Magnum Mania!

Missing in Action

Episode Number: 9
Season Number: 1.9
Air Date: 2/5/1981
Writers: Craig Buck, Ken Pettus
Story: Craig Buck
Director: Robert Loggia
Producer: J. Rickley Dumm
Exec Producer: Donald P. Bellisario

Recurring Characters

Jeff MacKay (Lt. "Mac" MacReynolds), Remi Abellira (Moki), Patrick Bishop (Pat)

Guest Stars

Rebecca Holden (Laura Frasier), Lance LeGault (John W. Newton), Francisco Lagueruela (Eric Tobin)

Episode Brief

Inspired by her recent visions, a new singer at the King Kamehameha Club, hires Magnum to find her fiance, Eric, a Marine listed as Missing In Action. Thomas discovers that Eric was a member of the top-secret 'Delta Section' and is, in fact, still alive. Someone else, however, is searching for him and they are determined to bring him in and keep him quiet, at any cost.

Rating

7.6

(27 votes)

Rate Episode

Notes

¹ Paranormal events (ESP) are featured for the first time in this episode. Other paranormal phenomena will featured in several later episodes.

² Lt. MacReynolds (Jeff MacKay) appears for the first time! MacKay had previously appeared in the "Pilot Movie" as "Ski", a Marine MP. "Mac" will appear in 11 more episodes. In an interesting bit of trivia, Jeff MacKay is the cousin of Robert Redford. Robert got Jeff interested in acting and helped him get his Screen Actors Guild card with a part in the 1976 film All the Presidents Men.

³ Magnum says he was sent to Vietnam on 7/15/1967. This will be contradicted several times in future episodes, most notably by the fact that he didn't graduate from the Naval Academy until 1968, and he was the starting quarterback for the midshipman in the 1967 season!

⁴ The Hotel Street vice district in downtown Honolulu is used as a filming location for several scenes. Bill Lederer's Bar (at the corner of Hotel & Nuuanu Streets), a Honolulu landmark for many years, can be seen briefly at the end of the Magnum/Tobin foot chase. The bar will later be turned into a police substation, and an art gallery. Much of the foot chase scene was filmed at the same location as the famous "Mama music sequence" (in the alley) in Season Seven's "Death and Taxes" (7.6).

⁵ Higgins is seen performing hypnosis for the first time. He will be seen doing it in several later episodes, including "Try to Remember" (2.15) and "Ms. Jones" (5.19). We also learn that Higgins is the acting Board Member of the King Kamehameha Club. It is revealed that he has Robin Master's proxy.

⁶ Rebecca Holden (Laura Frasier) sings a few lines of the 1979 Dionne Warwick hit "Deja Vu", written by Issac Hayes and Adrienne Anderson. Rebecca will later appear as a regular cast member for another iconic Universal Studios 80s TV show, Knight Rider (for Season Two).

⁷ Lance LeGault (Agent Newton) will go on to play the reccuring role of Marine Colonel "Buck" Greene, beginning with "Memories Are Forever (1)" (2.5).

⁸ A number of Laura's lines on the beach with Magnum seem to be re-recorded and dubbed over, presumably because Rebecca Holden's soft voice couldn't be heard well enough over the sound of the roaring surf.

⁹ Laura's "Eric!", when looking into Higgins' crystal on the opening trailer, is from a different take to that used in the actual episode. (Noted by Jay-Firestorm)

¹⁰ In a scene on the patio deck of the King Kamehameha Club, T.C. looks and talks directly to the camera, breaking the fourth wall. T.C. breaks the fourth wall only a handful of times in the series.

¹¹ Laura Frasier says that her family grew up next to Eric's in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Webster Groves was recently ranked number nine in Family Circle Magazine's list of "Ten Best Cities for Families" in America.

¹² In the opening trailer, the Naval computer showing the blocked Delta Section information makes a different noise than in the actual episode. In the trailer, it is a sort of scrambled computer noise; in the episode it is a beeping sound. (Noted by Jay-Firestorm)

¹³ Briefly in 1948, Higgins was in India and learned hypnosis. He later used it when his sister lost the family brooch.

¹⁴ Diamond Head Lighthouse can briefly be seen during an aerial shot of the Ferrari driving along the coast. This shot is from the "Pilot Movie" and will be used as stock footage in several future episodes.

Quotes

¹
(T.C. has just fixed the Ferrari)
T.C.: That'll be fifty bucks.
Magnum: Fifty bucks? What for?
T.C.: Well, there's something known as parts man.
Magnum: Fifty bucks for spark plugs?! Cmon!
T.C.: That's right!
Magnum: Look, I gotta run. I'll see you this afternoon.
T.C.: Hey man, it's Friday. I need the fifty bucks to buy a fuel pump for my chopper.
Magnum: Well, all I've got is a twenty.
T.C.: Alright man, that will do for right now.
Magnum: T.C.! You mean you'd let me drive out of here broke?
T.C.: Well that's the way you ALWAYS drive in! The money Thomas.
Magnum: Ok, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll loan you ten until this evening.
T.C.: You'll loan me ten? You OWE me fifty!
Magnum: That's right, which I don't have, so I'll loan you ten to keep you afloat. You can pay me back when I pay you the fifty.
T.C.: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's with this Abbott & Costello routine? - You owe me fifty, you loan me ten? Forget it!
Magnum: Oh, ok. Thanks, I owe you one.
(Magnum drives off)
T.C.: You owe me one? You owe me fifty!!

Flubs

¹ At the end of the episode, Newton shoots Eric with a rifle. Eric takes one shot to the chest and falls about 30 feet into the water. Magnum then shoots Newton with his .45. For some reason, Magnum makes no effort to pull Eric out of the water, despite the fact that they have been looking for him the whole episode, and his fiance Laura is present. Why would Magnum assume he is dead after one shot from a rifle? Why didn't he make an effort to pull him out of the water?

Shoot me an email if you'd like to have something added or corrected

---

---