Murder 101 (5.8)

[SelleckLover]

[sophia]

I agree with Tralfaz

Also another reason Rick, Higgins, and TC were always there to help,even
when compaining was, they all wanted to be like TM.
At least a little.
They wanted to get in the game, wanted some excitment in there own lives.
Also, they had to help him out, otherwise how could they ever hope to be
paid what TM owed them.

[Magnums Little Voice]

I liked this one. So it was a bit of a "as if" episode, and a real change for Magnum, but hey it was funny all the same. Not enough Higgin's in this episode tho, or the last (Blind Justice), im begining to miss him, still a nice change for Magnum and a fun episode!!

[IslandHopper]

Another flub can be seen when we first see Magnum speaking with Mr. Gaylord in Mr. Gaylord's office. The flub can be seen right after we hear Mr. Gaylord say "your class will probably be cancelled after today." Magnum appears to be standing on the right side of Mr. Gaylord's desk. Mr. Gaylord is sitting in his chair facing Magnum. The camera is situated in the front left of Gaylord's desk. As Magnum is speaking with Gaylord and points to the class "prospectus" you can see the shadow of a crew member move on the front of the desk (left part of the screen).

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

[Tuan Vu]

I'm surprised that this episode received such low ratings. I really enjoyed it because it was really funny and lighthearted, which was a nice relief after a heavy "Blind Justice" episode.

The discussion on this episode revolving around TM's character flaws and his tendency at times to take advantage of his friends was interesting. My take is that friends don't really keep score as to who did more for whom. Sure, they all make little deals and negotiatians, and at times can be manipulative, but when it comes down to helping each other out in the other's time of need, they always came through for each other.

Besides, no one is perfect, and that is how you know that they were all true friends. In spite of each one's faults (and yes, TM had many faults), they remained true friends. They all knew each other's faults (and reminded each other often! ), but still remained friends anyway. If we were friends only with people who had no faults, then what does that say about us? Only that we are fair weather friends.

[Carmen]

Hey I found a flub (my first one)
While looking thru`the garbage Magnum is wearing a white shirt and a light blue jeans. Next scene he is sitting on his sofa, dirty dark blue jeans and some different dirty shirt and Higgins is telling him to take a shower and put on new clothes.

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Sometimes I get so lucky, even I don`t believe it (TSM)

[J.J. Walters]

Hey, nice flub spot Carmen!

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

[lutherhgillis]

I appreciate what SL said about Vietnam and the value of friends. That would explain a great deal and TM, TC, and Rick.

I love this campy episode. We get to laugh at Magnum's flaws. The book he wants to write gets another mention. His inability to teach a class is amusing. The sterotypical class members are hilarious.

[A P Leyland]

I thought this one was campy fun as well.

"Gnarly" made me laugh an insane amount.

Andy

[Jay-Firestorm]

I started off really liking this episode, but sadly it loses its way in the middle.

[rating=8.0]

Magnum has got a job teaching a course on private investigation, but when the students insist on a real case to work on, they end up investigating the strange disappearance of the fiancée of one of class members. Starts off fun but sadly goes downhill…

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This review contains spoilers.

This is one of those episodes that some viewers really dislike. Personally, I started off really liking it – it was a welcome light-hearted story after the serious ‘Blind Justice’ – but sadly, it loses its way and really nosedives midway through.

As I say, it starts off reasonably enough. Most of Magnum’s students may indeed be stereotypes (not least the ‘surfer dude’ Danny), but I found them to be a fun group, and it was amusing to see Magnum playing professor.

The investigation that the class vote on taking isn’t exactly interesting, but it starts off with potential, as Magnum and the class pile into Danny’s beaten up van and begin searching for Stacy’s missing fiancée. But unfortunately, soon after, the plot really loses its direction.

I think it was a bad move script-wise to have the P.I. class cancelled halfway through the story. It causes the plot to lose its focus, and surely it would have been more fun for the class’ investigation to stumble through to the end of the episode before being cancelled.

With the class cancelled, all of the students other than Stacy disappear from the middle of the story, and it descends into a very average and generic investigation, and not a particularly interesting one at that.

Usually I am pretty good at following the twists and details of Magnum’s investigations, but I really lost the thread with the explanations of money laundering and suchlike – which was explained in a very awkward and unclear manner in my opinion.

The rest of the class return for the final ‘showdown’ with the villains of the piece, but after their sudden disappearance mid-episode, it doesn't work as well as it should.

In the end, Magnum’s struggling class becomes a huge success, from the publicity of solving the case of Stacy’s missing fiancée. Of course, the class is never mentioned again in the series, so presumably some other fate befell it.

I really want to like this episode, and parts of it I do indeed warm to. But it ultimately winds up so unfocused, not to mention the confusing explanation regarding the disappearance of Stacy’s fiancée, that it is just nowhere as could as might should have been. If it had come from an earlier season, I have a feeling it would have been much more focused and clever, but coming from the dodgy fifth season, it sadly falls down. At first I wanted to give it a higher score, but bearing in mind the problems mentioned above, I can only give it an 8.0 rating – which some will say is higher than it deserves anyway.

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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* I’ll have to double check this one, but when the class are in Danny’s van, the shots looking out over the hood seem to be from a different van. The hood of Danny’s van is white, but this one seems to be blue. Also, Danny’s van seems to have a strip of yellow fabric across the dash, whereas this second van doesn’t appear to.

* When the class are searching through the garbage, and Mr. Gaylord puts his foot on a piece of paper, squashing out some unpleasant looking goo, in the surrounding shots, the piece of paper on the ground can be seen to be much smaller than in the close-up.

* I’m not certain about this one either, but on Magnum’s license (which reverts to stating his birthday as 5th January, which I love, as this is also my birthdate!), the photo of him to me looks like it was taken from the common early promotional shot of him kneeling down by one of the Ferrari’s wheels. I’ll have to try and find a scan of this shot and compare them.

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

_________________
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!!