Squeeze Play (4.7)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the fourth season

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How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
5
4%
9.5 (One of the Best)
6
5%
9.0 (Excellent)
23
20%
8.5 (Very Good)
33
29%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
24
21%
7.5 (Decent)
8
7%
7.0 (Average at Best)
2
2%
6.5 (Not So Good)
10
9%
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
1
1%
5.0 (Just Awful)
1
1%
 
Total votes: 113

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brunoffrance
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#46 Post by brunoffrance »

2nd episode seen in the same sunday for my brother anniverssary.
8 to vote 8,5...
All around the table love the baseball match 'cause we don't have that in France nor on TV... and it's really an icon of USA for all enthousiasts we are.
Don't understand the rules but pleasant to see . Hilarous moments with the young nephew who don't arrive to speak well when discovering the famous baseball player..., when rick got the ball too low....
hopefully TM discovered the fake marked cards.... but it was very limit...

Bruno.
Very american 4 a french...

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Jay-Firestorm
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#47 Post by Jay-Firestorm »

My final review of the week. I’m not a sports fan, so don’t like this one as much as some of the other fourth season entries.

[rating=7.5]

After Robin Masters wagers the Estate over the outcome of a softball game between the King Kamehameha Club team and that of a sleazy, unscrupulous magazine publisher, both Higgins and Magnum find that they may soon be out of a home. A so-so sports episode...

-----

This review contains spoilers.

I have very mixed views over this episode (working title: ‘Going Going Gone’). It is marginally better than some of the show’s other sports-based episodes (the second season’s ‘One More Summer’ was take it or leave it, and the less said about season three’s ‘Mixed Doubles’ the better!), but as I have said in other reviews, I’m not really a sports fan, so that marks it down a notch from the start for me.

It felt strange that Robin would so callously wager the Estate. Admittedly we don’t see (or rather, hear) enough of him in the series to really get to know his personality all that well, but even so, I had trouble accepting that he would have done this – especially considering the times that Magnum has helped him out and saved his life (the first season’s ‘J. Digger Doyle’ and the third season’s ‘The Big Blow’ to name but two occasions).

The episode is mostly light-hearted, and does have it’s humorous moments (such as Rick getting hit by a ball in a place where a man really doesn’t want to be hit!), but it is also very silly. I found Buzz and his nephew to be overly annoying at times, and the story dragged a bit towards the end.

There are no real villains to this story. The nearest we come is the hostile construction workers when Magnum is searching for Jerome, the ex-husband of one of the players on his team. It did seem to be a bit coincidental that Jerome turned out to be an ex-softball pro who could help the team out, but I was willing to forgive that.
However, the conclusion of the story, with Magnum just happening to find that Buzz’s card deck is mark, thus making the bet bogus to begin with, was just too contrived and coincidental.

This isn’t an abysmal episode, but it is one of those that I only watch very occasionally, and the whole thing just feels rather out of character to me.

-----

Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* As with ‘Distant Relative’ a few episodes earlier, the DVD version of this episode does not have an opening trailer. I wonder if it can be verified that it also doesn’t have one when on TV? As I mentioned before, I know that on various DVD releases of ‘Knight Rider’ and ‘The A-Team’, some opening trailers are removed for some reason.

* When Jerome is practicing batting, the sound of glass smashing is part of the sound that made up the sound of the turbos igniting other Bellisario series, ‘Airwolf’. This sound was also used in the sixth season episode ‘Way of the Stalking Horse’.
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Rutledal
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#48 Post by Rutledal »

IslandHopper wrote:The one question I always had about this episode is where Magnum goes into the bar (Last Rivet, I think) looking for Jerome/Killer/Bad Friday and gets trampled by the construction workers rushing out of the bar, an older retired man sitting at a bar wearing a construction outfit including hardhat tells Magnum where Jerome is working. If the old man is retired as he says, then why is he still wearing a construction helmet/hardhat? To each his own, I guess. :wink:
I wouldn't call that a flub, I just figured he wore it to fit in with everyone else there.

Also, like with Distatante Relative the episode is listed as not having opening preview, but the episode on my DVD that saw this morning surely had an opening preview.
So I made a Topic Page about Magnum, P.I. Check it out here.

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Jay-Firestorm
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#49 Post by Jay-Firestorm »

Rutledal wrote:
IslandHopper wrote:The one question I always had about this episode is where Magnum goes into the bar (Last Rivet, I think) looking for Jerome/Killer/Bad Friday and gets trampled by the construction workers rushing out of the bar, an older retired man sitting at a bar wearing a construction outfit including hardhat tells Magnum where Jerome is working. If the old man is retired as he says, then why is he still wearing a construction helmet/hardhat? To each his own, I guess. :wink:
I wouldn't call that a flub, I just figured he wore it to fit in with everyone else there.

Also, like with Distatante Relative the episode is listed as not having opening preview, but the episode on my DVD that saw this morning surely had an opening preview.
Which region DVD do you have? I have Region 1 (even though my country is Region 2)?

It might vary in different regions - sorry to bring up my other favourite show, but on 'The A-Team' fourth season DVD, Region 1, nearly all of the opening trailers were missing. I bought the R2 version, and they were all there.
(Likewise, the R1 season one has all the trailers, but R2 has them missing!)
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Rutledal
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#50 Post by Rutledal »

I have good ol' Region 2 DVDs.
So I made a Topic Page about Magnum, P.I. Check it out here.

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Jay-Firestorm
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#51 Post by Jay-Firestorm »

Rutledal wrote:I have good ol' Region 2 DVDs.
Looks like I'll be picking up a R2 copy then.
I usually get R1 as they come out sooner and often have more on then (bonus disk on Season 1 by the way), but if R2 has all of the trailers...
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Rutledal
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#52 Post by Rutledal »

I never said that Region 2 DVDs has the trailers, they don't have the trailers. They have the bonus episodes for season 2 and 4 (I only have the first four), but no trailers.
So I made a Topic Page about Magnum, P.I. Check it out here.

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#53 Post by MACattack »

I just love Magnum's alias in the scene where he was trying to find "killer" in the bar full of union construction workers: WALLACE McNERDY!
plus Tom flashed either his driver's license or his P.I. license like it was a badge!

That fake name was almost as bad as Lance White!
I just don't give a damn!

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steveadl
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#54 Post by steveadl »

Watching this episode again and one thing that really springs to mind when seeing Higgins outrage throughout the episode of Robin betting the estate.

This would be one of the strongest indications that Robin and Higgins are not the same person.

Having said that, I like to think Higgins is Robin, so I'll try to forget this and hope that someone on MM can come up with an explanation for me. :wink:

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zebra3
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#55 Post by zebra3 »

MACattack wrote:I just love Magnum's alias in the scene where he was trying to find "killer" in the bar full of union construction workers: WALLACE McNERDY!
plus Tom flashed either his driver's license or his P.I. license like it was a badge!

That fake name was almost as bad as Lance White!
I steal Chuck Finley from burn notice as my alias. Also, Mork Fumork, Galileo Humpkins, Gus "T.T." Showbiz, Shmooel Cohen, and others.
"Burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me."

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J.J. Walters
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#56 Post by J.J. Walters »

steveadl wrote:Watching this episode again and one thing that really springs to mind when seeing Higgins outrage throughout the episode of Robin betting the estate.

This would be one of the strongest indications that Robin and Higgins are not the same person.

Having said that, I like to think Higgins is Robin, so I'll try to forget this and hope that someone on MM can come up with an explanation for me. :wink:
We see Robin Masters several times in the series. There's no doubt there is some guy named "Robin Masters" who is distinctly different from Jonathan Quayle Higgins. The mystery is whether or not Higgy-Baby actually writes the novels and makes all (or most) of the money (and owns all the properties). The theory being that he didn't want to sully his family's name by writing cheap pulp novels, so he worked out some arrangement with a guy named "Robin Masters" (who maybe once was a struggling writer). Mr. Masters makes out great and so does Higgins. ;)
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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Honolulu Lulu
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#57 Post by Honolulu Lulu »

Okay, I've just read through all the postings and don't see that anyone caught one flub.

In the scene where Buzz finally recognizes Killer as a former baseball pro (not softball pro as stated in a previous posting), he begins to identify him when his nephew shouts out "He's Carl 'Killer' Kapowitz!" But Killer's first name was Jerome, not Carl.

Now I know this one character was supposed to have several names throughout the episode, but I think Carl was a true flub.
Rack em up!

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Pahonu
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#58 Post by Pahonu »

I think his real name was Carl Kapowitz, but since the incident with the reporter he has used the alias Jerome Stenhauser. I guess he was using the later name when he met Lola. His nickname seemed to be Killer (which he prefers) during his playing days, but the press started calling him Bad Friday (which he doesn't like) after the incident.

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Honolulu Lulu
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#59 Post by Honolulu Lulu »

I think his real name was Carl Kapowitz, but since the incident with the reporter he has used the alias Jerome Stenhauser. I guess he was using the later name when he met Lola. His nickname seemed to be Killer (which he prefers) during his playing days, but the press started calling him Bad Friday (which he doesn't like) after the incident.
Well, I thought Carl might be one of his names, too, but if you go back to the scene where Magnum finds him at the construction site, he identifies him as Jermone Stenhauser who Lola Stenhauser is looking for. Then he figures out he is Jerome "Bad Friday" Kapowitz to which Jerome says, "I prefer "Killer."

So in that one scene we hear two last names, and two nick names for this character, but the first name is always Jerome. I still think Carl is a flub.
Rack em up!

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J.J. Walters
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#60 Post by J.J. Walters »

Honolulu Lulu wrote:Okay, I've just read through all the postings and don't see that anyone caught one flub.

In the scene where Buzz finally recognizes Killer as a former baseball pro (not softball pro as stated in a previous posting), he begins to identify him when his nephew shouts out "He's Carl 'Killer' Kapowitz!" But Killer's first name was Jerome, not Carl.

Now I know this one character was supposed to have several names throughout the episode, but I think Carl was a true flub.
Are you saying Eddie Deezen is wrong? He's the demi-god of brainy nerds! He can't be wrong! ;)

But seriously, this is odd! Normally I would say someone addressing a character with an incorrect first name is virtually impossible. The name is in the script. No one noticed the actor calling out a wrong name?? But here it's a unique situation - the guy has so many names/aliases/nicknames (all called out in the same scene!), it wouldn't be hard to imagine someone getting confused and not noticing it! :)
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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