Paper War (7.8)

[Jay-Firestorm]

The high quality of season seven continues, with another one of my all-time favourite episodes.

[rating=10]

While Magnum is working on a case to break a crooked gambling ring, he and Higgins become embroiled in a feud of one-upmanship with each other, but the level of their practical ‘jokes’ beings to spiral out of control. A classic Magnum / Higgins showcase…

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This review contains spoilers.

After a dodgy start with ‘L.A.’, season seven continues its upward trend of high quality episodes with this classic instalment.

This is the perfect showcase of the strange Magnum / Higgins relationship, which sees them arguing like a married couple.
The writing and acting is of a very high quality, and in my opinion the episode is as sharp as the show’s early episodes.

I wasn’t sure about T.C.’s computer game being wiped after Higgins caused Magnum to shut it down – even back in the days when we weren’t so familiar with how computers worked, this didn’t seem very realistic (and actually, I incorrectly remember this as coming from a different episode). But thankfully, this is the only minor niggle with an otherwise perfect story.

One touch I really like is that, even as their pranks on each other begin to spiral out of control, Magnum in his narration still speaks of Higgins as if he is a very close friend and that they understand how each other works, seemingly oblivious to what a terrible state their relationship (or whatever you’d term it as) has reached.

Another key element of the latter end of the show’s run is introduced in this episode – Higgins may actually be Robin Masters. Some like this notion, some don’t, and there are certainly a couple of earlier episodes that contradict this (the first season’s ‘J. “Digger” Doyle’ and season three’s ‘The Big Blow’ spring to mind), but there is little that can’t be explained away without a little creative reasoning. Whether Higgins was really Robin or not was never fully given away in the show, and I like it for that – it was up for each individual viewer to make up his / her mind for themselves.

The sequences with Magnum and Higgins stuck in the lift, in the building about to be demolished, are also very good, and I like how they stuck two great actors, Tom Selleck and John Hillerman, in a confined space and let them just bounce off of each other.

All-in-all, this is (yet) another classic from season seven, and definitely one for my all time Top 10 favourite episodes of the series. It’s perfect… and how many other shows could have revolved such a great story around a flower blooming!

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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* Another episode with no opening trailer on the DVD… I wonder if the TV version or the Region 2 DVDs have one?

* Yet another case of the DVD version having act breaks abridged… they just do it to annoy me!

* When they are stuck in the lift, Higgins comments that Magnum is forty. In fact, Magnum does not turn forty until later in this season (in the episode aptly named ‘Forty’!). Maybe Higgins was just ‘rounding up’ (or possibly ‘Forty’ was already filmed but not aired yet).

* This has already been touched upon, but Magnum comments that he has never seen Higgins have a real belly laugh. As already noted, he laughed quite heavily in season one’s ‘China Doll’, and another one that springs to mind for me is in the first season finale ‘Beauty Knows No Pain’, when Higgins laughs about Magnum using the bus.

* When Magnum pokes his head out of the top of the elevator, check out the quality of film on the shot of the rat – it is all scratchy and dirty, and seems to be (old) pre-existing stock footage.

[Carol the Dabbler]

How could a building just demolish around Magnum and Higgins and they just walk out of the rubble like they are some kind invincible superheroes?

I said the same thing to Hubby last night, and he pointed out that they got the elevator door partially open about the time the countdown got to "zero," and then it took the building a while to actually collapse. I didn't insist on rewatching that scene, but it does seem [barely] conceivable that if they squeezed through the elevator door immediately after the camera left them, and made a mad dash for open air, they might have [barely] had time.

If I'd been cutting that scene, I'd have made it just a tad more plausible, though. There would still have been plenty of room for suspense.

I've been enjoying all your various takes on the Higgins/Robin question. At the moment, I agree with the idea that there really is a person named Robin Masters, whom we have seen from to time, and he really is [more or less] who he purports to be. Likewise for Higgins.

The "more or less" part comes in, of course, regarding authorship of "the" novels. I suspect that Robin is a "poor little rich boy" who can perfectly well afford his life of decadent luxury, due to the family trust fund. But his jet-set pals are rich because they're famous FOR something, and Robin envies their reputations. He wants to be famous FOR something, too. He has a good imagination, so he decides he'll write novels.

The only problem is, although he has a real talent for coming up with fantastic plots, he can't write worth a damn. That, of course, is where Higgins comes in. Higgie has a wonderful way with words, and even a talent for (as Magnum put it) embellishment. But he needs someplace to start (such as his own life) -- he has absolutely no ability to make things up out of whole cloth.

So Robin hires Higgins (not vice-versa as Magnum conjectures) to flesh out his plots into complete novels. Higgins is paid handsomely, not only for doing the actual writing, but also for keeping his mouth shut about the arrangement. Part of his compensation is the estate -- even though the deed must remain in Robin's name to preserve the facade, the estate, the Ferrari, etc., all "belong" to Higgins.

[timm525]

Hello all!

Newbie here.

Love the site and the show. Watched it as a kid when it first aired.

This was my favorite ep.

I always suspected Higgins was Robin but as already mentioned there are lots of issues with this being the case.

Couple of things I noticed about the elevator scene. I work around elevators at work.

1. When the demolition guy turns the power back on and Higgins hits the button and the car starts going down you can see that the car is a "traction" car by the "ropes" in the center holding the car up. The significance of this is that when they were jumping up and down trying to get the car to "slip" as Higgins called it, they would not be successful in doing that. The counter weight on traction cars is significantly heavier then the weight of the empty car. This is to offset the weight of a fully loaded car. With only two passengers, the counter weight would still be heavier. Therefore, the point being, they would actually travel up into the overhead, not down into the pit in that case. I've actually had to remove stuck passengers from traction cars by drifting the car up to the next level by prying the break apart slowly.

2. When the car "fell" into the pit and we see them forcing the doors open, one of them would have to be a "Bionic Man" to forcibly separate the metal restrictor that prevents passengers from doing just that.

I will say that if they did get on top of the car, they could have easily gotten out the the shaft from there.

Couple of my favorite scenes was when TM blew up Higgins' bridge. The look on his face was priceless. As well as when Higgins grabs Magnum's gun from his waist band and you can see the look of shock and surprise on Magnum's face for a split second as he sees Higgins pointing his gun at him and then Higgins sighs when he realizes what Magnum is looking at.

Favorite line: "What's the condition of the Cereus? Not serious I hope" TM.

[J.J. Walters]

Greetings timm525! Great to have you here.

[Coops]

Indeed, a priceless, priceless episode! As you can tell by my sig!

[StarchedUndershirts]

Hey Timm! Welcome to a grat site about a great show!

[steveadl]

Loved this episode, funny and light hearted. Shows you the range the show can take - from an episode like Death and Taxes, to Paper War.

[steveadl]

Loved this episode, funny and light hearted. Shows you the range the show can take - from an episode like Death and Taxes, to Paper War.

[Honolulu Lulu]

I'd like to add my applause for this episode, too! If for no other reason than we get to see a review of Magnum and Higgins' toys: early video game, miniature canon, rubber chicken, match stick bridge . . .

I love these characters because while they are clever, brave, and capable men who can solve any mystery or fight off any foe, they are also little boys at heart. And for all the antagonism they exchange, this episode ends up revealing how much they value one another deep down.

It's one of the reasons why I love this show!

[Styles Bitchley]

This is a great episode, but for some reason I don't like it as much as most people. What I do like about it is that it fleshes out the Magnum and Higgins characters more than any other episode. It gives recognition to the fact that their relatioship has been close for seven years now and it is inevitably entering a new phase. The highjinx are fun to watch, but it isn't enough to be the main plot line of a show. The secondary plot (the gambling syndicate) is pretty fluffy too.

There were also some things that are too difficult to believe. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it could be that easy to hotwire a 308. What about the steering column lock? Also, as several have pointed out earlier in the thread, the elevator timing is way too close. Even if the elevator protected them from the rubble, how would they have gotten out? It also didn't really make sense why Higgins was IN the elevator when Magnum showed up...

I noticed a couple of odd things too. Higgins' hair in this episode is more greasy than usual and keeps reminding me of Hitler the way the bangs hang off to the side. Anybody else or just me???

Also, at one point in his voice over, Selleck refers to Higgins' memoirs as "memwoas" (as though with a British accent). I suppose this could be an attempt at mockery, but it seems more like mis-speak.

Magnum also refers at one point to his "Detroit Tiger Cap" rather than "Tigers Cap." This seems odd to me.

Overall, it's a pretty good episode, but I don't put it up there with the likes of Death and Taxes, China Doll and Home From the Sea.

[J.J. Walters]

I noticed a couple of odd things too. Higgins' hair in this episode is more greasy than usual and keeps reminding me of Hitler the way the bangs hang off to the side. Anybody else or just me???

I thought I was the only one!

[Styles Bitchley]

Just thought I'd post a link to Rick Romer's blog post on the Bridge on the River Kwai model here. http://magnumdecorator.blogspot.com/201 ... -post.html

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks for that link, Styles! I keep seeing references here to Rick's blog, but had never gotten around to following up. Looks like I've got some reading to do!

[miltontheripper]

Guys,

I saw a Tom Selleck interview around 1990 where he was asked about Higgins being Robin Masters. He said, "Magnum believed Higgins was Robin Masters and Magnum was the star of the show; therefore, Higgins was Robin".

I guess it all comes down to what you want to believe. I like the idea James has that Higgins did all the real work and Robin took the credit to keep the unwanted publicity away from Higgins. That makes total sense to me. It became obvious that the implication that Higgins was more than a caretaker of the estate was there during most of the show's run.

Luther H Gillis

I completely agree! James idea makes sense to me. In the past I found the whole "Higgins is Robin" idea fairly ridiculous but as described above, it could totally happen.

[miltontheripper]

I noticed a couple of odd things too. Higgins' hair in this episode is more greasy than usual and keeps reminding me of Hitler the way the bangs hang off to the side. Anybody else or just me???

I thought I was the only one!

Ha ha, me too! I've laughed at that since the first time I saw this one years ago. And great comment comparing him to Hitler, it looked totally ridiculous and uncharacteristic for Higgins (even though they were trapped in an elevator). What a great episode overall. The strained friendship finally breaks and let the prank war begin!!! From start to finish, one of the best for sure. I love the detonation of the bridge, priceless!!!! And TM weed wacking the flowers totally cracked me up.