Let Me Hear the Music (5.18)

[rubber chicken]

lol Sam, too funny!

Even after 20+ years, we're still discovering new aspects of the show. That's what I call depth!

[J.J. Walters]

[dick butkus]

A fine episode. Touching in many ways. Excellent play by that cowboy, whatever his name is. I enjoyed it a lot. A somewhat unusual episode on Magnum, p.i. Surprises like this is what makes the series so extraordinary.

[lutherhgillis]

I hope I'm not repeating anyone but here goes... Dennis Weaver is an accomplished musician in real life. He did a great job in this part.

This story line is alot like the Hank Williams story...

I was a huge McCloud fan as a kid. It was good to see Dennis teach Magnum the old school way!

Red West aka Elvis' old body guard. What an imposing dude!

[SelleckLover]

I liked Dennis Weaver in McCloud also. I liked the way he kind of always played a kind of intelligent country hick-type character. (My husband jokes that he always played a "Hillbilly-Physicist" or "Hillbilly-Rocket Scientist" character.)LOL

[Jay-Firestorm]

I'm a long way off from re-watching / reviewing this ep, but just thought I'd note that, after the original working title of 'Secret Rainbows', the story became 'I Just Want To Hold You' for a while.

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JAY FIRESTORM

Facebook: Jay Gathergood / Twitter: Jay_Firestorm NEW BLOG: http://thea-teamcaptured.blogspot.com/

My A-Team site - http://thea-team.org aiming to be the most detailed A-Team site on the Net - if I ever get around to updating it!!

[lutherhgillis]

SL,

You got something against hillbillies, you left coast neocommie...?

Why do you think hillbilly physicist is a dichotomy? Hillbillies can cypher with the best of 'em... And, by the way, there are nearly as many places of higher learnin' in the hills as there are on the extreme-leftist coast... higher by way of elevation that is...

Go ahead, make fun of the hill folk who cling to their guns and Bibles... They'll laugh in the end...

Having fun at your expense.

Drop a flower on the corner of Haight-Ashbury for me...

I'll stop now.

This is a J-O-K-E . Please do not be offended.

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Who's Dot Matrix, and what has she got to do with this?

[Jay-Firestorm]

I *want* to like this episode, and Dennis Weaver is a terrific guest star, but I find the plot just so darn boring.

[rating=6.0]

Thomas is hired by a talented musician to track down five unpublished songs penned by legendary country star George Lee Jessop shortly before he was killed. But the woman that the songs were written for denies ever knowing him. Great guest star, dull plot

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‘Let Me Hear the Music’ (original working title: ‘Secret Rainbows’, later ‘I Want To Hold You’) is an episode that part of me really wants to like, but I just can’t warm to it due to such a dull and unengaging plot.

Dennis Weaver, playing musician Lacy Fletcher, is a great guest star, and for this alone I want to like the episode. Weaver is immensely likable, and it is such a shame that he didn’t get a stronger story to appear in. He also plays the guitar and fiddle in this episode, as well as writing two of the three songs featured.

The story begins with a flashback to the 1950s, with George Lee Jessop and Lacy Fletcher performing on the evening shortly before George was killed in an aeroplane crash. In this sequence, Lacy (Weaver) is played by Weaver’s son Rusty Weaver, and the young George by another son, Robby (the same device of using actors’ offspring to play younger versions of themselves was previously used in the enjoyable first season episode ‘Lest We Forget’). Also to note for trivia fans, is that yet another of Weaver’s sons, Rick Weaver, was a producer for the series through most of its run.

Anyway, as I say, I find the plot itself to be extremely weak. I just couldn’t warm to what was going on, and my attention wandered from the plot at some points.
The fight at the peak of episode, between Weaver and Desmond Crane, is very unconvincing, and doesn’t work at all.

The only thing I do like about this episode is Lacy’s unending loyalty to his old deceased friend George, which is handled in the final scene very well. If only the rest of the story had more of this warmth, maybe I would have liked it a bit more.

For me, this episode sums up how many feel the series changed its tone somewhat in the fifth season, lacking its well-written and well-balanced qualities of earlier seasons, instead going for more out-and-out, take-it-or-leave it dramas such as this.

All-in-all… this one of my least favourite episodes, I’m afraid. There are others that are more ridiculous, but this one loses a lot of marks for just being so darn boring. Dennis Weaver is the best thing about him and, as I say above, its such a shame that he didn’t get a stronger story to showcase his talents in.

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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* Nothing more to add on this one, other than, once again, on the DVD version, the act breaks are abridged (i.e. there is no gap in-between scenes)

_________________
JAY FIRESTORM

Facebook: Jay Gathergood / Twitter: Jay_Firestorm NEW BLOG: http://thea-teamcaptured.blogspot.com/

My A-Team site - http://thea-team.org aiming to be the most detailed A-Team site on the Net - if I ever get around to updating it!!

[Coops]

Wow...is it me or did Rusty Weaver (Lacy, '54) look just like a young Steve Carell? I was absolutely convinced of it unitl I say the listing for Rusty Weaver in IMDB. That really freaked me out!

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[Styles Bitchley]