Tigers Fan (8.4)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the eighth season

Moderator: Styles Bitchley

How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
4
5%
9.5 (One of the Best)
12
15%
9.0 (Excellent)
22
27%
8.5 (Very Good)
21
26%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
15
19%
7.5 (Decent)
5
6%
7.0 (Average at Best)
0
No votes
6.5 (Not So Good)
1
1%
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
0
No votes
5.0 (Just Awful)
1
1%
 
Total votes: 81

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Doc Fred
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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#61 Post by Doc Fred »

Just a short comment about Page.... He's the kind of cop you have to really appreciate. A guy who does what's right, even if it may not be completely by the book. I loved how he knew what Magnum was up to and helped in the background even though it wasn't completely what someone else would have done. Someone very Tanaka-like. The sequence in headquarters at the desk was great... after Magnum put the kilo in Page's desk and then outplayed the weasel who was trying to put a black mark on Tanaka's record. I think this sequence showed how good a cop Page was. I just wish we got to see a whole lot of Page in future shows.

The sequence on the ship was terrific... loved how Magnum terminated Walker, without having to worry about him going to trial and possibly beating the rap.

It surprised me, at the baseball game, that TC had himself coach first base and let Magnum coach third. I believe, in reality, that TC would have been the third base coach, especially considering how different his philosophy in coaching was from Magnum's. You had to know that, after seeing who was coaching where, that there'd be a play involving the same situation as we saw when they argued about whether to send the runner in or keep him at third. Also, I thought the real hero in the game was the kid who hit the ball that allowed Biff to score... :)

Overall, a really fine episode... I really loved it.
Woof, woof... thirty years uglier!... woof, woof...

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Doc Fred
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Re:

#62 Post by Doc Fred »

TIGERS FAN wrote:TIGERS FAN still stands out as one of my all time favorite episodes. It has a little bit of everything, from hot dogs to Albanian Countesses, friendship, humor, action, revenge. As a child of the 80's, I remember the later years of Magnum the best, and this episode always stuck with me. As likeable a character as T.M. was, one should never forget that if you cross him bad enough he will sneak onto your ship under the cover of darkness and kill every soul on board! Magnum is BAD ASS!
I enjoyed reading your comments, and agree with you competely... except I'm far from being a child of the 80's...ha,ha,ha,ha...

I thought Higgns' comment about the Albanian Countess was fantastic, and I let out a hearty laugh when he said it... so out of character for him, at least in his public manner, and so funny.
Woof, woof... thirty years uglier!... woof, woof...

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Re: Re:

#63 Post by marlboro »

Doc Fred wrote: I don't think Cleo was so bad, but I think I would have written the story with a BIG surprise... have Rick marry Carol... they were around together a lot, interacting a lot, and could have had something going behind the scenes, which could have been written into the last show.
I like to think that Michelle faked her death and she and Rick hooked up after that chump Magnum reenlisted in the Navy.


Tanaka's Deam/Flashback Flub: I'm not so sure it is a flub. Let me play Sigmund Freud for a second here and analyze his dream.

1) Watergate : Conspiracy to cover up a crime which involved altering evidence (Nixon's White House tapes are mentioned.) Isn't that vaguely similar to the case Tanaka is investigating in a general sense? In the dream a characters says something like "Let me tell you why he (Nixon) destroyed the tapes" but is cutoff before he can actually finish his thought. Maybe Tanaka still hadn't figured out the doctor's motivations?

2) Tanaka is shot at point blank range in his dream. A premonition of his own death?

3) The Rockford Files/Lance White: Tanaka dreams about someone talking about a character played by Tom Selleck who is "mister perfect, right. He's finding all the clues, catching all the suspects...." And the next day he tries to ask Magnum to help him solve the case he's working on.


Some trivia: I think that in the scene where Magnum and Page are trying to pull one over on the Internal Affairs cop that Magnum is doing an impersonation of the Jon Lovitz Saturday Night Live Character "Tommy Flanagan, the Pathological Liar"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flan ... gical_Liar



As for the episode itself - I thought it was ok. I liked Tanaka and I really wish that more had been done with the character after his first few appearances. His death didn't have much of an emotional impact for me, and while the episode was pretty good the plot was pretty linear. Friend gets killed, Magnum (easily) gathers a few clues, gets revenge, and the friend is never mentioned again. Good, but not great. Tanaka deserved a "great" sendoff.

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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#64 Post by erock308 »

Image
"Don't worry, Higgins, I like your stories."

SignGuyHPW
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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#65 Post by SignGuyHPW »

I really liked it. I was disappointed that Tanaka was killed off in the middle of the last season, but it was a great episode. Any time Magnum was out to clear the name of someone close to him it made for great television. The baseball tie in was a nice touch with the nephew still trying to make his uncle's dream come true.

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Tesza
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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#66 Post by Tesza »

As already stated by someone else, the makers of the episode must have thought, "Hmm, we only have half the final season left, we absolutely need to kill someone off now. Just let's roll the dice ... okay, a four. Four is an unlucky number in Eastern Asia, so it's gonna be Tanaka." To me the arbitrariness and the haste of this decision shines through the episode. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching it. Although I'm not an outspoken fan of those kind of episodes where it's about proving a more-or-lass main character's innocence, certainly not when suspected of something abstruse enough (unless he/she ultimately comes out as guilty, that's always a nice surprise), it's all fine and fittingly made up here. Here it's evident again that in series like MPI usually you learn most about serial characters when they are already dead, and they quite made up a nice background story to it.
And this one contains one of my favorite music pieces of the series - the Asian-sounding one you hear when Magnum goes to the Byodo-in Temple to open Tanaka's urn grave.
I will give this an 8.0 rating. Maybe it would be higher if it wasn't this evident the writing desk killers were in a hurry. :)

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Milton Collins
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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#67 Post by Milton Collins »

Good episode but have some specific points to mention:

- Did Thomas and Tanaka's conversation on the baseball field seem forced and overdone to anyone else? Yes they had a friendship but it was a professional one of police officer and private investigator, not of touchy feely best buddies. Just my opinion here.

- So TM get's to blow away like 5 guys with a machine gun and just walk away? Pretty big suspension of belief here.

- Love the Lance White/Rockford Files comment at the beginning and the "the only thing you watch is from the bottom of a beer mug" comment lol.

- The baseball tie-in was cool, made for a nice connection between the characters love for sports. Hearing TM and TC argue about baseball strategy was awesome!

Overall a good solid episode, one of the best of season 8 for me. I hated to see Tanaka get killed as I always liked his character but it was the last season and clearly they
wanted to add some drama by killing off a semi main character. Too bad they hadn't brought back Shelly Faraday or Rodney Radcliff or Rod Chrysler to kill off though...........

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Carol the Dabbler
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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#68 Post by Carol the Dabbler »

Episode Note 4: "Joe Santos, who plays Lt. Nolan Page in this episode, was a Rockford cast member (St. Dennis Becker)."
Even though I dearly love Dennis Becker, calling him "St. Dennis" seems like going just a tad too far. :wink: Maybe just "Sgt. Dennis Becker"?

(Sorry, James -- Carol the Quibbler is back.)
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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#69 Post by J.J. Walters »

LOL!.... Corrected! :)
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#70 Post by KingKC »

I never understood why Tanaka had to be killed off unless it was just sensationalism for the last season. Possibly you can argue that it was the motif for TM since he had experienced so much death during his life and especially as a PI. I loved everything about the baseball scenes!!!

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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#71 Post by SignGuyHPW »

Rewatched this one just a little bit ago and something struck me as odd. Why would Tanaka be on his own for this investigation? Why not involve the department if he was on to something that would have proved there was a criminally insane man running a drug operation? If the IA was involved somehow why did it get dropped so easily? Tanaka seemed to be hinting to Magnum that he wanted help on this, presumably, vigilante mission and then dismissed it pretty quickly. It stands to reason that he'd still have wanted some help knowing how dangerous this was.

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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#72 Post by SignGuyHPW »

SignGuyHPW wrote:Rewatched this one just a little bit ago and something struck me as odd. Why would Tanaka be on his own for this investigation? Why not involve the department if he was on to something that would have proved there was a criminally insane man running a drug operation? If the IA was involved somehow why did it get dropped so easily? Tanaka seemed to be hinting to Magnum that he wanted help on this, presumably, vigilante mission and then dismissed it pretty quickly. It stands to reason that he'd still have wanted some help knowing how dangerous this was.
Nobody has a theory on this?

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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#73 Post by #1 Buzzettes Fan »

SignGuyHPW wrote:
SignGuyHPW wrote:Rewatched this one just a little bit ago and something struck me as odd. Why would Tanaka be on his own for this investigation? Why not involve the department if he was on to something that would have proved there was a criminally insane man running a drug operation? If the IA was involved somehow why did it get dropped so easily? Tanaka seemed to be hinting to Magnum that he wanted help on this, presumably, vigilante mission and then dismissed it pretty quickly. It stands to reason that he'd still have wanted some help knowing how dangerous this was.
Nobody has a theory on this?
Maybe I missed something but didn't Tanaka break protocol by hiding the kilo?

This was a perfect episode for me even though it really choked me up. The first act dialogue was top notch and was delivered at a remarkable pace. I love baseball as well so that couldn't get any better for me. The nephew Biff was probably my favorite of the younger characters. No corny one liners. He seemed like a great kid. The boat photography was amazing. Higgins own secret stash was another great tie in and naming the strain after Tanaka was perfect.

It was sad that Tanaka was trying to ask for Magnum's help at the baseball diamond but he wasn't listening.

"Sometimes the book doesn't cover the situation. Still, once you go away from it, you're on your own, making all the decisions, playing it by ear. It's kind of scary unless you can get someone to back you up. Of course, the only place you can get that kind of support is from another gambler. Someone like you, maybe?"

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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#74 Post by brianw »

Doc Fred wrote:Just a short comment about Page.... He's the kind of cop you have to really appreciate. A guy who does what's right, even if it may not be completely by the book. I loved how he knew what Magnum was up to and helped in the background even though it wasn't completely what someone else would have done. Someone very Tanaka-like. The sequence in headquarters at the desk was great... after Magnum put the kilo in Page's desk and then outplayed the weasel who was trying to put a black mark on Tanaka's record. I think this sequence showed how good a cop Page was. I just wish we got to see a whole lot of Page in future shows.

The sequence on the ship was terrific... loved how Magnum terminated Walker, without having to worry about him going to trial and possibly beating the rap.

It surprised me, at the baseball game, that TC had himself coach first base and let Magnum coach third. I believe, in reality, that TC would have been the third base coach, especially considering how different his philosophy in coaching was from Magnum's. You had to know that, after seeing who was coaching where, that there'd be a play involving the same situation as we saw when they argued about whether to send the runner in or keep him at third. Also, I thought the real hero in the game was the kid who hit the ball that allowed Biff to score... :)

Overall, a really fine episode... I really loved it.

I agree on all counts, 100%. Why wasn't TC coaching third himself? And yea, the kid who got the game winning hit is the true hero of the game./

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Re: Tigers Fan (8.4)

#75 Post by brianw »

Really good episode for me. I like thqat the writers have the courage to kill off such a likable character, but I was sad to see Tanaka get killed like that. I believe he and TM had an underlying mutual respect for each other's investigative skills, plus the fact that he left behind a sister and a young nephew, which was why his death hit Magnum so hard.

Lots of flubs pointed out here, some of them very very picky (insert eye roll here), some more obvious. But the one I noticed was when TM had dispatched a few of the bad guys on the ship, but there was one left above him, as he was sneaking around below the guy. When TM confronted the last group of bad guys walking out, he HAD to know that other bad guy was still up there. Yet he turned his back and seemed surprised when the guy appeared and almost shot him in the back. Sloppy work by TM.

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