User Reviews

Yes, you've reached season 2. Lew's gone. I have head cannon for this. Joe explains to Jody about how he used to work for Intertect and recently just left that job. You know how Mannix has a dislike for the computers at the company and said that he cursed at one of the computers and he could've sworn it cursed back at him. Perhaps this explanation would make sense if you didn't see another scene in the 3rd episode. Peggy has reached out to Interect and you see her interacting with an employee (not Lew) and it's explained an hour each day is devoted to basically ragging on Mannix. Seems like it's a bit more than a computer issue, eh? Goodness knows I've pointed out in some of my Mannix reviews that I think Mannix is written as being a sex god. I still strongly believe Lew had the hots for Mannix, he eventually spilled the beans to Mannix about how he felt and that's what provoked Mannix into leaving. Mannix is never gonna love Lew in a romantic sense and it'd be awkward staying in this place with any leftover pining going on or any bitterness going on. And I'd say Joe's got some bitterness going on inside his head about his falling out with Lew/Intertect. He definitely wasn't pleased with Peggy reaching out to Intertect.

So let's move on away from Lew and talk about Peggy. This is Peggy's first appearance. You see a few scenes with her throughout the episode and the episode sets up what a kind character Peggy is. She's very supportive of Jody as poor Jody's wracking her brain trying to come up with this phone number that she saw from her lip reading session.

I see a few reviews have pointed out the phone number plot hole. It doesn't bother me. I'm somebody that can turn away from plot holes if I'm able to enjoy the episode. But I also realize some people will turn away from the episode if the plot holes are big enough that it's basically all you can see about the episode. All in all, I do think the mystery was interesting enough to be able to recommend the episode.

I thought the actress playing Jody did a wonderful job. I echo something I said on a Bonanza episode featuring a character that was mute, Joe Cartwright was teaching her sign language. It's gotta be hard telling a story just through your facial expression and body language instead of the words coming out of your mouth/tone of voice. I felt the lady on Bonanza did a wonderful job and thought Audree Norton did a great job. I checked out her imdb page and it doesn't appear like she did all that much with her career. It's like what I've said when it concerns child stars...I hope it's the individual's choice to walk away from Hollywood instead of it being a case of being rejected by Hollywood.

Anyway, highly recommend this superb episode.

Excellent beginning to Season Two, which has Joe Mannix (Mike Connors) going solo after leaving Lew Wickersham (Joseph Campanella) and Intertect. He now has Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher) as his loyal secretary and a very cool office with an upstairs apartment (how conveeeenient! - always wanted a place like that!). Starts off with a woman, Jody Wellman (Audree Norton), reading the lips of an assassin (Jason Evers), who is on a payphone telling a man to deliver $40,000 or his wife will be dead. A van comes to pick her up, and you find out that she is an actress with an acting troupe for the deaf. She tells her colleagues and they go to the police, but she can't tell them enough info for them to help. Joe happens to be at the police station and he overhears. He offers his help and they have an exciting adventure avoiding the assassin. The acting is awesome, and it is the first time that a deaf person had a role in a U. S. TV series. A very good advertisement for the National Theater For The Deaf, of which Ms. Norton was a co-founder!

This is a fine episode in many respects but has too many plot holes and inconsistencies to be highly rated.

A deaf woman named Jody Wellman (Audree Norton) lips reads a man in a phone booth saying he had kidnapped someone's wife. She tells the head of her theater group, Anton (Laurence Naismith). Anton takes her to the police, but they can do nothing with the few facts given to them. Joe happens to be there and takes the case. After grilling Jody, Mannix gets a name and partial phone number. Using the phone book, he produces the name Roger Wade (Simon Scott). Joe visits Wade and learns his wife has been kidnapped. Joe ends up delivering the ransom in Wade's place. The kidnapper watches Joe through a rifle scope and sees it isn't Wade. The wife is to be released after the payment, so Joe goes to the theater to see Jody and others perform. He tells Wade this and that he will phone him later.

Things take a turn as the kidnapper turns up at Wade's house wondering who the new guy is. We learn this is all a plot to get rid of the wife and the kidnapper (Jason Evers) and Wade are in cahoots. The kidnapper, called the assassin in the end credits, goes to the theater and learns of Jody's part in this. Joe goes to Jody's place on the second floor of Anton's residence for coffee. After he leaves, the assassin sneaks in to kill Jody but she is saved when her fiancée, Anton, and others show up for a surprise party.

Next day, Wade, under the assassin's direction, calls Mannix and says the kidnapper saw Joe deliver the money, suspected a trap so left the money there. The kidnapper now wants Joe to pick up the money and take it to another location. Joe agrees. Once off the phone, the assassin kills Wade. He wants no loose ends or anyone seeing his face. While getting the money, Joe and the assassin get in a gunfight. During which, the assassin says he will kill Joe and the girl. The fight ends with Joe's car going over a cliff and Joe just getting out of it just in time. The assassin leaves and Joe is left running down a dirt road. Impersonating Joe, the assassin calls Cal, the stage manager at the theater, and asks him to arrange for Jody to meet him at the theater. Cal agrees to arrange this. The assassin shows up and kills Cal. Jody shows up, sees Cal dead, and runs around the theater being chased by the assassin. A nice cat and mouse game develops as Joe arrives. He sees Cal dead and joins the hunt. After some tension and drama, he kills the assassin.

The plot holes are numerous. As pointed out by another reviewer, in the first phone call seen by Jody, the assassin tells Wade he will call him on Wade's home phone and then gives the number. Wade is being given his own home phone number by the bad guy. I'm sure Wade know what his own phone number is. Two tropes make appearances here. One is the bad guy has all day to line up his rifle shot on an unsuspecting victim (Joe) and misses. In this case he misses badly and hits the case with the money. We'll see that many more times in Mannix episodes. He misses several more times but then manages to hit a speeding car in the tire and the car goes over a cliff. That brings us to the second trope. Why do cars always explode/burst into a fireball going over a cliff? I realize it is for dramatic effect but come on. Regarding the case with the ransom money., nobody retrieved it so I guess it is still out there. Why would the assassin tell Joe he is after both him and the girl so Joe now knows Jody is in danger? How did Cal get Jody to come to the theater? He would have to call so would have to go through Anton as the interpreter but Anton didn't come with her to the theater. For that matter, how did Jody get to the theater? How does Joe know to go to the theater to help Jody? Why doesn't Joe contact the police to get them to protect Jody? Time is of the essence here. Why does the assassin carry a one shot pistol that must be continuously reloaded? Two loose ends to the story. I assume Wade's body would be found in his home but his part in this scheme probably would never come out. Secondly, nobody seems to be worried about the kidnapped wife. She is dead but the characters don't know that.

The cast is fine. Audree Norton has a great screen presence and is very good in this. I would have liked to see her character in a future episode. Peggy is in only one scene, the one where Joe is grilling Jody to get information. Maybe the series wanted to introduce her slowly. Naismith must have practiced sign language for a while as he delivers his "lines" with quick motion and confidence. Simon Scott, like Evers, was in everything back then and is a veteran at this job.

Now we come to Jason Evers as the assassin. This is his first of five appearances, and he is always the bad guy. In this outing he is the bad guy from the start but in the next four appearances, Joe and the audience has to figure it out. The episodes vary in quality, but they all involve the bad guy(s) come up with very over-the-top too complicated plans to accomplish some nefarious end, much like this episode. A Gathering of Ghosts is one of the worse outings of the series. Two others, Color Her Missing and Death is the Fifth Gear, both have the same climax where an unconscious Joe is put in a running car in a garage to die of carbon monoxide poisoning and, in both instances, he comes to and drives the car out. Evers does well in all these episodes and kept coming back so I guess it couldn't have been too bad. Hell, it's a living and Evers did it for decades.

The novel involvement of deaf actors and Audree Norton's performance would make this a top episode but the plot holes take it down, so it works out as an average outing. At least Joe isn't knocked out, drugged or shot. Not sure he is paid for this one as Jody never actually hired him as he offered to help out. Joe not getting paid in his first post-Intertect case seems apropos as it will happen many more times.

Boy, there are a ton of holes in this one, making it very hard to take seriously. In the opening scene, a man is seen at a payphone telling the other person to go home and prepare ransom money for the return of his wife. He then says when and at what number he will follow up - giving the man his own home phone number. A kidnapper would not have to give somebody his own home number!

The kidnapper wants to do everything by phone in order not to be seen, but he needlessly puts himself in front of a number of people. These 'loose ends' that must be done away with include the man who paid him for a hit job. That client agreed to the all-phone scheme, so he did not make himself a loose end!

Mannix agrees to drop the ransom money, and details of the wife's release would be conveyed by phone after the man returned home. Mannix should be smart enough to know that the kidnappers, who of course demanded no police involvement, would see that he was an outsider. The man would have been in no danger dropping the ransom himself.

When Mannix is later instructed to move the money, he should have known it was a ruse. Using a second location would put the kidnappers in greater danger of being caught, and they would end up with the money either way. Furthermore, when Mannix is shot at picking up the money, the shooter completely misses several times in spite of having a scope, yet hits the tire of a low-riding moving car in one try. Mannix was thrown from the car, losing his gun, which rather than being in any of the surrounding tall grass, was right there in plain sight along the path. When the car becomes a massive fireball falling off a cliff, there is no aftermath. A few moments later, there is a stranded motorist nearby who apparently saw and heard nothing of the shots or the crashing and burning car.

We have a deaf girl who doesn't notice her own 'doorbell' - a fan that turns on - and who leaves her windows unlocked. When it turns on, Mannix doesn't hear or feel the fan running, yet the breeze was strong enough to put out his match. Also, we expect the girl to be able to 'feel' the man chasing her in a storage area through the bare wooden floor, but she cannot

There are more, but in the interest of excluding spoilers, those are omitted here. This was very disappointing show, and it was very hard to watch as it went on because of all the incongruities.

I just started Season 2 and I'm VERY disappointed that Mannix no longer works for Intertect or Lew Wickersham. And don't get me started on all of the plot holes and overacting in this episode (see the other reviews that touch on these aspects of a rather dismal season 2 debut😑).

Instead, I'll focus on the gut-wrenching news that Mannix has left Intertect for good, and Lew Wickersham is never to be seen again (although Joe Campanella will return to guest star as a surgeon in Season 5).😔 I loved the "high tech" Intertect gadgets, the "spy" training exercises, and I thought the ongoing rivalry between Mannix and the computer wonks was hilarious. These touches set Mannix apart from the rest of the run-of-the-mill 60's/70's detective shows. Also, Lew Wickersham was great as Mannix's boss, and I looked forward to Lee's reactions every time Mannix got into trouble. I find it hard to believe Mannix lasted an additional 7 seasons after removing every aspect that set it apart from the other detective shows. I guess I'll try to keep watching to see if the show gets any better, but I'm not holding out much hope. Lew Wickersham was a great supporting character and is greatly missed!!😢 I hope Peggy Fair's role (Mannix's new secretary) is expanded beyond the barely-there 2-dimensional character portrayed in her debut episode.🙄