Little Games (5.12)

[IslandHopper]

Wow, I would never have recognized her.

[AlohaSpirit]

I enjoyed the horseback riding scene. I know that TS is a horseman in real life but I don't know when he learned to ride. It looked to me like TS really knew how to ride back then too - he had his heels down in the stirrups which helps balance, not something a beginner might know to do

[Tom_Magnum]

I liked this episode a lot. It showed TM's character between him and Ms. Villaroch (Krista) and how they kinda loved each other but it was not very obvious as other episodes. I loved it when Magnum crashed the Dracos III

[AJL]

I thought this one was pretty bad. Basicly it was just boring, there were just no suspense, tension or excitement until the end. Only saving grace was a couple of funny moments IMO

Wow I was pretty harsh on this one the first time around. Just rewatched it recently and though it was decent. The story was somewhat lacking at times, but I really laughed a few places and overall it wasn't too shabby.

[N1095A]

Interesting, The police officer that is escorting Krista Villaroch out of the estate as TM and Higgins arrive is played by actor Steven Perry, He's the same officer who arrested TM and Luther in Gary's room in "Luther Gillis: File #521". According to his IMDB file, he also played Police Detective Rob Slater in "Tigers Fan",

[SelleckLover]

Aloha Spirit wrote:

I enjoyed the horseback riding scene. I know that TS is a horseman in real life but I don't know when he learned to ride. It looked to me like TS really knew how to ride back then too - he had his heels down in the stirrups which helps balance, not something a beginner might know to do

Before TS did Magnum, he did a mini-series called The Sacketts and a TV movie called The Shadow Riders, both with Sam Elliott and both based on novels written by the great author Louis L'Amour. I'm sure if he didn't know how to ride a horse before he did those movies, he sure knew how to ride after!

[Carmen]

...and oh so well *sigh*....

[SelleckLover]

Carmen wrote:

..and oh so well *sigh*....

Yeah! My sentiments exactly! *sigh*

[Jay-Firestorm]

I was surprised that so many people liked this one, as personally I found it another below average fifth season episode. Maybe I would have liked it more if it came in a better season?

[rating=8.0]

Magnum falls in love with a beautiful insurance company representative, who is testing security on the Estate for an upcoming multi-million dollar jewellery exhibition. But her father is a notorious jewel thief – will she follow suit? Great guest star, weak story…

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Many people seem to really like this story, which I am very surprised at, as I didn’t find it a particularly outstanding episode personally.

The episode is written by Deborah Pratt (here credited as Deborah M. Pratt), who had previously played T.C.’s girlfriend Gloria in a couple of episodes, was married to Donald P. Bellisario at the time, and worked in a number of capacities on various Bellisario shows (she played the recurring Marella in the first two seasons of ‘Airwolf’, for example).
This is her second script for a TV series, following ‘Airwolf’s second season episode ‘Fallen Angel’ (possibly my favourite episode from that series). However, unlike most of her other scripts, which are well-written and clever, ‘Little Games’ comes off as a take-it-or-leave-it offering at best.

Jenny Agutter puts in a reasonable performance as security expert Krista Villaroch, but she ain’t no J. “Digger” Doyle (see first season episode of the same name). She played the role well, and I have no problem with her in this episode, it’s just the plot itself that I never really warmed to.

The episode sees Magnum playing a Dungeons & Dragons-like computer game on the Estate’s computer system (seen for the first time here). It seems very over-convenient that he crashes the system in an episode where it is key to the plot, allowing Krista to break in to test security. But worse than that is the unconvincing computer game that he is playing – with very unconvincing graphics for the time, and no computer game of the era would have such advanced (if any) speech, and certainly would not address him as Magnum out loud!

The only sequence of the episode that I do particularly enjoy is T.C. and Rick attempting a break in to test the computer’s security (newly ‘repaired’ by Mac). This scene is very funny, and it’s a shame more couldn’t have been done with it. Which is one thing I really feel about this story – it really needs a b-plot of some sort to level it out more.

Screen legend Cesar Romero plays Krista’s jewel thief father, ‘Doc’. I mostly remember Romero from playing the Joker in the classic 1960s version of ‘Batman’. He was doing the American TV guest circuit around the time of this episode (he also appeared in two episodes of ‘Riptide’), but in this story, he is pitifully underused, only receiving a few minutes screen time, which is a real shame.

Re-watching this episode to review, I admit to liking it slightly more than when I first saw it some years ago, but emphasis on the ‘slightly’. I think it is one of those stories you like more as your tastes mature, but even so, it sums up for me how the series was moving away from adventure tales to more romantic ones. Maybe it would have fared better in one of the show’s better seasons, with stronger episodes to bolster it up. As it is, I don’t really care for it very much.
Thankfully, Deborah Pratt would return to writing form with her next offering for the series, the seventh season’s classic ‘Little Girl Who’.

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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* I too noticed, in addition to the white in-episode credits, the white lettering on Magnum’s Da Nang hat instead of the regular yellow. I wondered if it was some kind of ‘feel’ they were trying to go with for the episode, but I never worked it out.

* The DVD version of this episode has all of the act breaks abridged.

[Danno]

Why is yellow extremely desaturated in most of the scenes...
Skin tones are too red, greens are too blue... in a lot of cases there is no yellow at all. It does have the effect of making the gold seem more vibrant when we see the opening night of the Robin Masters Design Competition- although I get the feeling that this is accidental and there has been some mistake with colour balance somewhere.

Otherwise, this episode feels a little like a filler- although I agree with Jay on the scene of TC and Rick breaking in. That could have been comedy genius but instead feels flat, like the colour and the rest of the episode.

[Tidal Pool Lifeguard]

Overall, I think this is a pretty solid episode. I liked Jenny Agutter and I was also really touched by Magnum, alone at the restaurant at the end, eating by himself. Krista really got to him like few women ever did. All in all, I liked it, but you know what would have made this a truly epic episode? If Romero had been playing The Joker. I wonder if the Clown Prince of Crime would have been able to leave Robin's Nest with the Karachi Diamond, lol.

[Little Garwood]

In the scene right after Krista throws the drink in the woman's face, she and Magnum are sitting at a table. A bar is seen in the background and other guests are milling around. I got the impression that this scene took place somewhere at Robin's Nest. Can anyone determine which room, if this is indeed Robin's Nest or supposed to be, Thomas and Krista are in?

[J.J. Walters]

Little Gar, that scene was at "The Club" (according to Magnum). One can only assume this was the King Kamehameha Club, although they never actually say. The set/room was completely new, and I don't think it was ever used again.

The white letter thing is really intriguing. Changing the color of the episode title and opening credits is one thing, but why would they change the color of the lettering on the Da Nang cap?? Surely it has to mean something... but what? A "little game", perhaps?

Jenny Agutter.... easily one of the most beautiful guest stars to grace the show!

[timm525]

This one of my favorite.

Krista was just plain hot. That always ups my vote for any MPI ep!

Loved the computer scene at the beginning. I had to laugh at the graphics on the computer. I know Robin is a millionaire and all but I can't believe that he had a computer like that. I recall my families' first computer in those days. 10-12" B&W monitor with about 10- pixels max that gave you a migraine after 5 minutes of viewing. Can't recall if our first had 1 or 2, 5 1/4" floppy drives that you had to load DOS (disk operating system) in first. I recall it being DOS 2.0 as the first one we had. Then you loaded the program you wanted. No such thing as a hard drive, Microsoft, or even the "revolutionary" 3 &1/2" drive and RAM was most likely measured in mega bites instead of giga bites! Ah...yes...the good ole' days!

I liked the plot but it was easily predictable. I thought TS emotions at the end really came through when the waiter gave him his ring and he switched his order to a Scotch instead of a beer. He really seemed let down or mildly heart broken that his suspicions were correct all along.

I kept waiting for Cesar to say at the end, "Riddle me this...where's the ******g loot Krista!?"

[Styles Bitchley]

The white letter thing is really intriguing. Changing the color of the episode title and opening credits is one thing, but why would they change the color of the lettering on the Da Nang cap?? Surely it has to mean something... but what? A "little game", perhaps?

Maybe a post-production screw up? Could it be that easy? Maybe someone just screwed up the colour controls and whites just came out as yellow. I know nothing of these things though from a technical perspective. Just a guess.