Kiss of the Sabre (5.11)

[nha trang]

On rewatching this episode today I have to rate it a "7" where previously I had rated it an "8." It was so tedious that I could hardly bother to follow the plot. I have noticed that my rating of the episodes has changed over the years

Nha Trang

[Bes]

This episode was legitimately painful to watch. Cringe worthy indeed. 5/10 at best and surely the worst episode of series 5. IMO anyway.

[ENSHealy]

Question.
magnummaniacs
In this episode when Rick is on the phone speaking with TM,
who is the lady standing beside him gambling?
I think this is the same lady that TC met in Moraco, Shadea was her name.
Of course that was in Deja Vue, so this would be her first appearance.
Her name is Grace Kennedy.
She is not credited in "Kiss of the Sabre" so is this the same actress?

I think it's awesome that this question is 13 years old. And I believe the answer is yes.

Deja Vu (Grace Kennedy):


Sabre (uncredited):

[ENSHealy]

I think this episode gets too much stick. I see it a private joke. This is Magnum PI as Glen Larson initially conceived it - James Bond in Hawai'i.

I was thinking the same thing - a sly reference to the original pilot script, complete with Bond-like guitar riffs dropped in occasionally.

[ENSHealy]

EPISODE: 5.11 Kiss of the Sabre

Famous guest stars: .5 Grab Some Wood, Bub!

Hawaiian shirts: 1

Tigers Cap: 1
Island Hopper shirts:
Shirtless Magnum:
OMG: 1
Higgins Organizations:
Higgins musings: 1
Negotiations:
Body Count: I counted 10, but since they were all in Betty’s mind, they don’t count
Bullet wounds:
Little Voice:
I know what you’re thinking:
When I write HTBAWCPI:
Investigator corrections:
4th wall breaks:
Magnumometer: 4.5
Magnumometer Moments: https://vimeo.com/546270637

Potential magnum-mania usernames: Hoppy Weddington, Practicing Degenerate

General Hue is a busy man. I kept hoping Dr. Su/Ling would say, “that would solve all of our problems, wouldn’t it?”

[ENSHealy]

Question.
magnummaniacs
In this episode when Rick is on the phone speaking with TM,
who is the lady standing beside him gambling?
I think this is the same lady that TC met in Moraco, Shadea was her name.
Of course that was in Deja Vue, so this would be her first appearance.
Her name is Grace Kennedy.
She is not credited in "Kiss of the Sabre" so is this the same actress?

I think it's awesome that this question is 13 years old. And I believe the answer is yes.

Deja Vu (Grace Kennedy):


Sabre (uncredited):

I think she makes a brief appearance in Little Games as well, see far left below:

[MaximRecoil]

but in the '80s, as today, a real suppressor would have been an NFA-restricted item

So is every full-auto firearm that's ever appeared in a movie or TV show since 1934. There were plenty of full-autos used in MPI, including in this very scene. NFA items aren't a problem for Hollywood productions; the gun rental firms take care of the NFA foolishness.

I also submit that the can is too short to be a real suppressor.

It isn't too short to be a real silencer. Larger silencers (i.e., silencers with more internal volume) are more effective than smaller silencers, all else being equal, but that doesn't mean a smaller one can't be real.

I understand that cans can be of different lengths, but I still do not believe the armorer would have needlessly brought three valuable and attractive-to-thieves suppressors to a location.

See above. Also, with regard to value and attractiveness to thieves, you can buy a rather effective silencer at e.g., Walmart for a few dollars (an ordinary automotive oil filter). The guns themselves used in that scene are more valuable, especially the full-autos. A silencer like the ones shown in this episode would have sold for maybe $10 or $15. The thing that brings the price way up is Uncle Sam's $200 extortion fee, but even then, losing a couple hundred dollars is nothing compared to MPI's budget. They spent way more than that for each episode just on the 35mm film. A 1,000' roll of that stuff (which is good for about 10 minutes' worth of footage) costs several hundred dollars.

[charybdis1966]

Reading through the comments since I last saw this in 2013 and I still don't find Cassie Yates anywhere near as annoying as Kathleen Lloyd - her character is a bit of a day dreamer and is naively enthusiastic in her meddling into TM's insurance case.

Carol Baldwin would repeatedly con TM and not tell him the truth and thereby put him in danger - add to that her greying pubes poodle hairdo and I'll take Cassie over Lloyd every single time.

[Treadwell]

I rate it a 7, because while the real-world stuff is not very good, I had a lot of fun with the fantasy portions. Yes, they're hokey, but that was the point.

I'm not going to hold it against Yates, but I do hate Betty. I can't stand pushy characters, especially when they agree not to be and then repeatedly do it anyway and almost get them killed. The fact that she was right doesn't matter.

I think they missed an opportunity for a bit of fun by directing the first scene a bit differently. We should not have known that it was our characters/actors right away. It could have been shot without showing faces, and perhaps the actors could have changed their voices even more (if only for that scene). Imagine if we heard Robin's voice instead of Thomas', making it a fun surprise when he stepped out of the jet. Dubbing all the fantasy scenes with Orson Welles wouldn't be practical, but a joke could be made of Thomas clearing his throat once out of the plane, switching over to his voice. But they'd just used Orson in the previous episode, so that probably could not have been achievable.

Regarding the square root of 18, I took it to mean he'd just hit 1, 8, and the square root key, not the solution. But I admit having to type an irrational number is funnier.

As for prop gun values, they'd be rented anyway, not purchased.

It was touched upon earlier in this thread, but that was many years ago: I wondered why Thomas rented a car instead of just using the Jimmy (other than creative license on part of the writers), but then couldn't recall the last time it had even appeared. Was it ever destroyed in-story, or did it just fade away out of the show? (My rewatch has been very spread out, not binged.)