Transitions (8.11)

[artie]

Not sure if you count this as a flub, maybe more of a set malfunction…. But at the end where the chick jumps over the wall and off the cliff for the manuscript if you watch the wall she jumps over it almost gets knocked over when she jumps over it. I never noticed this while seeing it on TV but on the DVD it is much more apparent that the whole thing is made out of foam and cardboard...

[N1095A]

TM phones Higgins from TC's chopper!
I do believe this is the one and only time we see TM use a cell phone in the entire series.

The exterior scenes of Higgins driving the out of control Audi are almost shot for shot the same ones as in "Limbo" when Michele is driving.

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"But Higgins, I can explain."

[J.J. Walters]

[lutherhgillis]

The handheld mobile telephone was a Motorolla 'brick' DynaTAC 8000X portable cellular phone, 1983. The world's first commercial handheld cellular phone became available to consumers in 1984. The battery permitted about 30 minutes of talk time.

There was another episode where Rick and TC used a similar mobile telephone and one episode where TM used the mobile telephone installed inside the Audi. I cannot recall the episode names...

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

[IKnowWhatYoureThinking]

Those things make a great door stop or paper weight!

[Jaybird]

I gave it an 8.0 and wasn't surprised to see that as the most popular rating. It just wasn't a favorite of mine and the story line was somewhat confusing and not believable. Is Higgins actually Robin Masters? Guess we'll find out next!

[Frodoleader]

I think this is only the second time I've seen this episode, the first being back in 1988. It wasn't a bad story. I agree with the lack of Rick & TC. As the penultimate episode of MPI, they should have had more of a role.
Two things I liked about this episode:
1. Randi Brooks...hubba hubba!
2. The ending shot, with TM and Higgins facing away from the camera. This could very well have been used as a last shot of the series, if this had been the series finale. A very poignant moment in my opinion.

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"You are three months at Dak Wei and still you crack jokes?" - Ivan

[Jay-Firestorm]

The final of my double-review Fridays. For the final regular episode, I was rather disappointed in this one.

[rating=7.0]

Higgins asks Thomas to investigate when Robin Masters’ latest manuscript is stolen. Complicating matters further is the return of St. Louie P.I. Luther Gillis, who arrives for an unexpected stay. For the penultimate episode, rather disappointing…

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This review contains spoilers.

‘Transitions’ is the final regular episode of ‘Magnum, p.i.’, before the two-hour / two-part finale ‘Resolutions’, which originally aired a couple of months after this story.
And for the penultimate story, I found this one to be very disappointing in most regards.

This episode marks the fifth, final time that Eugene Roche guest stars as St. Louie gumshoe Luther Gillis. Although I wasn’t to sure about him in his first appearance (in season four’s ‘Luther Gillis: #521’), as I have commented in other reviews he soon toned down from being a gruff know-it-all to a lovable bumbler. So I was pleased to see the character to make one last appearance here – but wondered why the put him in the episode exactly. He has very little to do, and in many ways seems to have been added as an afterthought. Maybe they just wanted to give a popular recurring character one last outing, but I’d have preferred – if they couldn’t give himself and Magnum one last tough case to crack – that they had just given him a cameo in ‘Resolutions’ instead.

I find the story to be very bitty, and the plot seems to be about virtually nothing in places. For much of it, it plays as more of a character piece than case-driven, and while I don’t mind this occasionally in MPI, for the last regular episode before the finale, I personally would have hoped for something more.

The episode really plays upon the notion that Higgins might really be Robin Masters (a concept introduced in season seven’s excellent ‘Paper War’), and the thrust of the plot is that someone other than Magnum believes Higgins to really be Robin and is trying to kill him. This idea had a lot of potential, be it played out either as a comedy or more seriously, but here the concept very much falls flat.
The idea that the attempts on his life are reflected from Robin’s novel is again full of potential, but again handled clumsily and unclearly.
To me, the whole episode just feels to be thrown together late in the day, a filler to bump up the season’s episode count.

I also knew all along that the culprit behind the trouble would turn out to be Suzi Merill (Randy Brooks) – she is given such prominence throughout the story and just ‘happens to be there’ with little explanation, that I found it blatantly obvious.

I do like the final scene though, with Higgins (battered and in a wheelchair after the Audi crashes) looking across the city with Magnum, and Higgins almost giving too much away about whether he is really Robin or not, and then changing the subject with “Isn’t it a lovely day out”. Despite this episode’s disappointments, this line and the final shot are a lovely way to finish the last regular episode.

This isn’t my least favourite episode of the eighth season – that goes to the unfunny ‘comedy’ ‘A Girl Named Sue’. More than anything, this one is just such a disappointment.

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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* On the DVD version, the first act break in the story is abridged, the rest are left untouched.

* Magnum smokes his sixteenth cigar of the series in this story.

* In a real rarity, Magnum and T.C. both wear their Da Nang caps at the same time – unless I am much mistaken, the only other two episodes in which this happens is in the fifth season’s ‘Blind Justice’ and season six’s ‘The Kona Winds’.

* When Magnum phones Higgins from T.C.’s helicopter (on the ancient 1G phone that others have already noted), when Magnum says “Higgins, no!”, Higgins has already put the phone down but does not cut off the end of Magnum’s “no!” (if that makes sense!).

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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!!

[IKnowWhatYoureThinking]

Jay, as a cigar aficionado I love the fact that you are keeping up with the number of cigars Magnum has smoked in the series. I know there is at least one more on the way (Resolutions Part II I believe).

[Coops]

Found a flub. I guess only a Camaro freak like me could pick it out. When Higgins is in the Audi and the brakes fail, there is a close up shot of the inside of the car with him pulling on the parking brake repeatedly. That is actually the interior of a 3rd generation Camaro (1982-1992). You can tell by the "baseball" shape of the shifter knob and the tell-tale shape of the vent on the forward part of the center console. The buttons on the stereo also give it away.

On a side note, as a Camaro/Firebird fan, I noticed that they were used a LOT in the show, not only as a villian's getaway car but also used in the background of a lot of scenes. Just thought I'd point that out.

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