Years:  1971, 1972
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Mike Connors, Gail Fisher, Robert Reed
Guest stars:  Rosemary Forsyth, Dean Stockwell, Shelley Fabares, Marion Ross, Geoffrey Lewis, Vic Morrow, Joanna Pettet, Pippa Scott, Milton Berle, Ed Begley Jr, Jon Cypher, Jessica Walter, Corinne Camacho, Jeanne Cooper, John Vernon, Jean Byron, Mariette Hartley, Elsa Lanchester
Creator:  Lalo Schifrin
Run time:  21 hours 18 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras:  Not much of anything
Related reviews:  Mannix Season Two, Mannix Season One, Mannix Season Three, Mannix Season Four

     Mannix is back, as Season Five of the series comes to DVD July 5th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  Mike Connors once again embodies the intuitive tough guy private detective admirably, and I continue to enjoy the series.  There are always a ton of hot women around – on the ski slopes, in the freak-show hippie hangouts, or just running around committing murders.

     In season five, Mannix is rarely hired to help any actual people – he just happens to be around when things get all murderous.  He has a certain amount of charm, just enough it appears to have all the hot women in all the episodes decide it would be nice to have sex with him.  Which must be pretty cool for Mannix, a nice ego boost – except they never seem to actually get around to it, because all that murder ends up getting in the way.

     As always, Mannix gets into lots of car chases and fistfights.  Some of those car chases take place on mountain roads, and almost all of them end with a car bursting into flames and exploding the second it hits the bottom of the adjacent ditch.  Almost every fistfight ends in a knockout punch, and often a hit from behind is enough to knock someone out for (presumably) hours.

     The thing I like best about Mannix is the way it’s paced.  I feel like I’m following the private eye around in real time.  I see what he sees, I learn what he learns, I talk to his assistant Peggy only when he does (usually).  That means that I can’t figure out the case until HE does.  Some people like to know ahead of time who the killer is, so they can watch the net close around him (Columbo).  Some people like to be surprised at the end (Matlock).  And others like to feel like they’re in it with the investigator.  I’m one of those people.  And Mannix is one of those shows.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 7:35 am and is filed under 1971, 1972, Drama, TV series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.