User Reviews

this wasn't a very good episode. (No Kookie at all!) but i feel like i should write a review just to offer a corrective to the one other user comment here, because that user comment seems to be describing a completely different episode. This one has Bailey going to the Middle East to play security guard to a person that he somehow knows. Unfortunately the guy ends up getting killed/blown up in a sneak attack that took even Bailey by surprise. Bailey then spends the rest of the episode trying to find the culprit, and subsequently end up defusing another bomb set to explode at another specific time and location. (I don't think i'm giving anything away to say that he finds a suspect who is at first unwilling to talk, but is then shown by Bailey how expendable the person he's trying to protect the identity of really sees him to be which gets him to give the location of the other bomb. BTW this suspect is played by Bert Convy!) I've been really digging getting to see the run of this show on METV every weeknight at 4 in the morning, but this was one of a handful of episodes that i would put in the blah category, meaning there was no real mystery to it, the suspense wasn't that suspenseful because there's no real question as to whether or not Bailey is going to get his man/defuse the bomb. And there's no interplay like at all with any of the show's usual cast of characters. The whole thing is Bailey, with a brief appearance by Roscoe at the very beginning. Ehh. "Attic" the previous episode was much, much, much better! (That was actually suspenseful!)

When at the beginning we see a bongo playing Victor Buono at one of Kookie's beat hangouts without Kookie I thought we'd have a promising episode. Alas Stu Bailey is hired by Tris Coffin an American diplomat targeted for assassination in some Middle East country which is perpetually at civil war. Efrem Zimbalist does have a background with the wartime OSS, but I would think the State Department would have its own security force.

Try as I may I could not accept Bert Convy as an Arab terrorist. Some of the worst casting ever. And the sets are strictly Warner Brothers back lot. Looks like some were left over from Casablanca.

Not Bailey&Spencer's best case.

Not a great episode but let's face it, any time you have a cast that includes Marcel Dalio, Bert Convy and pre-nosejob Marlo Thomas, plus a very good bunch of available character actors playing Middle Easterners (North Africans according to the show) this particular show has got to be notable for obvious reasons. As far as the story goes "pedestrian" says it all. First: Stu's in a panic to fly in a brain surgeon. When the surgeon arrives everybody beds down for the night. THERE'S A 12 HOUR DEADLINE! And they WERE a little delicate in separating Amina from the bomb strapped to her body. It's worth noting that no other commenter here remarked on Marlo's presence as Amina the operating room nurse. She is unrecognizable. In fact it looks like solid casting for the African/Middle Eastern setting. Not sure how many pre-NJ credits she has but it's a noteworthy episode for that reason alone.

To follow up on Matthew Stechel's comments, the episode Phillipe Guenot is reviewing here (the one where Stu Bailey is tracking down a man killing beast and gangsters in the Sierra mountains) is actually "Sierra," the 34th episode of the second season {http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0503443/combined) For some reason, Phillipe's instead of writing a review of "The Fanatics," the second episode of the third season, he wrote a second review of "Sierra."

If you're wondering what happened in "The Fanatics," Matthew's review accurately describes the plot.

Our gumshoe Stu Bailey is brought to the country side for an investigation that highly reminds us THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. The story of a mysterious beast rampaging in the sierras, and for which he is hired. Actually, not only for this, but this beast mystery will be in addition to his main job. You also have some elements of Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE, and a gangland storyline above the whole. It sounds pretty improbable, isn'it, but it is also pretty exciting. The magic atmosphere, if not totally eerie, of this wonderful series that would deserve to be released on DVD. I highly recommend it for hard to find series buffs. And, for me who has seen many of the episodes now, this one is nearly a forgery, because the ending is the exact copy of SIERRA episode, concerning the way Stu gets rid of the beast. The screen writer should have made some efforts of imagination.