Transitions (8.11)

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J.J. Walters
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#21 Post by J.J. Walters »

Coops wrote:Found a flub. I guess only a Camaro freak like me could pick it out. When Higgins is in the Audi and the brakes fail, there is a close up shot of the inside of the car with him pulling on the parking brake repeatedly. That is actually the interior of a 3rd generation Camaro (1982-1992). You can tell by the "baseball" shape of the shifter knob and the tell-tale shape of the vent on the forward part of the center console. The buttons on the stereo also give it away.

On a side note, as a Camaro/Firebird fan, I noticed that they were used a LOT in the show, not only as a villian's getaway car but also used in the background of a lot of scenes. Just thought I'd point that out.
Ah, nice one Coops! Interesting about the Camaro/Firebird's being used heavily in the show. Someone involved in the show definitely was a fan!
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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Carol the Dabbler
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#22 Post by Carol the Dabbler »

In Episode Note 11, J.J. Walters wrote:This is the only time in the entire series that Magnum uses a mobile phone!
lutherhgillis wrote:There was another episode where Rick and TC used a similar mobile telephone and one episode where TM used the mobile telephone installed inside the Audi. I cannot recall the episode names...
It would be nice to resolve this discrepancy -- though of course not all that urgent!

Jay-Firestorm wrote:I ... knew all along that the culprit behind the trouble would turn out to be Suzi Merill (Randy Brooks) – she is given such prominence throughout the story and just ‘happens to be there’ with little explanation, that I found it blatantly obvious.
Right, Jay -- Hubby and I were saying all along that it had to be her. But somehow they did blindside us with Bruce Kunkle being her accomplice! Even though Suzi had been introduced as his date at the party, he was such a backgroundish kind of character that it just never occurred to me that "the accountant did it."


A couple of bits still puzzle me, though. At the beginning, we see someone's glove-clad hands sneaking the manuscript INTO a safe. I kept expecting it would turn out that either it had been put into Higgins' safe to make him look like an idiot if he reported it missing, or else that someone (possibly even Higgins) was being framed as the thief. The safe is finally identified as being in Suzi's hotel room. But Suzi is identified as the thief! So who was sneaking the manuscript into her safe -- and why?

Also, didn't Higgins say that the messenger service turned out to be bogus? Then what was that place on "Kauai" that apparently gave Magnum the address of Suzi's hotel? Did I miss something?
Carol

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J.J. Walters
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#23 Post by J.J. Walters »

Suzi apparently likes to keep her ammunition cleverly disguised, but handy, on a bracelet, almost taunting the two P.I.'s to catch her! :)

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Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

Croix de Lorraine
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#24 Post by Croix de Lorraine »

Coops wrote:When Higgins is in the Audi and the brakes fail
This scene shows why you should always drive a manual. Had he been driving a manual he could have slowed the car down to a halt by using the gear shift.
Last edited by Croix de Lorraine on Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#25 Post by Croix de Lorraine »

J.J. Walters wrote: Is it just me, or did anyone else think "Supermac" when hearing about "Malcolm MacDonald"?
Actually I did, but how come you did?

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Pahonu
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#26 Post by Pahonu »

Croix de Lorraine wrote:
Coops wrote:When Higgins is in the Audi and the brakes fail
This scene shows why you should always drive a manual. Had he been driving a manual he could have slowed the car down to a halt by using the gear shift.
Having both circuits of the brake system fail completely, short of tampering, is extremely rare. The emergency brake can also be used, and turning off the engine while in gear causes quite a bit of mechanical drag. All this doesn't make for exciting television, however. :lol:

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#27 Post by Croix de Lorraine »

Pahonu wrote:
Croix de Lorraine wrote:
Coops wrote:When Higgins is in the Audi and the brakes fail
This scene shows why you should always drive a manual. Had he been driving a manual he could have slowed the car down to a halt by using the gear shift.
Having both circuits of the brake system fail completely, short of tampering, is extremely rare. The emergency brake can also be used, and turning off the engine while in gear causes quite a bit of mechanical drag. All this doesn't make for exciting television, however. :lol:
Pahonu, Magnum PI has taught us that evil never rests. You can never be too careful! :wink:

Incidentally, Higgins tries to use the handbrake but it seems to have been tampered with too.

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Pahonu
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#28 Post by Pahonu »

Croix de Lorraine wrote:
Pahonu wrote:
Croix de Lorraine wrote:
Coops wrote:When Higgins is in the Audi and the brakes fail
This scene shows why you should always drive a manual. Had he been driving a manual he could have slowed the car down to a halt by using the gear shift.
Having both circuits of the brake system fail completely, short of tampering, is extremely rare. The emergency brake can also be used, and turning off the engine while in gear causes quite a bit of mechanical drag. All this doesn't make for exciting television, however. :lol:
Pahonu, Magnum PI has taught us that evil never rests. You can never be too careful! :wink:

Incidentally, Higgins tries to use the handbrake but it seems to have been tampered with too.
Ever-present evil certainly does make for exciting television. :wink:

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#29 Post by Kevster »

I find a certain amount of irony in the fact that after the Indiana Jones themed episode 8.10, 8.11 has a scene similar to the climax of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade... A girl who could fall to her death, but the hero tells her to give up on the "treasure" to save her life.

And this was the year before Last Crusade was released...

Ahead of their time.
Trust Me!!!

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#30 Post by MaximRecoil »

Croix de Lorraine wrote:
Coops wrote:When Higgins is in the Audi and the brakes fail
This scene shows why you should always drive a manual. Had he been driving a manual he could have slowed the car down to a halt by using the gear shift.
You can do the same thing with an automatic; that's what the L2 and L1 positions are on the gear shift indicator, i.e., 2nd and 1st gear.

Additionally, scenes like this (and there have been countless ones like it in movies and TV shows) are absurd, since the car always continues to go at a high rate of speed after the driver discovers that he has no brakes. What, the accelerator pedal is stuck too? How would someone even rig a car to make the gas pedal get stuck at the exact same moment that the driver discovers he has no brakes, but not be stuck earlier when he first takes off in the car?

And even if the gas pedal were stuck you could still shift into neutral. Is the gear shift lever stuck too, on some sort of a time delay mechanism to get stuck at a later point in time so as to allow the person to shift when they first take off in the car but get stuck when they find they have no brakes? And even if it were stuck, one could turn off the ignition with the key ... oh, is that stuck too, via a similar time delay mechanism? Who the hell is sabotaging all of these plot-device TV/movie cars? MacGyver?

On another note, "Colt Super Elite" was an error. The Colt Super Elite is a real gun, but it is a .38 Super, and only a .38 Super (which is where the "Super" part of the name came from). The pistol in this episode was a Colt Delta Elite, which was a 10mm Auto, and only a 10mm Auto, as well as Colt's only 10mm Auto (10mm Auto being the cartridge the pistol in this episode was said to be chambered for).

The Delta Elite and the Super Elite look similar, because they are both based on the 1911 platform, but there are some visual differences. The Super Elite is a Gold Cup variant, and as such, it has the slanted Gold Cup slide serrations, flat mainspring housing, serrated front strap, adjustable slotted Gold Cup trigger, adjustable sights, and a ribbed slide. They were also two-tone, i.e., stainless steel frame and blued slide, like so:

Image

The Colt Delta Elite mostly looked like a standard Colt Government Model (like Thomas Magnum's pistol). The main visual differences were: round lanyard-style (AKA: Colt Commander-style) hammer with matching Commander-style grip safety (the Government Model and Super Elite have a standard spur hammer), larger sights with white dots on them (standard Government Models got the same sights a few years later), and a longer trigger:

Image

Image

I think it is funny that they made the effort to obtain an actual Colt Delta Elite for a prop, yet they didn't make the effort to read the words "Delta Elite" on the side of it.

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Re: Transitions (8.11)

#31 Post by marlboro »

Why would they bring the real manuscript to the cliff at the end?

The writing wasn't very strong in this episode. I have no idea why Luther Gillis was even included since he had almost nothing to do.

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Re: Transitions (8.11)

#32 Post by Doc Ibold »

marlboro wrote:Why would they bring the real manuscript to the cliff at the end?

The writing wasn't very strong in this episode. I have no idea why Luther Gillis was even included since he had almost nothing to do.
EXACTLY!

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Re: Transitions (8.11)

#33 Post by SignGuyHPW »

I wasn't too much of a fan of this one really. It had its moments, but I thought that it was kind of a weak story overall when it had a lot of potential.

I was never, ever a fan of the whole "Higgins is really Robin Masters" storyline. For them to focus on this heavily gauranteed for me to not like it too well. Luther showing up to hang out with Magnum because his fiance (whom he had promised to marry earlier in the series) had left him and was about to marry someone else seemed a bit forced. It's odd that Luther would just pick up and go to Hawaii on a whim every so often. It also made Magnum look kind of bad when he makes TC fly him to where he wants to go when he knew TC had promised the day to his son. If Magnum had plans with Lily then there's no way he'd drop it and investigate someone tampering with the helicopter or whatever. He'd have put it off until later. I also didn't understand why they would take the actual manuscript to the cliff knowing that Robin had already been paid a substantial amount for it and couldn't just recreate it. Another thing I didn't like was that Higgins alluded to it being a possible Pulitzer prize winner, but that got dropped and it was just a typical Robin Masters novel with the same style and content as usual. If they had revealed it was a completely different type of book than his usual fare that would've been interesting. Another huge point that never got settled was that Higgins discovered a $20,000 error by the accountant. Then the accountant showed up to let him know about a huge error he'd made in the books. They never really said if the error was a legitamate one or if he had embezzeled funds. It was just not made too clear and should've been a key point.

I did like how they were preparing for the series finale by having Magnum pack up his things and wanting to visit his family suddenly before he was back in the service. The talk about transistions was really good foreshadowing on the part of the writers. I could tell easily that it would be Luther disguised as Higgins towards the end, but I kind of liked how they played it. I think if they had taken the main plot of Higgins was responsible for the loss of a Robin Masters manuscript and put it in an earlier season (say 3 or 4) that they'd have gotten a stronger episode. With Robin having been paid, Higgins being duped by a phoney telegram, and Magnum being the only guy that could save Higgins' job it had a lot of potential. Since they were so focused on Magnum's theory that Higgins is Masters that they played it too cutesy and not something serious. Magnum mainly treated it as a game and with the comic character of Luther being involved it was like two seperate episodes (Higgins in a serious one and everyone else in a comedy ones) getting blended. I'd loved to have seen this one as a serious one or as a twist have Robin show up at the end with the REAL manuscript to reveal he'd known about the plot and sent Higgins a phony.

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Re: Transitions (8.11)

#34 Post by EZiller »

I gave it a 9. Good story, action, comedy, really all the elements we enjoy in MPI, plus our final appearance of Luther Gillis. As a former fan of the St. Louis football Cardinals, I appreciated that Luther was going after "the scrungos from Phoenix who are trying to steal our football team." Well, they ended up in AZ in the fall of 1988, but I'm sure Luther gave it his best shot.

I always liked the Higgins is Robin story line that they developed the last couple years. Thought it was brilliant and this episode heavily gets into it. Also like Randi Brooks as Susie, the frustrated novelist who is trying to kill Higgins [who she thinks is RM] she looked really hot in the swimsuit in the party that Luther threw at TM's place. Top Ten MPI babe-Cougar Division.

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#35 Post by StaveIsle »

J.J. Walters wrote:This is a really good, fun episode with a cool mystery/twist. The climax was kind of hokey, but overall the episode is a nice lead-in to the series finale.

It's good to see Luther, the lovable 'ol gumshoe from St. Louie, again. I've always been a big fan of this character. And hey, he knows how to throw a party, huh. His guesthouse party was really swingin'!

Love the opening scene with Magnum going through all of his "stuff". He appears to have another handheld computer game, maybe a Coleco sports game of some kind...

Image

... and notice the "Cat Lover" award. In "Photo Play" he received a "Cat Lover of the Month Award". Here he has a "Cat Lover of the Year award! ;)

I really, really like the "change/transitions" narrations from Magnum. Grandfather Sullivan sure was a cool guy. I want to go hunting for wild asparagus sometime.

Is it just me, or did anyone else think "Supermac" when hearing about "Malcolm MacDonald"?

If you want a good chuckle, at the 25:24 mark, when Luther is walking with Suzi and Cleo on the estate lawn, take a look at Suzi when Luther says, "Wham!". It's a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it, involuntary, ... uh, upper body ... "flinch".
I liked the pile of Indy gear from the previous episode too. And yeh...quite a 'flinch'.

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