Thicker than Blood (1.12)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the first season

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How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
2
2%
9.5 (One of the Best)
8
8%
9.0 (Excellent)
16
16%
8.5 (Very Good)
19
18%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
29
28%
7.5 (Decent)
16
16%
7.0 (Average at Best)
7
7%
6.5 (Not So Good)
4
4%
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
1
1%
5.0 (Just Awful)
1
1%
 
Total votes: 103

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J.J. Walters
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#16 Post by J.J. Walters »

Nice review Agatha!
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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Jay-Firestorm
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#17 Post by Jay-Firestorm »

My second review of this week. I know some people love this episode, and I do like it, but it’s not one of my outstanding favourites.

[TV.com rating=8.5, Character development]

After T.C. is arrested for making a late night flight to a tanker and smuggling a man back onto the islands, he refuses to say anything in his defence. Magnum and Rick try to find out what is going on to clear his name. A good episode although not one of my favourites…

-----

‘Thicker than Blood’ is another episode penned by series co-creator Donald P. Bellisario, so straight off it’s destined to be a good story. And it certainly has its good moments. That said, it’s not one of my favourites of the first season for some reason.

From this episode on, the original Ian Fairbairn-Smith theme is completely replaced by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter’s more recognised theme for the series. It also kind of marks how the series has progressed through its early experimental (but very good) episodes and it’s becoming settled as a series.

The story is notable for how long it takes for Magnum himself to be seen – a great chunk at the beginning is filled up with T.C.’s late night flight to the tanker and trying to sneak his old comrade Joey back into Hawaii.

Joey is played very well by Vincent Caristi, who perfectly captures the child-like young man who should never have been thrown into Vietnam in the first place.

A notable scene of the episode is when Magnum wakes up to find the unseen ‘Sarah’ – who we are to presume he has been dating – gone, leaving a tape recording in her place. Although this sequence is initially well-written by Bellisario, and Selleck is more than capable of carrying it, the whole scene ends up coming off too over cutesy, not to mention that ‘Sarah’s voice is rather annoying.

The episode plays out well, with Magnum and Rick trying to find why T.C. won’t defend himself in court, but I don’t find it as gripping as some of the other first season greats.
The obligatory fight between Magnum and T.C., although on the face of it well done, seems just to be thrown in for the sake of it, and I didn’t really buy it.

[Spoiler] And the explanation that the villains on the tanker wanted to use T.C.’s chopper to sneak a mass stash of cocaine back on the islands, and plan to get their hands on it by buying the chopper at Police auction… Do the Police never check any vehicle before they sell it on?! I just didn’t buy this at all and felt that it let down the episode. I also felt the unclear outcome, with T.C. given a suspended sentence, was brushed over too quickly. [End of spoiler]

A good moment comes when Magnum has enough of Higgins’ “rules” and says that he’ll move out. At the ends, Higgins makes up some flimsy excuse so that Magnum can stay – a nice sign that Higgins can’t really live without Magnum; an Odd Couple indeed.
(And as Magnum is sorting through his stuff, we see for the first time his gorilla mask, which would be seen a number of times in later episodes).

All-in-all, a perfectly watchable episode; but compared to some of the other examples in the season, it just doesn’t stand out to me. I give it a very reasonable but not excellent 8.5.

-----

Other notes, bloopers and misc.:

* With the new opening comes two things to note:
In the opening shots of T.C.’s helicopter swooping down, the tail rotor flips sides between shots
The shot of the car exploding and going over the side of the cliff seems to be taken from filming of the Pilot; if you look closely, you can see ropes underneath that were used to keep the car in the right position as it exploded

* The shot looking from inside of one of the coastguard’s helicopters is clearly pre-existing stock footage

* As already mentioned by others, the editing of the scene of T.C. in handcuffs in the opening trailer, has some different dialogue to seen in the actual episode

* A rather trivial note, but Joey’s surname, Santino, is very similar to Santini, which Donald P. Bellisario would later use (for Ernest Borgnine’s Dominic Santini) in ‘Airwolf’.

* Also as mentioned above, this is the first time that we see T.M.'s gorilla mask.
JAY FIRESTORM

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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!!

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Rutledal
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#18 Post by Rutledal »

Jay I see you mention that " The shot looking from inside of one of the coastguard’s helicopters is clearly pre-existing stock footage". This is painfully obvious when sollid ground actually can be spotted trough the window of the chopper, in the bottom right, even though their supposed to be above the middle of the ocean.

I'll see if I can post a screencap of that later.
So I made a Topic Page about Magnum, P.I. Check it out here.

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J.J. Walters
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#19 Post by J.J. Walters »

Hey rubber chicken, I got something for you for the next release of the filming location guide...

The fight scene (at T.C.'s hanger) was filmed on location at the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point (Kapolei), in the General Service Vehicle Shop (otherwise known as the "GSA building").

A retired USCG sent me this information. He said he was present at all of CG filming and was used as the Coast Guard Helicopter Air Crewman that gave T.C. the hand signals (in the Coast Guard Helicopter’s door).

Pretty neat.
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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rubber chicken
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#20 Post by rubber chicken »

Very neat James, that's a location which would likely be impossible to find any other way. I'm unable to find a map of the air station though, so I'm unsure which building is the General Service Vehicle Shop. I'd like place a marker on the particular building if possible.

I wonder if this gentleman was also present during the segment at the end of Past Tense (3.5) where a coast Guard helicopter lands next to the WWII pillbox on Nimitz Beach, immediately south of Barbers Point Air Station.

Also in Past Tense, I wonder if he knows the location of the revetment that's used in the show as the "back entrance" to the beach pillbox. I've thought that it might be around here where there are a number of revetments, but that's only a slightly educated guess. Here's more info on that area (you'll probably want to mute your computer speakers before clicking that link).

Image
Last edited by rubber chicken on Sat Aug 29, 2009 5:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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J.J. Walters
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#21 Post by J.J. Walters »

RC,

He's not sure where the revetment in "Past Tense" is from, sorry.

He also added the following regarding "Thicker than Blood":
Regarding scenes filmed at Barbers Point CGAS, the scene in the operations room (big Earth Map in the back ground (Neil Lipe discussing the the matter ) was in the actual operations room. The scene as the crew enters the Air Station Building, where the phase " the Coast Guard make the best coffee in the world" is stated.

TC's helicopter was never at the Air Station during this filming as far as I know.

The Filming sequence for the CG Helo intercept , followed by the escape, followed by the Cobra face to face ("you guy's don't play fare") was done at Haleiwa, at the old air strip; west of Kamehameha Hwy, and north of Kahalewai Pl, west of Ukoa Pond (google map shows it well).

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 17&iwloc=A
I forgot to ask him about the General Service Vehicle Shop! I'll ask him.
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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rubber chicken
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#22 Post by rubber chicken »

Cool, I see TC's chopper came across the shore at this point, the dirt (or sand) road is still there, as well as the beach cabins. It's harder to pinpoint where TC landed, but since there's only trees there I may not have been able to confirm even the general location of that spot. So it's great that we now have that information. Thanks to the retired USCG gentleman for getting in touch with you!

I wonder if the name of the building is actually "Air Station Building". I wouldn't know, I'm not able to find much info online about the station, I'll label it as Air Station Building for now. It's neat that filming took place in authentic Coast Guard facilities.

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Jaybird
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#23 Post by Jaybird »

Thoroughly enjoyable episode with quite a few memorable moments.
First, the new intro theme happens but not in it's final form. Still, it is much better than the earlier intro.

Gorilla mask, Groucho nose and glasses, all firsts. We get to know TC better and start to see the depths of the friendships that exist between the four. I think this is a major appeal of this series....the depth of character development. The guys have fun, goof around, etc., the show is entertaining but there is substance underneath that isn't seen too much in a detective series.

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#24 Post by Milo Minderbinder »

Regarding the issue of drugs, both with the addict character and the Coast Guard, let's remember that this was almost 30 years ago and the government wasn't nearly as sophisticated and concerned about drugs as they are now. Miami Vice wasn't even a show yet. For example, I was just watching a show on CNBC about the marijuana trade in the late 70s. They interviewed a guy who ran a huge racket in SF and he selected SF because the government then focused on border cities for likely intervention sites. The guy even owned his own pier in SF for off-loading pot. Anyway, times have changed is my point.

The same thing can be said about the addict - most people know a lot more about drug addicts than back then.

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J.J. Walters
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#25 Post by J.J. Walters »

Jaybird wrote:Gorilla mask, Groucho nose and glasses, all firsts. We get to know TC better and start to see the depths of the friendships that exist between the four. I think this is a major appeal of this series....the depth of character development. The guys have fun, goof around, etc., the show is entertaining but there is substance underneath that isn't seen too much in a detective series.
Well said Jaybird! I couldn't agree more!
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

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burny
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#26 Post by burny »

i just watched this ep again - i feel like i missed something - why is TC so very hostile to Rick and TM for trying to help? - like over the top hostile. i can understand how he would not want to implicate them in what he considers to be his problem and his decisions, but why is he so hostile about it instead of just explaining and saying "its my problem" ? ....just seems awkward and "out of nowhere to me.....

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#27 Post by MaiTaiMan »

This episode was pretty good...and I voted it as such. The true friendship and caring for one another (with Magnum, Rick, and T.C.) was really portrayed in this, and it showed how far each one was willing to go for the other.

Sometimes it seemed T.C. went a little far "overboard" with his emotions, and telling Magnum and Rick to forget the situation and lay off...but that was sort of T.C.'s character. He and Rick both could be huge drama queens at times! LOL! :lol:

I also like how, despite the on-the-face bickering and silly insulting, the true friendship and respect Magnum and Higgins had for each other was shown and it was genuine.

The best part of this episode, is I believe it's the first one that had the real "Magnum" theme song, and not the goofy boring first one! :)
"It was more ironic than a Robin Masters novel--she thought he was dead, he thought she was dead...and only the chauffeur knew the truth! He should have been the butler!" "Lest We Forget"

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Magnum T.
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#28 Post by Magnum T. »

T.C. gets into trouble helping a guy, who saved his life in Vietnam, to enter into U.S. illegally.
Caught by USCG, he pleads guilty and roughly refuses any help from his buddies.
What T.C. doesn't know is that both he and his friend were used as drug smugglers.

A decent episode, the first one centered on T.C..
There are some nice scenes, like the one with Mac talking with a pretty girl about... pilots.
(I usually like everytime Mac is on the screen).
And this episode has one of the best "duet" between TM and Higgins.
It is made up of two parts: one is the darkroom scene and the other one at the end, when Higgins, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of Magnum leaving, uses the inventory excuse to make him stay.
That was a moving scene and very well performed too.

Plus:
- the above mentioned scenes between TM and Higgins.
- another "work the lock" situation.
- the Hyatt Regency.
Minus:
- the "Sarah affair". Though the scene is funny (with that green stuff Rick seems to like so much), anytime TM's sex-appeal is slapped on the screen, I feel like the character loses something.
- Mr. Mosley overacts here and there.
- it looks goofy that nobody inspected the helicopter before the auction.
Best line:
Higgins: Well, then I'm afraid... you'll just have to stay.

Notes:
- team ring on the left.
- first episode to use the Post/Carpenter's theme on the opening credits.
- first appearance of TM's gorilla mask.

Funny thing:
several people seem to dislike Sarah's voice. I like it instead :wink:.
"Zeus, Apollo, get out of my Ferrari!"
"Mr. Masters' Ferrari"

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MaiTaiMan
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#29 Post by MaiTaiMan »

Yeah, this was the first one that really focused on T.C. It was pretty good, but like you said, and I mentioned earlier, Roger E. Mosley does tend to overact. I think he's supposed to be somewhat of a "hothead", but it sometimes comes off more humorous and silly.

I also like the Magnum and Higgins moments...awesome! I didn't really notice the team ring switching hands before, that's interesting. Did Magnum have it on the right before then switch it to the left? Having it on the left is kind of odd...since that's the "marriage" hand/finger. Usually you don't wear rings on your left hand unless it's your wedding ring.

This is the first one with the gorilla mask...true! LOL! :lol: That thing was so stupid but hilarious--especially when Magnum teases Higgins with it! :lol: :lol:
"It was more ironic than a Robin Masters novel--she thought he was dead, he thought she was dead...and only the chauffeur knew the truth! He should have been the butler!" "Lest We Forget"

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Magnum T.
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#30 Post by Magnum T. »

I am trying to keep records about the team ring.
You can check all my previous (and future I hope) reviews.
If I am not wrong, in some episode the ring goes from one hand to the other, depending on the scene.
"Zeus, Apollo, get out of my Ferrari!"
"Mr. Masters' Ferrari"

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