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50th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing
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Hawaii Five-O
"Once Upon a Time: Part 1"
Originally aired February 19, 1969
Wiki said:
McGarrett travels to Los Angeles to help his sister (Nancy Malone) deal with her child's cancer and make the correct decision about a faith-healer/quack (Joanne Linville).
When McGarrett's sister, Mary Ann Whalen, takes her infant son to see Dr. Fremont (Linville), Tommy has previously diagnosed cancer in the stomach. Using a room of electronic consoles with lots of blinking lights to make her own "diagnosis" of Tommy's condition, Fremont offers to cure it with a machine with a box that has handheld electrodes and a few more blinking lights. Mary Ann falls for it all hook, line, and sinker, but McGarrett gets a message from his concerned brother-in-law, Tom (John Carter), and immediately books a flight to L.A., hastily reorganizing his workload on the way out. "Chin, you're gonna make a speech tomorrow."
Steve (we're gonna call him Steve because he's working off the books and out of his jurisdiction) goes to the FDA, where he meets their regional attorney, Zipser (David Sheiner). He cites the thousands of such quack doctors known to be operating in the area, and how they can't act unless Fremont's involved in some form of interstate commerce; having forseen this issue, Steve's purchased one of her devices, which qualifies.
After having the machine analyzed, Steve confronts Mary Ann with the truth about it, but she won't hear it. He gives her an infodump lecture about how quacks like this operate, like a less monotone Friday. Afterward, Mary Ann calls Fremont to warn her, so she's forearmed when Steve shows up at her office with a subpoena. She tries a variety of tactics on him, including feminine wiles; telling him the story of how her mother married her to a faith healer in Tennessee when she was 14' and arguing that she does heal by making her patients believe. Steve remains stone-faced throughout it all. Fremont finally threatens to make Mary Ann blame him when Tommy inevitably dies.
Cut to Hawaii months after Steve's return, when he gets the news of Tommy having slipped into a coma. Danno tries to console him with liquor, and Steve breaks into tears talking about it.
Cut back to L.A., for Fremont's day in court, with Steve in attendance. Her believers turn the courtroom into a circus, with a standing ovation and singing, causing the judge to adjourn the trial for the day.
Both the judge and Fremont's attorney are also TOS guests.
When they set an episode in L.A., are they still filming in Hawaii? That'd be pretty funny, having another city pretending to be L.A. in this era.
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Dragnet 1969
"Frauds (DR-28)"
Originally aired February 20, 1969
Xfinity said:
Computer data reveals that disability checks are being issued to dead people.
Sgt. Joe Friday said:
This is the city: Los Angeles, California. In the rolling hills just above Sunset Boulevard lies the exclusive community of Bel Air. It all looks quiet and serene, just as it did on the morning of November 6, 1961. On that day, Fire Chief Sawyer received a call about a small brush fire in the area. The fire raged out of control for three days...it consumed 484 houses, 21 buildings, and destroyed 6,000 acres of watershed. The fire was finally controlled...not one life was lost. Bel Air has rebuilt its houses and most of the burn scars have been healed. Nature can sometimes create havoc for a city...so can some of its people. When they do, I go to work. I carry a badge.
Thursday, October 24 (1968): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Frauds Division, pay a call to the Department of Employment, who report having discovered via computer that a dead man has been collecting disability. They determine that this would have required someone in the department to have kept the death notice of the person whose identity has been stolen out of the computer for months. Friday speculates that there could be any number of other fraudulent claims that they don't know about. The detectives proceed to to the apartment of Robert Rosen, the man who was collecting under that number, to find from the landlord (Herb Vigran) that the tenant hadn't actually been living there, just checking his mail.
After another case turns up, the detectives attend an apartment owners' association meeting to alert landlords of suspicious tenants using the M.O. A couple of landlords approach them after the meeting to tell them of tenants that have. The detectives surmise from descriptions of the tenants that it's probably one man wearing disguises with conspicuous features. A handwriting expert in SID subsequently confirms this by analyzing the signatures on the checks.
Another of the landlords calls to report a current tenant who matches the M.O. The license number of his car is registered to a woman named Peggy Thompson, who turns out to be an employee of the Department of Unemployment. The detectives go to her apartment and the man they're looking for, Paul Nichols (John Gilgreen), answers the door...
Nichols: That you, honey?
Friday: No, sweetheart, police officers.
They catch him with one fake muttonchop sideburn on and find other disguise paraphernalia as well as disability checks made out to various names.
The Announcer said:
On March 11th, trial was held in Department 184, Superior Court of the State of California, for the County of Los Angeles....The suspects were tried and convicted of violation of the state penal code, section 504, embezzlement of public funds. The penalty prescribed by law is imprisonment in the state prison for not less than one year or more than ten years.
The mugshot said:
PEGGY SUE THOMPSON
Now serving her term in the California Institution for Women, Frontera, California.
PAUL WILLIAM NICHOLS
Now serving his term in the state prison, San Quentin, California.
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And sometimes the titles are just silly.
I had to go back and rewatch some scenes to address your concerns below, and noticed that the phrase came up in Lois's dialogue regarding how she met Joey, FWIW.
Don't they have rules about this sort of thing?
McGarrett of course gave him the customary stern lectures.
That seems a little weird.
She was by her own eventual admission formerly the kind of girl that Pa Kalama accused her of being, and Morgan was attempting to propose a "partnership"...perhaps with the ulterior motive of keeping her quiet about what she knew, though that wasn't clarified. Her spilling what she knew to McGarrett was actually motivated by Morgan's overture, as it made her face what she had been.
This seems a little weird, too. Have I lost track of the plot?
Did the bad guys ever need more than half an excuse to put Lois in danger?
Their motive for breaking into her apartment wasn't specified, but I assume it was the stick to Morgan's carrot.
Wait, I thought he did it for the dowry. This episode doesn't seem to hold together as much as the previous ones.
Yeah, that assertion didn't make a lot of sense...his dad pushed him to be a winner, so he agreed to throw a fight?
I forgot to mention that my radio station played the first episode on Saturday.
Was it the same as the version on YouTube, with those three songs cut?
