User Reviews

The casting of David Birney in this episode surprised me a bit. That's because in 1972, he guest starred in a "Hawaii Five-O" episode entitled "Follow the White Brick Road". In it, Birney played a seaman who was a drug dealer--and he was caught at the end. Here, three years later in "Murder: Eyes Only" Birney is back AGAIN and in a naval uniform--though this time he's a lieutenant. Some viewers might wonder if the drug dealer wasn't, in fact, prosecuted but was given a promotion!! Putting him in two navy episodes is certainly odd.

The show begins with a courier delivering a top secret letter to an officer at the Pearl Harbor navy base. Moments after it arrives, he opens it--only to have it explode and kill him. It turns out the guy was involved in investigating some leak in Naval Intelligence--and someone wanted to silence him. As luck will have it, McGarrett just happens to be serving his time as a naval reservist. He's naturally transferred to investigate this case and Danno tags along to give him assistance. The Navy also assigns a career navy guy (Harry Guardino) to work on the case with McGarrett.

The two most likely suspects are Birney and a gorgeous ensign (Donna Mills)--however there also a few other possibles. Through this long episode, the mystery is solved--and, oddly, there really isn't a traitor in their midst...of sorts. How all this is played out is something you'll want to see for yourself in this complex and very exciting episode.

I have only one gripe about the show and that is the premise of hypnosis being used to cause someone to spy for the enemy is silly. While it's fun seeing this sort of stuff here and in "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), it's all a lot of nonsense. If hypnosis COULD make people into unwilling pawns of evil, I would have used it myself as I have training in hypnosis (from my old days as a psychotherapist)! Unfortunately, you can't manipulate people like this--which might explain why I didn't use it very often!

By the eighth season, many television series start to show some wear, but "Hawaii Five-O" managed to go longer than that -- at least nine seasons by most accounts -- before it began to go downhill. And "Murder -- Eyes Only," the two-hour premiere of the eighth season -- presents a slam-bang espionage adventure once again featuring (who else?) Khigh Dhiegh as master spy Wo Fat.

The episode opens with McGarrett boarding ship for a two-week deployment as a reserve Navy commander, but as one might expect, there's only a short interlude until he's assigned back to the islands for a joint civilian-Naval investigation of a mysterious bombing that's killed one intelligence officer and wounded another. Following the trail has McGarrett -- always decked out in his naval uniform -- even going so far as to visit both San Diego and Costa Mesa, California. There are suspects and motives aplenty, and the extra time allows McGarrett, still aided by Danny Williams and Chin Ho, and even Che Fong (Harry Endo), to run each piece of the puzzle to ground. (Curiously, while Danny gets plenty to do, Chin is mostly confined to slapping the cuffs on a bad guy here or there; even Che gets more screen time than the ostensible bigger star, Chin!)

"Murder -- Eyes Only" also was something of a reunion episode, featuring four recognizable character actors, each of whom had already appeared on "Five-O" at least once -- Lyle Bettger as Adm. Dean, David Birney as Woodrow Waldon, a lieutenant in the Fleet Intelligence Service, Harry Guardino as McGarrett's intelligence liaison officer, Commander Wallace, and Lloyd Bochner as Capt. Roger Newhouse, who unfortunately has only a few scenes in his office in San Diego (though one of them with McGarrett). The last three had also all played the villains in their respective earlier episodes -- Guardino as a homicidal Army Sergeant in the Season 2 premiere, "A Thousand Pardons -- You're Dead!," Bochner as another killer in Season 3's "Beautiful Screamer," and Birney as a heroin smuggler in season 4's "Follow the White Brick Road." This time each of them got to play one of the good guys -- Guardino camouflaged behind a pair of glasses and a mustache.

Arguably, the extra time results in some padding -- there's a long, leisurely boat ride to the Arizona memorial where a "drop" of some microfilm is made, and despite the extra time, Wo Fat isn't given much to do except sit on his hydrofoil boat and talk on the telephone from time to time. Indeed, his chief assistant, Mr. Chong (Robert Nelson), who was once described in an earlier episode as Wo Fat's "chief assassin," probably ends up with more screen time. But because Wo Fat appeared on average less than once per season, any time spent with him and Khigh Deigh's droll characterization is worth the wait.

Of course, another way to look at the added length is that it allows time for the story to develop and for the viewer to get to know all of the suspects. They include Lee Stetson, in a fairly large role as Marine Capt. Fesler; he'd played a creepy gun dealer named Alfie in "Diary of a Gun," one of the final episodes of the previous season, but isn't recognizable here as the same actor -- like Guardino, he's hidden behind a thick mustache. Also doing a competent job as suspects are Donna Mills (her only appearance on the series) as Navy Ensign Marcia Bissell and newcomer to "Five-O" Biff McGuire as her father, playing a wonderfully abrasive character in almost every scene he's in. In sum, "Murder -- Eyes Only" not only demonstrated that there was still life left in the "Five-O" formula, but also provided an opportunity to spend some extra time with an ensemble cast that had frequently conjured memorable performances during the prior seven seasons.

This bloated whale of a two-hour season premiere and paean to the United States Navy proved an inauspicious start to the eighth season. Jet-puffed like a Kraft marshmallow and paced like the proverbial turtle on Benadryl, it staggered and limped to its anticlimactic ending.

I fear many of my fellow HAWAII FIVE-O fans' default setting is to rate a 9 or higher any episode boasting Wo Fat. Hey, I love to hate him as much as the next fan, but let's face it: some of his appearances are better than others, and this one rates near the bottom. Was it even a full-fledged appearance? More of a glancing blow. I think even the utterly underutilized Lloyd Bochner enjoyed more screen time than Khigh Dhiegh. Worse, Wo Fat and McGarrett never shared a scene for their trademark verbal sparring.

This is the ninth of 11 stories featuring Wo Fat, so as the appearances dwindle down to a precious few is it not understandable that longtime and loyal viewers hope for more than B-roll clips of him playing chess on his hydrofoil? We got to see more of him in last season's "Presenting in the Center Ring... Murder," which set the bar and expectations high. I was glad to see Robert Nelson return as Chong, Wo Fat's able lieutenant.

Okay, I know I should be grateful we even got Wo Fat again. Had Khigh Diegh's Chinatown detective drama KHAN proven a hit earlier in 1975, he probably wouldn't have been available. Alas, that ill-fated series was canceled after five episodes.

Wo Fat aside, this two-hour show suffered the fate of so many movie-length episodes and two-parters: padding! The ships at sea and choppers in the air, the marching band playing the national anthem and marching away, the protracted United Airlines plane landing, and the interminable scene of McGarrett being loaded up and transported to a neighboring ship. And then all the false leads that gobbled up screen time, such as Danny's deceitful conversation/interrogation of Captain Fesler that led to an awkward confession and a dead end.

Jack Lord's vanity was also unleashed without Leonard Freeman on hand to rein it in. Basking in his dress whites just to have a drink with Donna Mills? I'm just grateful he didn't bring along the outrageous outfits he wore in "Paniolo" and other past shows.

On the topic of fashion, were those massive mid-seventies moustaches Navy regulation? Egads, Captain Fesler's could provoke Freddie Mercury to moustache-envy. Harry Guardino's droopy 'stache and bushy head of hair did not appear Navy, but then again, Jack Nicholson sported a 'stache as a Navy man in 1973's THE LAST DETAIL.

So was this episode's plot swiped from THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE? "Obviously," to quote Wo Fat upon learning McGarrett eluded his ineptly deployed deathtrap. I liked the unexpected plot development of "narco-hypnosis" (though didn't think it necessary for Danny to demonstrate it so dramatically!). This upended the whole expectation of a whodunnit--nobody was acting as the traitor in his own volition. I'm confident fans of old films and TV are well aware that Khigh Diegh played the baddie in the 1962 film, and I expected that connection to be capitalized upon. And it wasn't. Missed opportunity!

Actually, this whole episode could be filed under the rubric of missed opportunity. For a two-hour season premiere it fell far short of what a movie-length episode could and should have been. Instead of a feature-length plot, the producers opted for pomp and pageantry. This was, after all, the fall of '75 with the Spirit of '76 in the air and those Bicentennial Minutes punctuating the commercial breaks.

Closing thoughts: Biff McGuire was a standout as the irascible Sam Bissell. His daughter inherited that brassiness, leading with her IQ and charming McGarrett into a wink and a nod response to her "borrowing" daddy's dossier.

The doctored photograph was a clever ruse, and one effectively employed a couple years later by Peter Parker in Amazing Spider-Man #169. I wondered if the creators of that story were inspired by this episode.

If I recall rightly, no mention is ever made of Wo Fat's connection to China and certainly not to "Red China"! The word "China" is suspiciously absent from the entire show. I remember some euphemism like "the other side" being said when discussing recovery of the fallen satellite.

That Pendler's hospital was a front was impossible to accept knowing how tightly regulated healthcare was and is still. That a foreign power (don't say China!) would bankroll such an elaborate operation just to keep Lt. Waldron a Manchurian Mole stretched credulity.

Also stretching credulity to the breaking point was the closing with McGarrett claiming a victory snatched from the jaws of utter defeat. If it was indeed a fake microfilm, why was McGarrett furiously shoving the fake Wo Fat on deck and seething spittle into Chong's face?

Oh, well, it's over, and with this let's-play-dress-up dog n' pony show behind us, I pray it's back to McGarrett in blue suits screeching tires, snapping fingers and barking orders for the balance of the season. Be there, Aloha!