound has now changed from being in his back to his stomach!! This is jaw-droppingly ugly.

Then Joe goes into a store to try to get some help but the store owner REFUSES to help him in any way and won't even call the police for him and even tells him to go die somewhere else! Unbelievable. He tells Joe he doesn't want to call the police because he's afraid the gang members will find out that he was the one who called the police, but how are they going to find that out?? The police aren't going to tell them. Makes no sense.

Then at the end when the young boy (who is a dreadful actor) says he's going to kill Joe, you KNOW he's not going to do it because he's too nice. He then lets Joe go and when two other gang members arrive and ask him where Joe is, he inexplicably tells them that he let him go, which is absolutely the WORST thing he could have said, because he has to know that they're going to beat him up after he tells them that, which is exactly what happens. How stupid can you be??? He also looks directly at the camera at one point and his hair is all messed up too. The rest of the gang members are horrible actors too.

There's also embarrassing overacting and sentimentality by Nadyne Turney, who plays Helen Paul, the young boy's mother, and overacting by Mike Connors himself, whose constant groans and gasps get old very quickly. His acting at the end when he's on the stretcher is shockingly terrible.

Ward Wood's acting is uncharacteristically awful as he's stiff and looks uncomfortable, probably because he can see what a horrendous debacle this is.

This is an epic catastrophe. It's a complete disaster from start to finish. It's shocking no one at CBS was able to see this train wreck and stop it from airing. Appalling, but then so is this whole episode.

"The Gang's All Here" was a nailbitingly suspenseful "Mannix"

[tonyvmonte-54973 · 8/10 · 6 May 2024]

I taped this ep of "Mannix" a little after the beginning so I didn't see Joe shoot the guy who got it. The first part I saw was a gang of teens in a dilapidated hangout deciding to get this guy who's about to take a plane to see his father on his birthday. Joe sends Peggy on an errand leaving him alone when those teens threaten him. I'll stop there and just say this was quite a nailbiter throughout as you wonder how Joe will survive this time. I liked both Mike Connors and Gail Fisher's performances in this one. Ditto most of the guest performances especially the one who played the wino. I highly recommend this one.

Dreadful ep with absolutely miserable acting

[bnelso-23793 · 2/10 · 21 December 2018]

Plot:Mannix kills a bad man in the line of duty. But that is just the beginning. The baddie's affiliated gang comes along to Mannix's neat apartment and kidnap him. They take him back to their street gang hideout and announce they are going to kill him. God, is this contrived! He gets shot while fleeing. He meets an obnoxious bum and gives him money to phone for help but the bum just gets drunk at a bar with the money. At a nearby restaurant works the mother of a new just-being-initiated gang member. The lady playing this mother is completely terrible at acting. It seems like the Mannix character is barely even in this ep groaning from his wound most of the terrible show long. Watch the way better Mannix ep I reviewed just before this one.

Avoid!!

PS To the odd poster who spoke so well of this dreck ep I ask. Are you related to someone acting in this episode?

Glad to see other posters on here know this episode is entirely worthless!

Shockingly Terrible

[tedphx · 1/10 · 23 April 2021]

There's absolutely nothing good to say about this episode, and I couldn''t say enough bad about it, so I'd better not start. Every scene, at least as many as I culd get through, is an insult to the audience.

Purely awful ep from start to finish

[gregkent-67629 · 1/10 · 6 March 2021]

Bad acting. Dreadful writing both plague this terrible ep with no story. It concerns Mannix being hunted on ghetto streets by a teenage gang of thugs wanting to both exact revenge on him and make a tough show of murder to a rival gang. The major guest stars are vapid --- all of them! Abomination of an ep indeed!

Rebels without a clue

[Guad42 · 2/10 · 23 April 2021]

Much like everyone else, I would put this outing in the running for "worst episode ever". Right down there with "A Gathering of Ghosts." Bad acting abounds. As others have said, the gang members are just bad actors, about as threatening as the Sharks and Jets from West Side Story. James Dean and Sal Mineo have nothing to worry about.

Several of the guest cast have been in enough episodes to seem like semi-regulars now. Paul Carr as a bad guy who ends up dead. Eddie Firestone as a low life. Paul Picerni in his "Untouchables" supporting cop role. (In fairness, he has been a bad guy on one episode of the show.)

Joe getting shot is old hat but at least this time the wound actually has an effect on him. Maybe too much so. He should be laid up for months but we know he'll be hale and hearty in a week. Why is it the bad guys never just shoot Joe? If he had killed my brother, I wouldn't make a show of it. I'd just pop him and be done with it. I hope Joe makes a report on the liquor store owner. If nothing else, the police can rouse him and make his life miserable for awhile.

Peggy gets this episode an extra star. Gail Fisher could act when they let her. Lt Malcolm lends his usual solid support. Paul Picerni is a good police sergeant although I don't know why he is in this.

Did Joe get paid for this one? I'm not sure. He did kind of goon it up. Hope the city covered his medical bills if nothing else.

Have to admit I enjoyed watching it, with all its flaws.

[pnolname · 3/10 · 22 April 2021]

I had it on during my daily workout, so my standards might have been lower than usual. I'd say that the "street gang" was a little more "Welcome Back Kotter" than "The Partridge Family", but they were pretty lame. The streets in which they hung out looked a lot more NYC than LA to my eyes; must have been what was free on the Universal lot that day. And yes, the acting was pretty inconsistent; the mother of the 14yo wannabe killer was doing alright until she tried to cry; some lemon juice might have helped. And, her kid seemed to be trying to sound pre-pubescent when the actor (later stunt man) Stephen Hudis was actually about 16. Still, I liked the story and, though I was thinking about what changes it would take to make the exchange less corny, found the climax in which Mannix convinces the kid to turn away from a life of crime oddly compelling. Could have been better, but it was still worth watching.

Proof what complete, total tripe this episode is!!

[bobstevens-16810 · 1/10 · 15 September 2023]

The ep has already been reviewed. My point. It ( the proof)is in the performance of series star Mike Connors himself. Once he gets shot he turns in a strange, bizarre and detached performance from absolutely everyone else in the episode. It is like he is practically in a different show.

What must have happened was this. Connors could simply not believe how inhumanly and non-thinking the script was about street kids hunting Mannix on the streets of LA. He obviously did not want to do this one but had to as it was in his demanded series contract. He probably said he would spend the rest of his career disowning this episode. It looks like a five year old wrote it. Why on Earth did this terrible episode get a network go-ahead!?! Why!?!

To the above poster who rated it as high three stats when it was lower than ant's belly. Mannix was filmed on the Paramount not Universal backlot! Get facts straight!