A Pretty Good Dancing Chicken (5.22)

[J.J. Walters]

This is the official MM thread for A Pretty Good Dancing Chicken (5.22). All discussions and reviews for this episode should go here. If you wish to rate the episode, please do so with the poll. The avg. score will be the official 'community rating', which will be used on the episode page (updated monthly).

This thread is also linked in the episode page of the Episode Guide.

Original Air Date: 4/4/1985
Magnum's behind bars when he goes undercover as a convict in order to seek clues about the disappearance of a 17-year-old girl.

[Doc Ibold]

So, watched this episode last night....

Overall, I'd call it so-so. Could have used more invesitgation behind bars.

And, maybe it's just me, but you think that another guard would have noticed that the cons hit the yard guard over the head with a shovel.

You're telling me there were NO other guards around when a truck was stolen and driven through the gate, a guard gets beat over the head with a shovel, a fight and conversation take place for several minutes and then Magnum is allowed to just run away (presumably for several miles) until he gets back to Robin's Nest. No APB, no one catches him, and then the police ask to make a thorough search of the grounds (where they know Magnum lives) and he can just hide out in the wine cellar (where they apparently won't check?!).

And this "prison"/work farm allows ALL this to happen?

James, don't know if this is a flub or not, but HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY improbabable.

However, Higgins at the topless bar was CLASSIC.

I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone look so put out at a topless bar.

The expression on his face is priceless!

Plus, is it just me or does Becky Damon's dad look like a skeleton?

[Shermy]

This one definitely strains for credibility. For starters, it takes Magnum way too long to actually get into the prison. Much like 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen', it's a plot that could've greatly benefited from being a two-parter.

Average episode, although the novelty of seeing Magnum in prison does make a nice little precursor to "An Innocent Man".

[J.J. Walters]

I agree, mediocre at best. But hey, what can you expect. One of the guys who came up with this story (Anthony Pellicano, a former "P.I. to the Stars") is currently sitting in jail himself awaiting trial on 110 counts of conspiracy and racketeering charges!

This episode does have two other great moments, though.

Higgins (re: Magnum): "He wakes regularly for long feedings." LOL!

and this scene:

[AJL]

Just finished watching this, I though it was pretty good, nothing amazing though.
As for seasen 5 as a whole, it started out amazing, but then ran out of steam, and the last ten og maybe even more episodes were generelly decent at best IMO.

[lutherhgillis]

I agree that you must suspend disbelief in order to enjoy this one. The events are not very likely to happen in real life but what in TVland does happen in real life???

I remember wathcing this one during its first run. I was a little grossed out when they approached the car where the girl was left behind. The presumption was that her dead body was there. They pull a good twist by showing her alive and it gives the crud guy a big surprize. That twist alone qualifies the episode as at least 'pretty good' in my book.

Magnum going inside the pen to get the skinny on the crud was a dumb idea. I do not think that would happen in real life.

[J.J. Walters]

However, Higgins at the topless bar was CLASSIC.

I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone look so put out at a topless bar.

The expression on his face is priceless!

Yeah, great scene! And he was watching "Halle Berry". Ok, her name is probably spelt "HOLLY", but still pretty funny! When T.C. mentioned her name over the phone, I literally laughed out loud!

I don't know if anybody else noticed this or not, but there is a weird, subtle little moment at the beginning of this episode that, if noticed, causes a die hard Magnum to do a double-take, then laugh hysterically. Towards the beginning, when Magnum first visits the "Anagrams" office, he strikes up a conversation with the manager. In the background a gorilla suit can be seen....



The camera then cuts to the manager and then QUICKLY (in like 2 seconds) cuts back to Magnum...



Look at that, someone stuck what appears to be a rubber chicken in its mouth! LOL!

Only on MPI do you see stuff like this!

[golfmobile]

James,

That is HYSTERICAL!! (the rubber chicken in the gorilla's mouth)

I bet this is the kind of thing that the crew did a lot and possibly the leads never knew this stuff was even going on! A REAL "inside joke"! Because, as we have established, this was pre-DVD-play-the-episodes-over-and-over-again-and-look-at-every-detail -- and I bet the crew DELIGHTED in getting away with stuff like this because no one ever noticed.

A pity they aren't members here (or at least lurkers) to see how the MPI "specialists" here (I regret I'm not one, sadly) spot things like this. I think they would get a big kick out of seeing how their tricks ARE appreciated! And I'm sure this contributed to making the set fun to work on!

golf

[J.J. Walters]

golf,

I could be wrong, but I think this was setup intentionally. It may have even been part of the script. In the closup shots of Magnum, the gorilla suit is framed perfectly just above his right shoulder. Also, "chickens", of different types, are featured in this episode - 1) the title of the episode, 2) Becky was a former "dancing chicken", 3) Earlier in the episode, Becky's dad briefly picks up Magnum's rubber chicken in the guesthouse.

Could it be that there was some sort of symbolism involved in this brief scene? Like something you'd see in an Orson Welles film. The gorilla suit represents Becky's dad who wasn't there for her when she needed him. The rubber chicken represents Becky, a former "dancing chicken". By consuming the rubber chicken, the gorilla suit has, in effect, .........

Oh, what do I know!

[golfmobile]

Yeah, I think it's easier to let it be a crew inside joke!

golf

[Mark R.Y.]

I just wanted to note that this ep. was co-written by Joe Gores, one of the most celebrated mystery/detective novelists of the last four decades. Currently, I'm reading his latest - "Spade and Archer" which is a prequel to Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon."

[Doc Ibold]

Maybe I'm being really obvious here.... but I'll say it anyway!

Gorilla Suit/Toms Gorilla Mask?

Plus the manager said that he would make a great dancing gorilla (although he's too tall).

I would say that if Paper War is the practical joke episode, this would be the "inside joke" episode, in correlation to what James and golf said!

[J.J. Walters]

I just wanted to note that this ep. was co-written by Joe Gores, one of the most celebrated mystery/detective novelists of the last four decades.

Hi Mark R.Y.. Welcome to the site!

I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't heard of Joe Gores until now. In looking at his bio on thrillingdetective.com, I see that he has had quite a career. Three Edgars for three different categories: Best First Novel, Best Short Story and Best TV Series Segment. That's pretty impressive! His TV Series Edgar was for Kojak: "No Immunity for Murder" (1975). He also did a Remington Steele ("Let's Steele a Plot"). I'm gonna have to check those out.

Thanks for pointing this out Mark.

What an interesting collection of writers this episode has - a celebrated, award-winning mystery/detective author, a shady "P.I. to the Stars", Anthony Pellicano (who now sits in a federal pen on wiretapping and racketeering convictions), and Jay Huguely, longtime MPI writer/producer.

[Mark R.Y.]

Thanks for the welcome, James! This site is really enhancing my enjoyment of watching the MPI DVDs.
Mark

[Jay-Firestorm]

Finally I reach the end of the disappointing fifth season. This episode is fair, but feels like such a missed opportunity to me.

[rating=7.5]

When Magnum is asked by Carol to investigate the disappearance of her 17-year-old niece, he goes undercover as a convict on a prison farm to check out an inmate who was last seen with her. Passable, but such a missed opportunity…

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This review contains spoilers.

I want to like this episode. I really do. It has such potential. Sadly, like many other fifth season offerings, it never hits its stride, feeling somewhat unpolished and half-hearted, and comes off as so-so at best.

Without wanting to continually compare to other favourite shows of mine, I’ve always liked prison-based episodes (see ‘The A-Team’s ‘Pros and Cons’ (season 1) and ‘Breakout!’ (3), ‘The Fall Guy’s ‘That’s Right, We’re Bad’ (1) and ‘Knight Rider’s ‘No Big Thing’ (1) to name but a few), and many stand as classics of those respective series. So when I first read the synopsis of this MPI episode when it was scheduled to air, many years ago now, I was really looking forward to it – I thought that a prison-set ‘Magnum’ episode could potentially be a series classic. But, to put it bluntly, it isn’t.

The whole first act is wasted, being too over-talky and slow to get going. The actual prison section of the episode isn’t even introduced until the second act (more of that in a moment), coming in far too late. In the meantime, Magnum checks out ‘Anagrams’, a company where people dress as various animals to deliver greetings messages. This may be vaguely amusing, but to me feels over-forcibly ‘wacky’, trying too hard to recapture the wonderfully quirky touches of episodes of earlier seasons.

When Magnum does eventually go to prison in act two, the story abruptly jumps – we see nothing of Magnum being inducted into the prison or suchlike, instead suddenly leaping forward in the story. I would have liked to have seen some of the slow, wordy first act omitted and more of Magnum’s induction featured instead.

The prison scenes themselves are very routine, again not living up to the potential that they had. And once Magnum has effectively broken out of prison to go after the escaping Jacobs, there is more disappointment – imagine a story where Magnum is being hunted by the Police. Sounds exciting? Not in this episode, it isn’t.

The final scene rounds off things as well as can be expected, but with Becky probably about to spend a spell in prison, it continues a trend of the final episode of the season ending on a down note (see season three’s ‘Faith and Begorrah’ and season four’s ‘I Witness’).

I really want to like this episode, and there is a very good story in there somewhere. But ultimately it suffers the same as much of the fifth season, and ends up sub par.

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Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* Nothing to note on this one, other than that on the DVD version, all of the act breaks are abridged.

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Fifth season overview.

After four great seasons of ‘Magnum, p.i.’, things sadly took a nosedive with the fifth season. Magnum (both the character and the series) was maturing, and that was no bad thing, but there was something else – stories now lacked the sparkle and great little touches of earlier instalments.
The season opens with the two-part ‘Echoes of the Mind’, which I found hard to get into, due to the noticeable sudden change in feel from the previous seasons. Ironically, compared to some of the weak episodes of the season, this would ultimately turn out to be one of the season’s better stories.
Following ‘Echoes of the Mind’ comes ‘Mac’s Back’, and of the season, this is the only episode that I consider a classic – it comes second to the fourth season’s excellent ‘Home From the Sea’ as my all-time favourite MPI episode. The story serves to reintroduce Jeff MacKay back into the series, after the original Mac was killed off in the third season’s ‘Did You See The Sunrise?’ (freeing MacKay up to play Corky in ‘Tales of the Golden Monkey’, which only lasted one season).
Sadly, after that, the season quickly goes downhill, offering a number of so-so-at-best episodes. Some, such as ‘Under World’ (for pure example) are watchable, but ultimately forgettable and unlikely to make anyone’s ‘Top 10’ list. Most of the episodes are also more straight dramas, noticeably lacking the well-balanced blend of drama, comedy, adventure and action of earlier examples.
There are some better episodes – I like the two-part ‘All For One’, for example – but the season is mostly made up of episodes that would at best be ‘fillers’ in other seasons. Sadly, this continues for much of the sixth season – bar a few episodes, it won’t be until season seven that things start to pick up again.
And one more thing that I noticed with the fifth season – Magnum’s hair goes from long in one episode, to short in another, back to long again in the next, where the episodes were shown in a different order to they were produced. A minor thing, but it stood out to me.