Solo Flight (7.16)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the seventh season

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How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
8
9%
9.5 (One of the Best)
13
14%
9.0 (Excellent)
21
23%
8.5 (Very Good)
19
20%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
14
15%
7.5 (Decent)
5
5%
7.0 (Average at Best)
2
2%
6.5 (Not So Good)
6
6%
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
0
No votes
5.0 (Just Awful)
5
5%
 
Total votes: 93

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Braddah Kimo
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#51 Post by Braddah Kimo »

I do hope that was sarcasm tigers fan, because there is much in Hawaii that exemplifies our daily life and culture, that has been happily ignored Through the magnum years. The Tingler is exactly what comes to mind on a weekly basis when one of dees buggahs makes his way toward my inviting ankle. And believe you me, they are big and disgusting And they are dangerous and they're damned near everywhere.

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ConchRepublican
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#52 Post by ConchRepublican »

TIGERS FAN wrote:Recently while planning my Magnum PI Oahu vacation I learned that there are giant centipedes. I hate bugs, and these damn things remind me of the "tingler"! I immediatly called bullsh*t, I never saw a single damn centipede on Magnum (not that that would mean there aren't any) so there. I obviously forgot about this episode. OH MY GOD!!! I'm gonna be hate'n those damn things!!!
Oh man ...... This is NOT cool! I'm no Indiana Jones, gimme snakes any day over these skeevies. Talk about heebie jeebie time!!!!!

http://fireflyforest.net/firefly/2010/0 ... centipede/
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Higgette
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#53 Post by Higgette »

GADS those things are horrible. I get them in my raised 1st floor apartment - in Minnesota of all places! There are 2 kinds, the house kind which look like deformed daddy-long-legs and this, the jungle kind. I've had them both. Far prefer the house kind. The jungle kind are hard to kill - I've tried wacking them but they tend to jump and run like the dickens. But I suck it up and smoosh them if they are around my cats! Fortunately it's been a long time since I've seen one, fingers crossed.

Anyway, I rated this ep 8.5 - would have been higher but it was such an obvious re-imagining of Home from the Sea. Did like the concept of him saving himself after such a long-established pattern of relying on his buddies to come to the rescue..

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Doc Fred
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#54 Post by Doc Fred »

8.5

Very enjoyable, and we see a transition in Thomas' life....

A couple of things didn't seem quite right to me....

As was noted, the sequence pinning him under the plane didn't seem that well done....

When he was trapped, he never attempted to dig himself out. Maybe there would have been too much rock and he couldn't have, but he didn't even start digging. With the vegetation on the ground, it seems to me that they should have at least written in an attempt to excavate himself from under the plane.

I wish they had showed how he actually got out from being trapped.

When he was heading down the mountain, it seems to me that the hunters would have made some effort to help him... "Hey, are you ok? What can we do to help you?"... or that he would have at least spoken to them asking for help. Very unrealistic sequence...

I very much liked the looking back into his life and the pain that went with it... showing where he really came from.
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ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#55 Post by ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan) »

Man! What a wretched episode!

Easily the worst episode of the series! From what I've seen anyway...

Give me the season 2 stinker "One More Summer" any day over this one. Magnum having a conversation with a freakin' fly? :? Magnum seeing a vision of a dude who turns into a giant fly?? :shock:

Yeah, I'm sure all this is supposed to be some deep pseudo-psychological soul searching mumbo jumbo. But no thanks. I'll pass. Actually I didn't have a problem with the way it began. It held some promise. I liked the idea of Magnum going up on that mountain alone to "find himself". Sure, I'll go with it. I never minded a deeper story. In fact my favorite MAGNUM episodes are the deeper, more serious ones. Usually with some link back to 'Nam. But this just turned into some surreal mess with Magnum babbling to himself and "Herman" for the duration. Ugghhh!!

There is one thing that I liked - the very end. No, not the end credits (though seeing those was indeed a huge relief :wink:) but when Magnum kills "Herman" by slapping his neck. That was great! :D

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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#56 Post by marlboro »

Yeah, I have to agree with the above poster and say I didn't like this one either. It just seemed like a clip show showcasing other, better, episodes. I found the hallucinations to be a bit too surreal for my tastes as well. It just seemed silly.

And how in the heck did he get that plane off of him at the end? I think they cheated a bit by not showing it. Unless Archimedes came strolling by, I don't see Magnum figuring out how to move a plane off of his chest with a 3 foot pole using "leverage,"


Coincidentally, the only modern show that I like, Breaking Bad, had an episode called "Fly" that had a lot of character introspection in it. I hated that episode too. :) Its the only episode of that series that I didn't care for. Maybe I'm just not a fly person

Image



Speaking of coincidences: Elisha Cook Jr was in a movie in 1942 called "Sleepytime Gal"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035344/reference

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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#57 Post by SignGuyHPW »

I really, really enjoyed this one. I thought it was much better than "Home On The Sea." The fact that Magnum was forced to get himself out of the trouble instead of magical psychic powers propelling Rick and TC to his location gave it a much more satisfying feel for me.

What I didn't like was how casually Magnum got out from under the plane. It seemed like he could escape at any time, but was waiting to be rescued. I was also completely baffled as to why it looked like he was wearing camo paint on half of his face mid way through the episode. The weird voice he was using at the end was also an odd choice, but maybe they were going with his throat being sore from dehydration?

I thought structuring the show's flashbacks and dream sequences to Magnum's mental state as he got sicker and lost more blood was genius. He'd drift into something weird and then get a jolt of clarity when he tried to force himself to focus and they'd reflect that in the dreams. I also felt like the hurt Magnum showed when TC explained he had a backup in place because he knew Magnum would miss practice was hugely emotional. I think it may have been the biggest blow he took from one of the regulars on the show. When he called to make arrangements to make it up to TC and the kids I think that's when he felt like he'd gotten out of all of the jams by himself. The look Higgins had when Magnum explained he'd fallen in his mother's tub was priceless. Higgins didn't know how to respond to something so absurd.

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Turkey
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#58 Post by Turkey »

Loved this one, the surrealist touches were ace. Keen to watch it again and see if it's as enjoyable as I remember.
Make it two weeks.

Croix de Lorraine
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#59 Post by Croix de Lorraine »

This episode is slower tan usual, but it resonates with me. The whole growing pains thing is a constant in my life. I love how he watches old war movies for soul searching just like I watch old Magnum episodes. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up so I could be like Magnum and other badass adults from film and TV. Re-watching these episodes gets me in touch with subtler sides of the show that I couldn't grasp as a child. Now I've caught up with Magnum and just like him I'm taking stock.

Not a fan of the reused flashback scenes thoiugh. Whenever any show does it, it feels like lazy hurried filler.

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Milton Collins
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#60 Post by Milton Collins »

I had never really been a fan of this episode as I thought it was slow moving and boring. I recently watched again and realized it is MUCH deeper than I had thought and requires multiple viewings (and being a few years older to appreciate as well). I think this is a fantastic case study into Magnum's mental state, his dissatisfaction with some things in his life, and also dealing with growing older. I also think this episode perfectly demonstrates the fact that he is not perfect and infallable. I love that about Magnum, he makes mistakes and screws things up, he gets yelled at by angry and unreasonable clients, he even gets fired occassionaly from a case. I heard or read somewhere once that the directors initially wanted the Thomas Magnum character to be this perfect almost bulletproof Viet Nam vet that was incapable of error that was stripped of many "human" characteristics but that Selleck didn't want to play the character that way. He wanted to make it his own and make Magnum a real human being that was much more relatable to the audience. I think the entire series did a good job portraying this and that this episode is a great example of it!

The scene where TM is dressed in his Tiger's uniform in his casket features a great exchange:

TC: Higgins, you never gave him his due credit
Higgins: That's not true!
Rick: And you were always messing with his mail!

This scene cracks my up and living in Michigan and being a huge Tigers fan I love TM's devotion to his team (as always!). My one complaint was the human into fly theme and I could have done without it as I was intrigued by the vague details of the case he was fired from. I was enjoying trying to figure out the ties between the angry old boss and the employee with the mustache and thought this was pretty dumb. But at the same time TM was halucinating from the centipede bite so I'll cut this scene some slack lol.

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KingKC
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#61 Post by KingKC »

I am slowly getting around to those episodes that I did not care that much for and this is definitely one of them. Many of my comments from "Home From the Sea" are appropriate here. I watched MPI for the private investigation aspects, even the lighthearted ones. I understand about developing characters but that was accomplished throughout the series. If my memory serves me correctly the episode did not show how TM freed himself from under the plane, did it? He just kind of appeared limping down the hillside at the end.

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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#62 Post by thechickinthemiddle »

I honestly feel for the person just flipping channels and coming across Harvey with the fly's head completely without context. :shock:

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Big Kahuna
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#63 Post by Big Kahuna »

Given there was already a 4th July Magnum-goes-all-solitary episode in season 7 with Death and Taxes, was this one really a 4th July episode? I got the impression that Magnum was just super pissed off about a few things and they got the better of him until he went to clear his head. There's no mention of the 4th July at any point...and no one else is making plans...
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Gatchaman
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#64 Post by Gatchaman »

Big Kahuna wrote:Given there was already a 4th July Magnum-goes-all-solitary episode in season 7 with Death and Taxes, was this one really a 4th July episode? I got the impression that Magnum was just super pissed off about a few things and they got the better of him until he went to clear his head. There's no mention of the 4th July at any point...and no one else is making plans...
Agreed. It must be labeled that because all the flashbacks. But I don't think we get a real sense of when this episode took place at all, except that it's baseball season.
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Re: Solo Flight (7.16)

#65 Post by Kevster »

I've always liked Norman Fell, so that was a positive thing in this episode. This one was also pretty crucial in the TM evolution of the last couple seasons. This was a catalyst episode that sets up the end of the series (Both Season 7 and 8). TM was acting with more conviction after his experience.

But (!!!!), the fly in the three-piece suit tanked this episode in every way for me. I get what the artistry was meant to be, but it was bad TV then (and is more obvious now).
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