Race Against Time: Part 2

First of all, the whole premise of Mannix even being on this mission is ridiculous so that colors everything that happens. Since this episode is padded, there was time to put in a back story about Mannix and Victor Lucas. They should have been friends in college when Lucas was an exchange student and had kept in touch over the years and Lucas demanded Mannix be on the mission so he would know everything was on the up and up. The throwaway line that they met in Korea is hardly a basis for Joe to be in on this caper.

The cast is fine except for Alan Bergmann as one of the head bad guys. He doesn't get it done, too low key. In fact, the episode would have been better if John Colisco had done that part and brought some of his hammy, evil energy to the role, much as he did with Kor in Star Trek or Baltar on the original Battlestar Galatica. That would have been an improvement.

Other reviewers have covered the many problems with this outing so no need to rehash their astute observations. This show is not as bad as "Gathering of Ghosts" but it is definitely in the conversation for bottom three. Hopefully, the government threw a big check Joe's way. He earned every penny.

This is the second part of a two-part episode and it is simply appalling.

The first problem is how were the rebels suddenly and magically able to get a helicopter within a minute or two in a country controlled by a military dictatorship? Impossible.

Then in the fight scene on the hospital staircase, there's a HUGE continuity mistake. When Joe's stuntman leaps down the hospital staircase to tackle one of the guys chasing him, his hat falls off in the process, and is still off when he stands up and gets ready to punch the guy. Then the camera switches to a closeup shot of Joe WHO HAS A HAT ON as he proceeds to punch him. Then if that wasn't bad enough, the camera then switches to the wide shot again where the stuntman then PICKS UP HIS HAT AND PUTS IT ON and then runs up the staircase. Wow. Very, very sloppy and unforgivable, and one of the worst mistakes I've seen on this show yet.

Then it gets even uglier during the operation scene where on display is the unfortunate spectacle of most of Joe's face covered up with a ridiculous-looking surgical mask. Then in the final scene, Joe puts on a disguise for the very first time, which is just laughable. At the same time, though, it's also sad to see that the series has descended to this level.

I think Joe himself sums up this episode best during the operation scene when most of his face (except for his eyes) is covered with the surgical mask. When you look at the expression in his eyes in a couple of the closeup shots, even HE seems to be wondering what he's doing there and perhaps thinking about how silly this whole episode is and how low the show has fallen. What he should have done at that point is throw the surgical mask down and run out of the scene and out of the entire episode so that it could never have been completed at all. We all would have been much better off if he had.

This two-piece teleplay involves Mannix taking a famous surgeon to a foreign country to implant a pacemaker in a rebel leader. Unfortunately, the fact that the only characters who have foreign accents are Cesare Danova's rebel leader and the lady doctor damages the credibility of the story severely enough for me to give it a reduced rating. I believe that "Race Against Time" was originally written as a MAN FROM UNCLE script, with John Colicos taking over the role intended for Bill McCallum.

The other review for this episode and the previous one are pretty much in line with mine. They clearly are bad shows...and as I said about part 1, I am pretty sure this was actually a "Mission: Impossible" episode reworked or perhaps one written for that show but not used. The creators of both shows was Bruce Geller...and yet in this one, Mannix is abroad on a secret espionage mission doing pretty much the same stuff the IM Force would have done. But since that show finished production a year earlier, they just used it here. You can only assume that a private eye and surgeon were sent in on the mission because the real spies were all out sick or on strike!!

At the end of part one, Mannix and the world-famous heart surgeon (John Colicos) were about to begin surgery on the dying head of the resistance in an unnamed country. But, the Doc finds that someone destroyed the pacemaker Mannix smuggled into the country. So they have to go on a mission to steal one. And, once they have it, the world-famous heart surgeon can do the surgery no other doctor can do (at least that's what they said in the script)...install a pacemaker (not a difficult surgery in 1974). The big problem is that almost nothing else happens in the episode other than the pair sneaking away at the end in disguises...so it's very obviously a super- heavily padded episode. I am not sure if there was enough material to do everything in one episode instead of two...but there clearly wasn't enough for two full episodes. What you are left with is some fighting, an explosion, some serious continuity errors and a show that might have worked fine...had it been "Mission: Impossible". As it is, the show is a nonsensical and silly one...and one I'd just as soon forget.

At the end of the last part, the pacemaker Joe had brought with him on the plane was broken possibly because one of the rebels was a spy. So he and the doctor go to a hospital, disguised in dictatorship uniforms, to get another one. But their pics are displayed on TV and while one of the hospital staff is loyal to the rebels, they don't know which one...I'll admit while this ep seems a bit ridiculous for a detective show, it was very exciting nonetheless. Like I said about Part 1, this seems more like a script for that other Bruce Geller show "Mission: Impossible" that was cancelled the previous season. Still, I highly recommend both Parts 1 & 2 of "Race Against Time". Dig especially the disguises Joe and the doc have on at the end.