Dream A Little Dream (4.20)

[charybdis1966]

I don't really remember this one too much, either from it's original run or when I saw my next batch of MPI's in the early/mid 2010's other than a vague memory of not being able to follow when each scene was - i.e. '79 or '84.

What I noticed this time was that the over use of actual songs (rather than incidental music) was rather obtrusive and (in the kitchen/cooking scene) jarring.

There was a good concept in that episode, that is a bit of back story pre-Robin's nest, TM straight after his resignation from the Navy and how mullet-tastic was TM ?

Overall though I couldn't really figure out what this story was trying to say or where it was going. There were still enough enjoyable moments in this to keep me interested, but it's not one I'll re-watch anytime soon.

[Aloha Friday]

I liked this one for one thing really...I liked the little parts that helped establish the past for TM, Rick and TC. I used to like Cindy Pickett when she was in the series about the Air Force U2 pilot in the 1960s...Call to Glory with Craig T. Nelson as the main character...sort of played off the popularity of The Right Stuff. TM's VW bug 'vert is very cool too.

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

It's funny that several of you here call this a dullish episode. I find it to be one of the more interesting ones of the season. I love the "origin" aspect to it and Mosley overall did a great job with the direction.

At first I thought there was a flub concerning the timeline: Sandy is 4 and a half years old in the 1984 present. If she is a Pisces that means we're in the late summer of '84 and thus Sandy's birth was in Feb or March 1980. Subtract 9 months and her conception occured late spring 1979. If Karen took up with Walt soon after she and Magnum parted, then the flashback scenes take place around late winter/early spring '79. So I suppose that all lines up correctly, although it means the same surfing competition is held at around the top of spring '79 and late summer '84. There's your useless trivia for today.

It also makes sense that the surfing competition would take place during the winter or early spring months because that's when the waves on the North Shore are the biggest!

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

I thought Magnum's flashback 1979 long hair made him look older, not younger. I think it would have worked better if he had shorter, neater hair in 1979 - because he was recently out of the Navy (where he'd have short neat hair) and hadn't had time to grow it long yet. (They didn't even have to cut it - just flatten it down, like in Mac's Back.)
Some of the sudden flashback changes were unnecessarily confusing. It's not a bad episode, but not a good one either.

I liked this episode overall. The back and forth timelines were clumsily handled, you had to pay attention to differentiate between them, so if you were
doing some other activity while watching you could lose the thread.
I get the distinct impression the flashback scenes were actually written for a would be first episode after the pilot film.
It would be easier for the audience to understand who Magnum was that way, and why Higgins so severely judged him when this beach bum Magnum showed
up at the estate later on in his beat up VW, as a fellow employee. Perhaps this would be 1st episode didn't work and the writer filed away the best parts to reuse,
in this case for Dream A Little Dream.
Writers like Stirling Silliphant did it all the time. Roy Huggins of Rockford Files, Maverick and many other series took it to another level, he shamelessly recycled - slightly altered - entire scripts, past plots notably turning up in Alias Smith & Jones. Lance White as portrayed by Tom Selleck was originally a Maverick character. You don't throw out good material or characters. Stuart Margolin's Emmy winning Angel Martin character from Rockford had it's origins in "Nichols"(played by the same actor), later recycled yet again in the one season lasting "Bret Maverick", again played by Margolin.

"Greetings Oh Great White Father from the Land of Cube"...Beatnik Bongo Bennie (77 Sunset Strip)

Hey Dobie, gonna disagree with you about the flashbacks being clumsily handled. I thought Roger E. Mosley in his directorial debut knocked it out of the park with those back-and-forths and how he transitioned from present to past and back again. Very creative, not clumsy or confusing at all. Just Magnum's mullet alone (or lack thereof) told you whether you were in '79 or '84. So it was easy to follow. But it's the WAY the transitions happen that I really love! My favorite is at the beginning when Mag packs up and leaves Robin's Nest in the Jimmy (much to Higgy's befuddlement) and as he drives down a Honolulu street he passes the beat up VW Beetle and at that point we're back in '79 as the camera pans up the building to the window which says "Magnum Private Investigator". It's simple, easy to understand, and yet creative at the same time. Or when Mag and Karen are walking and talking on the beach and as he looks to the other side of the beach we see Rick in his white Bogie jacket approaching Thomas and doing his Bogie schtick. Another cool transition! We immediately see this is the Rick that we met in the pilot. And how about the scene where we're in '79 and then a phone rings and we see Mag picking up the phone with his bandaged finger (which we saw him hurting when he was zipping up his bag at the beginning when leaving Robin's Nest, over which Higgy made a big deal about Mag's low tolerance for pain) and I immediately knew we were now in the present. It's small touches like these that add so much. Makes the whole thing feel like a film, not just a silly little TV show. All too often they'll just plop the year on the screen or "5 years ago" to tell the viewer what time frame we're in. And how annoying would that actually be if they had to keep doing it again and again, since we keep jumping back and forth here so much?

It's not a great episode by any stretch. Higgy's origins story 2 episodes earlier ("Holmes is Where the Heart Is") was much better and there really is no story or case here to solve. It's just a TM origins story and his love story with his first client and on that level it works just fine but nothing special. But the flashbacks and transitions for me are the best part of the episode!

[Luther's nephew Dobie]

I thought Magnum's flashback 1979 long hair made him look older, not younger. I think it would have worked better if he had shorter, neater hair in 1979 - because he was recently out of the Navy (where he'd have short neat hair) and hadn't had time to grow it long yet. (They didn't even have to cut it - just flatten it down, like in Mac's Back.)
Some of the sudden flashback changes were unnecessarily confusing. It's not a bad episode, but not a good one either.

I liked this episode overall. The back and forth timelines were clumsily handled, you had to pay attention to differentiate between them, so if you were
doing some other activity while watching you could lose the thread.
I get the distinct impression the flashback scenes were actually written for a would be first episode after the pilot film.
It would be easier for the audience to understand who Magnum was that way, and why Higgins so severely judged him when this beach bum Magnum showed
up at the estate later on in his beat up VW, as a fellow employee. Perhaps this would be 1st episode didn't work and the writer filed away the best parts to reuse,
in this case for Dream A Little Dream.
Writers like Stirling Silliphant did it all the time. Roy Huggins of Rockford Files, Maverick and many other series took it to another level, he shamelessly recycled - slightly altered - entire scripts, past plots notably turning up in Alias Smith & Jones. Lance White as portrayed by Tom Selleck was originally a Maverick character. You don't throw out good material or characters. Stuart Margolin's Emmy winning Angel Martin character from Rockford had it's origins in "Nichols"(played by the same actor), later recycled yet again in the one season lasting "Bret Maverick", again played by Margolin.

"Greetings Oh Great White Father from the Land of Cube"...Beatnik Bongo Bennie (77 Sunset Strip)

Hey Dobie, gonna disagree with you about the flashbacks being clumsily handled. I thought Roger E. Mosley in his directorial debut knocked it out of the park with those back-and-forths and how he transitioned from present to past and back again. Very creative, not clumsy or confusing at all. Just Magnum's mullet alone (or lack thereof) told you whether you were in '79 or '84. So it was easy to follow. But it's the WAY the transitions happen that I really love! My favorite is at the beginning when Mag packs up and leaves Robin's Nest in the Jimmy (much to Higgy's befuddlement) and as he drives down a Honolulu street he passes the beat up VW Beetle and at that point we're back in '79 as the camera pans up the building to the window which says "Magnum Private Investigator". It's simple, easy to understand, and yet creative at the same time. Or when Mag and Karen are walking and talking on the beach and as he looks to the other side of the beach we see Rick in his white Bogie jacket approaching Thomas and doing his Bogie schtick. Another cool transition! We immediately see this is the Rick that we met in the pilot. And how about scene where we're in '79 and then a phone rings and we see Mag picking up the phone with his bandaged finger (which we saw him hurting when he was zipping up his bag at the beginning when leaving Robin's Nest, over which Higgy made a big deal about Mag's low tolerance for pain) and I immediately knew we were now in the present. It's small touches like these that add so much. Makes the whole thing feel like a film, not just a silly little TV show. All too often they'll just plop the year on the screen or "5 years ago" to tell the viewer what time frame we're in. And how annoying would that actually be if they had to keep doing it again and again, since we keep jumping back and forth here so much?

It's not a great episode by any stretch. Higgy's origins story 2 episodes earlier ("Holmes is Where the Heart Is") was much better and there really is no story or case here to solve. It's just a TM origins story and his love story with his first client and on that level it works just fine but nothing special. But the flashbacks and transitions for me are the best part of the episode!

Ivan,
You make a good argument. So much so I want to take another look at this episode as its been 6 years since I have seen it.
However about 5 years ago I decided to give Magnum PI a rest as the series was becoming way too familiar to me. Now though I recall episodes in general I have forgotten much of the action,
so I'd like to thank COVID for at least one good thing - I am now ready to watch Rockford Files and Magnum again.
After reading your post I would especially like to watch this episode again, perhaps I will agree with you.
I did a search and neither thru my Comcast TV nor anywhere online can I now find Magnum PI.
I expect one of the channels will be running it sooner than later, its an evergreen. Universal does like to package series together, so if a network wanted Rockford Files they also had to
take the less popular Quincy. I imagine Magnum would be one of their most attractive series to tie lesser shows to in a package.
Just as MeTV had to take Quinn Martin's Barnaby Jones, Cannon and The Fugitive as a package deal.

[Pahonu]

I thought Magnum's flashback 1979 long hair made him look older, not younger. I think it would have worked better if he had shorter, neater hair in 1979 - because he was recently out of the Navy (where he'd have short neat hair) and hadn't had time to grow it long yet. (They didn't even have to cut it - just flatten it down, like in Mac's Back.)
Some of the sudden flashback changes were unnecessarily confusing. It's not a bad episode, but not a good one either.

I liked this episode overall. The back and forth timelines were clumsily handled, you had to pay attention to differentiate between them, so if you were
doing some other activity while watching you could lose the thread.
I get the distinct impression the flashback scenes were actually written for a would be first episode after the pilot film.
It would be easier for the audience to understand who Magnum was that way, and why Higgins so severely judged him when this beach bum Magnum showed
up at the estate later on in his beat up VW, as a fellow employee. Perhaps this would be 1st episode didn't work and the writer filed away the best parts to reuse,
in this case for Dream A Little Dream.
Writers like Stirling Silliphant did it all the time. Roy Huggins of Rockford Files, Maverick and many other series took it to another level, he shamelessly recycled - slightly altered - entire scripts, past plots notably turning up in Alias Smith & Jones. Lance White as portrayed by Tom Selleck was originally a Maverick character. You don't throw out good material or characters. Stuart Margolin's Emmy winning Angel Martin character from Rockford had it's origins in "Nichols"(played by the same actor), later recycled yet again in the one season lasting "Bret Maverick", again played by Margolin.

"Greetings Oh Great White Father from the Land of Cube"...Beatnik Bongo Bennie (77 Sunset Strip)

Hey Dobie, gonna disagree with you about the flashbacks being clumsily handled. I thought Roger E. Mosley in his directorial debut knocked it out of the park with those back-and-forths and how he transitioned from present to past and back again. Very creative, not clumsy or confusing at all. Just Magnum's mullet alone (or lack thereof) told you whether you were in '79 or '84. So it was easy to follow. But it's the WAY the transitions happen that I really love! My favorite is at the beginning when Mag packs up and leaves Robin's Nest in the Jimmy (much to Higgy's befuddlement) and as he drives down a Honolulu street he passes the beat up VW Beetle and at that point we're back in '79 as the camera pans up the building to the window which says "Magnum Private Investigator". It's simple, easy to understand, and yet creative at the same time. Or when Mag and Karen are walking and talking on the beach and as he looks to the other side of the beach we see Rick in his white Bogie jacket approaching Thomas and doing his Bogie schtick. Another cool transition! We immediately see this is the Rick that we met in the pilot. And how about scene where we're in '79 and then a phone rings and we see Mag picking up the phone with his bandaged finger (which we saw him hurting when he was zipping up his bag at the beginning when leaving Robin's Nest, over which Higgy made a big deal about Mag's low tolerance for pain) and I immediately knew we were now in the present. It's small touches like these that add so much. Makes the whole thing feel like a film, not just a silly little TV show. All too often they'll just plop the year on the screen or "5 years ago" to tell the viewer what time frame we're in. And how annoying would that actually be if they had to keep doing it again and again, since we keep jumping back and forth here so much?

It's not a great episode by any stretch. Higgy's origins story 2 episodes earlier ("Holmes is Where the Heart Is") was much better and there really is no story or case here to solve. It's just a TM origins story and his love story with his first client and on that level it works just fine but nothing special. But the flashbacks and transitions for me are the best part of the episode!

Hey Ivan, I agree that, while this episode isn’t particularly good in terms of plot, I do enjoy the creative flashback cuts. I remember watching this originally in the 80’s and finding the details TM’s pre-Robin Masters/pilot story of him at the estate, very fascinating. I distinctly remember the matchbook cover advertising he utilized as very “of its time”. Smoking and matchbooks were just so ubiquitous in the 80’s and prior. It’s hard for many to understand now. Everyone’s house had ashtrays and matchbooks for smoking. Only a poor host wouldn’t accommodate such a common habit. I also remember multiple friends of my parents in the 70’s and 80’s having wet bars in addition to the smoking paraphernalia. The two were so ubiquitous. My wife and I have joked many times since then about this change.