Mannix (TV Series) To Draw the Lightning (1972) User Reviews

Good episode built on a faulty premise

[Guad42 · 7/10 · 11 March 2021]

One of Steve Ihnet's last appearances as he would die three months after this episode aired. Too soon by far. In addition to Star Trek, catch him on Mission Impossible or as a murderer on Perry Mason. His last Mannix appearance before this one was as an old Korean War comrade out to kill Joe and then-Police Sgt Malcolm in a boobytrapped building. All over the top, but Ihnet is good.

This outing isn't bad but the beginning is a bit much. As the first reviewer noted, there should have been uniformed police as back up and his partner should have gone into the warehouse with him. This is one of those traps that relies on the victim doing exactly the wrong thing all along the way to spring the trap. In this case, that is what happens and Ihnet (Lt Gifford) is in trouble. He hires Joe to help out. Joe manages to get phone bill of the shooting victim through a ridiculous maneuver so finds out who the victim was blackmailing. This leads to an air company with two partners and a secretary. Joe zeros on the wrong partner but sorts it out in the end. Of course, the stoolie (Eddie Firestone) who starts it all and one of the partners dies along the way. Joe also kills the syndicate hitman trying to get him so a higher than usual body count in this show. Not wild about the three-bark dog and never was a big fan of J Pat O'Malley.

Some aside comments: (1) Why is everyone in the police dept a lieutenant? 2) In this episode, Joe makes a comment about flying a certain model of airplane. In an earlier episode he flies around a small plane but then it is never referred to again so it is nice to see the throwaway line used here to reaffirm that he was a pilot. (3) The original victim is set up because he is blackmailing one of the partners. Since there is a syndicate hitman brought in to hit Mannix, why didn't the partners use him to kill the blackmailer and forgo the police involvement? (4) It is a nice change to see that Joe and Lt Gifford don't like each other. Joe is usually pals with all the policemen. Although Ihnet's death would have ended the idea, it would have been good to see him in a few episodes a year as a counterweight to Joe's friendly relationship with his cop buddies.

Joe doesn't get shot or knocked out and he does get paid. A big win for our guy.

YOU KILLED THE WRONG GUY!

[tcchelsey · 9/10 · 3 September 2022]

MANNIX was long hailed as a tv version of film noir, and if that's the case, this episode may be best compared to THE BIG SLEEP, starring Humphrey Bogart. It has nothing to do with the story, except one thing --lots of questions that aren't answered.

If you're a true MANNIX fan, it's still fairly entertaining, thanks to some interesting characters and good acting. Always the acting.

Don McDougall directed this episode, also working on THE MOD SQUAD and IRONSIDE at the time. Steve Ihnat guest stars, who usually played smooth villains, now playing a police lieutenant called Gifford, in a big hole he might have dug for himself. Gifford kills a man in a warehouse robbery who it turns out had killed his partner. Very convenient and a fairly clever blueprint to get both a cop and a creep out of the way, ya think? So who's really behind the diabolical plan? The million dollar question. Pay close attention.

Joan Hotchkiss, a familiar face on THE ODD COUPLE, which was also shot at Paramount, makes a second guest appearance. Also Julie Parish, a series regular on RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE in the early 70s, later on BEVERLY HILLS 90210.

Two sad notes; this was one of Steve Ihnat's final tv appearances, who died very suddenly, possibly due to exhaustion. Several projects were released after his death. Reportedly, he was buried near Marilyn Monroe. Also Ed Adamson, who wrote this episode and six others, passed suddenly from a heart attack.

Ed wrote several episodes for the classic RICHARD DIAMOND detective series, a prelude to MANNIX.

Two super character actors round out the story, J. Pat O'Malley as Lou (frequently on the show) and Eddie Firestone as Archie, the proverbial good guy/bad guy.

I give it 9 Stars for the memories, having grown up on this show, but... watch very carefully. SEASON 5 EPISODE 22 remastered CBS/Paramount dvd box set.

One of Steve Ihnat's last roles. Too bad that there are some SERIOUS logical errors.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 24 February 2015]

Steve Ihnat is a name you probably won't recognize. He played 'Lord Garth' from a particularly memorable episode of "Star Trek". However, only a few years later, in 1972, he was dead--a heart attack at age 37. So, if you ever wanted a chance to see him, this is an opportunity, though he also appeared in a variety of TV shows through the 60s.

The show begins with Lt. Gifford receiving a phone call from a stoolie telling him that a local warehouse was about to be robbed*. The Lieutenant and only one other cop go to the warehouse** to avert the robbery. However, when Gifford spots someone inside the place at night, he orders the guy to stop--but it fired upon. He returns fire-- killing the guy. Only then does he recognize the man as a man he truly hated.

Next, Mannix arrives at the Lieutenant's home. It seems that there is going to be an inquiry and the Lieutenant appears to be on the verge of being charged for murder. So he asks Mannix to investigate. What follows is typical "Mannix"--enjoyable, violent and with most of the standard clichés.

So is it worth seeing? Well, yes but it's very disappointing and often makes little sense. For instance:

*Another lieutenant listens in as the stoolie called Lt. Gifford. So, it's obviously a set-up and Gifford has a good alibi--yet this is never mentioned later in the show.

**A robbery is about to occur but you don't bother bringing back- up?! There's no indication how many people are involved, if they are armed or any of the other details--yet you only bring the guy who is in your office back at the station. Couldn't he have asked SOMEONE to come along or a couple police cars to meet him at the place?!

And Then After The Credits, There's Another Twist!

[bupdaddy · 5/10 · 9 September 2022]

I can follow Mannix pretty far along, allowing him to explain a whole lot of twists and turns right at the end that we couldn't have seen, but this time, Joe, you ask for too much.

"You had the affair with Frazier - Deedrich didn't!"

"And *you* pressured Constantine to blackmail Deedrich!"

"You got me, Mannix. But I've got the drop on you."

"I'm not done! This isn't an airplane behind me! It's a submarine and it has been the whole time!"

"Uh..."

"And I'm not really Joe Mannix, am I? I'm old-man Farnsworth, but you expected me to be too senile to remember that, didn't you!?"

"If you are, really, that wasn't part of my..."

*Mannix turns to camera*

"And this isn't a TV show! It's all an elaborate ruse! Your set doesn't even exist! *You* don't exist! You're a Boltzmann Brain! It was so---"

*credits begin to roll*

"Bruce Geller doesn't exist!"

It all falls apart at the end

[pkfloydmh · 3/10 · 7 November 2021]

This one is about a cop who hires Joe to investigate the circumstances behind a tip he received about a cop killer.

This is a dreadful episode that uses a story line that has been seen many times before, where someone is set up as a patsy to take the fall in some elaborate scheme to kill someone. Usually Joe is the patsy, but in this case it's his client.

There are lots of plot holes, like how did Joe know Deedrich had a gun in his drawer and how did Deedrich know Joe had been fired? And I haven't gotten to the ending yet, where even more plot holes are exposed.

Another problem is the extended scene with the dog, which was obviously used as filler since the writers didn't have enough of a script to fill a complete episode. They should have eliminated the scene with the dog and used that time to fill in some of the plot holes and loose ends.

Victor Millan makes his one and only appearance as Lt. Mendez.

Julie Parrish makes a return appearance. She played the stripper in The Lost Art of Dying from last season.

Fred Beir makes his third appearance. He most recently was in the excellent What Happened to Sunday episode from last season. Unfortunately this episode is not up to those standards or anywhere near it.

Charlie Picerni makes another appearance. Sometimes he's a stuntman and sometimes he plays regular characters. In this case, he's a regular character but unfortunately for him he plays Danny, who gets rubbed out in the opening scene.

The total body count is four.

As often happens with this show, everything collapses at the end when the plot is explained and it doesn't make any sense. Why was Deedrich blackmailed and why did he pay blackmail when he didn't do anything to be blackmailed over?? Then Greer says Deedrich wanted to "back out". Back out of what?? This was never explained. It's also unrealistic that the syndicate would go to such elaborate lengths and expose themselves like this if they wanted to kill someone. They would just have one of their own soldiers do it in secret and then dispose of the body where it will never be found, so this whole scheme is implausible.

There isn't a lot of action and when you combine that with all of the plot problems, this is a terrible episode and certainly not one that I would recommend.