Magnum Mania!

Dead Man's Channel

Episode ID: 20
Episode Number: 2.2
Air Date: 10/15/1981
Writer: Diane Frolov
Director: Ray Austin
Producers: Rick Weaver, Andrew Schneider
Exec Producer: Donald P. Bellisario

Recurring Characters

Jeff MacKay (Lt. "Mac" MacReynolds)

Guest Stars

Ina Balin (Prof. Martinez), Wendy Girard (Marion Hammond), Mamaluna (Tehani), Curtis Malia (Keone)

Plot Outline

Magnum is hired by a young woman to locate her archaeologist father, whose boat was found deserted in the Nihoa Channel. Although locals claim the channel is cursed, Magnum takes on the assignment to find the missing scientist.

Rating

7.5 (12 votes) MM Episode Forum Thread & Poll

Notes

1 This is the first episode to feature elements of traditional Hawaiian culture and people. Season One's "The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club" (1.11) dabbled in it briefly with the Kahuna subplot.

2 Episode screenwriter Diane Frolov will go on to produce and write for Northern Exposure and The Sopranos, among others. She was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for best dramatic series for her work on the sixth season of The Sopranos. This is her very first television screenplay. She will also pen the Season Two episode "The Taking of Dick McWilliams" (2.10).

3 Rick's yacht, The King Kamehameha I, is seen for the first time. We also see Rick driving the red Nissan 280ZX again for only the second time. We first saw him driving it in "Thank Heaven for Little Girls and Big Ones Too" (1.4).

4 Roger E. Mosley does not appear in this episode. This is the first episode of the series where one of the show's four stars is absent for the entire story. During the series' eight-year run, Mosley will miss three episodes, Manetti and Hillerman one. Tom Selleck will appear in all 162 syndicated episodes.

5 Higgins talks about the "Kudu Buck". Based on sounds only, he thought one was loose on the estate grounds, but it turned out to be a common goat. The Greater Kudu is a woodland antelope found throughout eastern and southern Africa. It is large in size and has "great twisted antlers". Higgins studied it carefully at close range when he was at the Zambezi river, somewhere in the African plain (date unknown).

6 Ina Balin (Prof. Martinez) will later guest star in Season Seven's "L.A." (7.1 & 7.2).

Quotes

1
Magnum: This was one of those days I wish I'd listened to my mother and studied to be an orthodontist. Looking into someone's mouth has gotta be better than staring death in the face. (Narration)

2
Tehani: You wanna know what happened to Mr. Hammond?
Magnum: That's right.
Tehani: It's Kapu for my people to talk of the channel. The Neho waters are sacred. They belong to Kanaloa.
Magnum: Kanaloa?
Tehani: The God of the Sea. No Hualalai may enter the channel! All who do, die!
Magnum: Well, you know, the Navy's been going out on the channel for quite a few years now and nothing seems to have happened to them.
Tehani: Everything is done in Kanaloa's time. You have been warned!

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