Not a bad episode if you can buy the "replaced by a double" plot device. It is fine if not used too much and I think this is the only time in a Mannix show. John Vernon is a bad guy with a certain type of class that makes him a "non-street thug" type of criminal. He made a good living out of that character. I would have loved to see him casted in the original "Airplane". He is in the not-very-good sequel. Everyone else, (Lane Bradbury, Paul Fix. And Rex Holman) are making their only appearance on the show. Surprising for Holman, he was perfect for being a Mannix criminal.
Anyway, Mannix has a job in London to bring back a collection of jewels and the bad guys want to steal it. They replace Mannix with a double and kidnap Joe with the idea of killing him later. As pointed out by a reviewer, the bad guys keep Mannix alive to establish a creditable time of death although nobody says that explicitly. They move him to a ghost town to lay low as the jewels are picked up in London.
I didn't look back at the old Mannix episode "A Gathering of Ghosts" to see if this is the same ghost town set used then but it probably is. If the bad guys have the whole town to use, why not lock Joe in the town jail or a basement and just given him food and drink until he is killed? Of course, that eliminates his chance to escape so not a good plot device. Paul Fix and Lane Bradbury wander into town and get taken hostage also. Originally, they believed Vernon's story of being a rock hunter so how smart can they be? A nicely dressed man with clean hands in the middle of a ghost town looking for rocks? Okay. They leave at first but Mannix causes a shot to be fired and they come back. Not sure I do that but if you believe the rock hound story then maybe.
Of course, Joe engineers an escape using Holman's greed for gold and a running gunfight results in Joe's victory. Then there are the cops.... One thing that is always irritating about Mannix and several other PI shows is the cops roll in just in time to miss the action but they still can clean up the mess by arresting everyone. It is bad enough when it happens in town but here it is ridiculous. Earlier in the episode, our chief villain says they are over a hundred miles from the nearest town. I assume that town is not LA. Yet Lt Malcolm and his boys managed to race into this place in the middle of nowhere at exactly the same time as they do in town. I can just see them speeding across the desert in cop cars, lights flashing, for 2 to 3 hours before getting there. (Picturing it reminds me of the end of Monty Python's "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" episode.) They do all this based on a vague reference to tracking Mannix's car. Do they have jurisdiction? Can't they call in other police departments? The highway patrol? Malcolm references a helicopter but you never see it. It is just silly that they are there at all let alone just as the action ends.
Joe gets knocked out and, probably, gets paid. He didn't go to England but did foil the bad guys so should have been rewarded for that. At least Peggy got some well-deserved time off.
8 Dec 2021 I rewatched this episode for one reason only. As you can read in my review above, I found the cops arrival at the end to be totally ridiculous. Dexter, the head bad guy, tells Mannix where the ghost town is earlier in the episode. In the first go-around, I did not note it as I didn't know it would be germane to my major complaint about this outing. I did note it this time. Dexter says, "We are 68 miles from the nearest main road and 110 miles from the nearest town." Yet Lt Malcolm and his troop still manage to come in with their usual superb timing of fifteen seconds too late. Jurisdiction? Who cares! Other, closer enforcement agencies? No way, this is our bust! Time critical? Nah, we'll just drive across the desert for hours. Joe can wait for us. Beyond stupid.
Anyway, Mannix has a job in London to bring back a collection of jewels and the bad guys want to steal it. They replace Mannix with a double and kidnap Joe with the idea of killing him later. As pointed out by a reviewer, the bad guys keep Mannix alive to establish a creditable time of death although nobody says that explicitly. They move him to a ghost town to lay low as the jewels are picked up in London.
I didn't look back at the old Mannix episode "A Gathering of Ghosts" to see if this is the same ghost town set used then but it probably is. If the bad guys have the whole town to use, why not lock Joe in the town jail or a basement and just given him food and drink until he is killed? Of course, that eliminates his chance to escape so not a good plot device. Paul Fix and Lane Bradbury wander into town and get taken hostage also. Originally, they believed Vernon's story of being a rock hunter so how smart can they be? A nicely dressed man with clean hands in the middle of a ghost town looking for rocks? Okay. They leave at first but Mannix causes a shot to be fired and they come back. Not sure I do that but if you believe the rock hound story then maybe.
Of course, Joe engineers an escape using Holman's greed for gold and a running gunfight results in Joe's victory. Then there are the cops.... One thing that is always irritating about Mannix and several other PI shows is the cops roll in just in time to miss the action but they still can clean up the mess by arresting everyone. It is bad enough when it happens in town but here it is ridiculous. Earlier in the episode, our chief villain says they are over a hundred miles from the nearest town. I assume that town is not LA. Yet Lt Malcolm and his boys managed to race into this place in the middle of nowhere at exactly the same time as they do in town. I can just see them speeding across the desert in cop cars, lights flashing, for 2 to 3 hours before getting there. (Picturing it reminds me of the end of Monty Python's "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" episode.) They do all this based on a vague reference to tracking Mannix's car. Do they have jurisdiction? Can't they call in other police departments? The highway patrol? Malcolm references a helicopter but you never see it. It is just silly that they are there at all let alone just as the action ends.
Joe gets knocked out and, probably, gets paid. He didn't go to England but did foil the bad guys so should have been rewarded for that. At least Peggy got some well-deserved time off.
8 Dec 2021 I rewatched this episode for one reason only. As you can read in my review above, I found the cops arrival at the end to be totally ridiculous. Dexter, the head bad guy, tells Mannix where the ghost town is earlier in the episode. In the first go-around, I did not note it as I didn't know it would be germane to my major complaint about this outing. I did note it this time. Dexter says, "We are 68 miles from the nearest main road and 110 miles from the nearest town." Yet Lt Malcolm and his troop still manage to come in with their usual superb timing of fifteen seconds too late. Jurisdiction? Who cares! Other, closer enforcement agencies? No way, this is our bust! Time critical? Nah, we'll just drive across the desert for hours. Joe can wait for us. Beyond stupid.