Private investigators the Simon Brothers - Rick (Gerald McCraney) and A.J. (Jameson Parker) return home from a case in Hawaii which they think they have wrapped up. When they land in San Diego they discover the con artist Catherine Hailey (Morgan Fairchild) they thought the FBI would pick up on another flight has instead escaped to Costa Nueva - a South American paradise with no extradition treaty to the United States.
Jonathan Quayle Higgins (John Hillerman) arrives from Hawaii as representative of the orphans charity Catherine has stolen from, in order to explain to the FBI the details of her fraud. Reuniting with the Simon brothers having met them in the Magnum, P.I. episode (Season 3, Episode 2). The Simons offer to go get Catherine since she never met them and won't know them on sight. Higgins agrees if he can go along (Which is counter-intuitive).
Rick Simon of course speaks decent Spanish (I'm convinced Gerald McCraney could do Telemundo) and has colourful associates across the region. The Simon brothers and Higgins decide to run a sting on Catherine and bring their friend Janet (Jeannie Wilson) into it along with Henry (Joe Mantegna) - an old journalist friend of Rick's.
While Simon & Simon hit the mark with network executives and TV critics, the ratings weren't as co-operative (It was, at first, in a time-slot against Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley on ABC) in its first season and there almost wasn't a second season. Placed in the perfect time-slot (Thursday at 9 PM) with Magnum P.I. as lead-in in Fall 1982, the show flourished finishing in the ratings top ten in the 1982-83 season.
CBS made sure that happened by getting the shows together for this cross-over. Viewers who were fans of both shows got a kind of 2 hour season premiere (Though Magnum, P.I. season three debuted a week earlier) for both shows ending in this episode and beginning in the Magnum, P.I. episode which immediately preceded it. Fans of only Magnum, P.I. had to watch Simon & Simon (Season 2, Episode 1 - Emeralds Are A Girl's Best Friend) at 9 the same night if they wanted to see how the adventure ended.
But this bizarre episode bears little seeming relation to the episode it is meant to be a sequel to. Why Higgins is in it makes very little sense other than for maintaining a peripheral tie-in to the Magnum episode. As for the title character from Magnum, P.I. - Tom Selleck has but a few moments of screen time at the beginning and the end of this episode in tacked on vignettes which are inconsequential to the narrative.
Jonathan Quayle Higgins (John Hillerman) arrives from Hawaii as representative of the orphans charity Catherine has stolen from, in order to explain to the FBI the details of her fraud. Reuniting with the Simon brothers having met them in the Magnum, P.I. episode (Season 3, Episode 2). The Simons offer to go get Catherine since she never met them and won't know them on sight. Higgins agrees if he can go along (Which is counter-intuitive).
Rick Simon of course speaks decent Spanish (I'm convinced Gerald McCraney could do Telemundo) and has colourful associates across the region. The Simon brothers and Higgins decide to run a sting on Catherine and bring their friend Janet (Jeannie Wilson) into it along with Henry (Joe Mantegna) - an old journalist friend of Rick's.
While Simon & Simon hit the mark with network executives and TV critics, the ratings weren't as co-operative (It was, at first, in a time-slot against Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley on ABC) in its first season and there almost wasn't a second season. Placed in the perfect time-slot (Thursday at 9 PM) with Magnum P.I. as lead-in in Fall 1982, the show flourished finishing in the ratings top ten in the 1982-83 season.
CBS made sure that happened by getting the shows together for this cross-over. Viewers who were fans of both shows got a kind of 2 hour season premiere (Though Magnum, P.I. season three debuted a week earlier) for both shows ending in this episode and beginning in the Magnum, P.I. episode which immediately preceded it. Fans of only Magnum, P.I. had to watch Simon & Simon (Season 2, Episode 1 - Emeralds Are A Girl's Best Friend) at 9 the same night if they wanted to see how the adventure ended.
But this bizarre episode bears little seeming relation to the episode it is meant to be a sequel to. Why Higgins is in it makes very little sense other than for maintaining a peripheral tie-in to the Magnum episode. As for the title character from Magnum, P.I. - Tom Selleck has but a few moments of screen time at the beginning and the end of this episode in tacked on vignettes which are inconsequential to the narrative.
