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Original Air Date: 12/8/1983
A familiar voice on the radio leads Magnum to Holly Hudson, a popular Saigon disc jockey. Magnum discovers that Holly's been the recent victim of some very vocal death threats, but she's more concerned about the whereabouts of her missing fiance.

I watched this episode again today, recorded on my DVR from WGN when it ran this morning. Interestingly, Maggie Poole does not appear at all in the episode as shown, though T.C. does make mention of the fact that he had been to see her to ask about Don Cassidy. Jean Bruce Scott's name does appear in the leading credits, but, according to IMDB, she was credited as playing the travel agent! That is clearly a mistake -- I submitted a correction to them to change it.

In fact, I believe that the actress who played the travel agent was actually Nevada Woodward. If so, she was incorrectly credited as "Joanie" in the trailing credits. Holly referred to her as her friend "Julie Meade" in dialog and there is no other reference to her name, spoken or written, in the show. This is either a flub in the credits or in Gretchen Corbett's delivery of dialog. Is this how it appears on the DVD version as well?

As for T.C. being a Captain, remember that, unlike Magnum and Rick, he has been in the reserves since he left active duty. In fact, if he was wearing a jacket, it was probably from his reserve uniform. So he may have received promotions to Captain as a reservist.

Was TC referred to as a Captain in this episode? I don't recall. However, I do recall that when Magnum flashed back to his Vietnam days when he drove up on TC, Rick and Griff, TC's rank was that of a Warrant Officer, which is common for helicopter pilots. Warrant Officers are not actually commissioned officers, but they are specialists in a given field, such has helicopter pilots.

The only other episodes I remember TC wearing a uniform is "Don't Eat The Snow In Hawaii", "Memories Are Forever", Did You See The Sunrise", "The Look", and "Paradise Blues." It will be interesting to see if TC's rank is consistent from episode to episode.

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The answer is obvious, old man. Logic is irrelevant. It's simply Tropical Madness. (J.Q. Higgins)

I was referring to note 4 from the episode guide page:

"When T.C. goes to visit Lt. Maggie Poole, he wears his old Marine jacket which says 'Capt. Theodore Calvin, USMC'. We knew he was in the Marines, but this is the first reference to him being a Captain and contradicts what, ironically, Lt. Maggie Poole says in Did You See the Sunrise? (2) (3.2), where she refers to T.C. as having been a Warrant Officer."

Do you have season 4 on DVD?

Thanks eegorr. Yes, I have season 4 on DVD. I will check that out. I never noticed that before. It will be interesting to see what rank TC was in season 3's Did You See The Sunrise.

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The answer is obvious, old man. Logic is irrelevant. It's simply Tropical Madness. (J.Q. Higgins)

eegorr, you saw the syndicated version of this episode. Syndicated episodes are missing ~ 5 minutes of footage (to increase time for commercials). It appears that the syndicated version of this episode removed the entire scene with T.C. and Maggie.

IslandHopper, In Sunrise, Maggie calls out T.C.'s rank as "Warrant Officer".

Another solid Magnum episode. Rockford Files alum Gretchen Corbett is always great and I love her character in this episode. Lots of great music can be heard in the background. And how about T.C.'s "disappearing sign" magic trick - the birthday sign's on the skid, now it's gone, now it's back! Heh.

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Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

Thanks James. I recently watched the episode "Did You See The Sunrise" and did notice that Maggie referred to TC as Warrant Officer. However, when TC and Nuzo were driving Rick's Mercedes to commandeer the Marine helicopter, the Marine sentry who stopped the car referred to TC as "Lieutenant Calvin." It is conceivable that TC could have received a commission to Second Lieutenant since leaving Vietnam. If he did receive a commission, then he may have risen to the rank of Captain as depicted in "The Look."

James, do you think the fact that TC is referred to as Warrant Officer and Lieutenant in the same episode qualifies as a flub?

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The answer is obvious, old man. Logic is irrelevant. It's simply Tropical Madness. (J.Q. Higgins)

Although I don't have final say so, and its James ultimate call I would think it would be.

Maggie is obviously on top of her game, and the sentry was probably familiar with T.C. from him coming and going.

If he didn't know T.C., he probably would have called him "sir" or "lieutanant", instead of adding the surname

Yeah, I looked out for that after I saw it on your site... they probably used stock footage of the copter flying and completely forgot about the sign!

Sorry to butt in here, but I still think it may be a matter of timing... he may have left active duty as a Warrant Officer, but remember that he has been in the reserves since the day he left active duty, unlike Rick and Thomas. He could have received a commission when he entered the reserves, so he might have been a Lieutenant in the reserves at the beginning of season 3 and a Captain by mid-season 4, when this episode came out.

Maggie might be referring to his active duty rank and not his rank in the reserves.