Sorry, but due to technical issues, this one is a bit late too!
Tonight 50 years ago, CBS aired S05E16 "The Listener".
Robert Foxworth guests as psychiatrist Eric Fowler who is being stalked by a really smart, dangerous man called Cerberus. The guy taps into everything imaginable including Fowler's clothes (how the dude is able to do this, is beyond me).
What makes more sense is the taps into Fowler's office and home. Cerberus speaks to the doctor through stereo equipment. Fowler calls in Five-O and they bring along Che Fong (Harry Endo). They find a microphone and the whole ordeal ticks Cerberus off.
Through detective work, they figure out Cerberus can't be too far away from Fowler. What makes things so much more worse, is that Cerberus is calling Fowler's patients. He tells one boy (Radames Pera) that he's dying but Fowler and his mother (Lisa Pera) are hiding it from him. Another, he drives her (Linda Ryan) to suicide by reminding her that she killed her daughter.
A third patient, Mary (Patricia Herman), is also harassed but by this point, they know what Cerberus is up to and Fowler is with her when she receives the phone call. Mary is instrumental in Cerberus' capture because she cleverly keeps him on the phone so Five-O can track him down.
Turns out Cerberus (Greg Mullavey) is the postal carrier for Fowler's office! It takes everything McGarrett has to not beat the living crap out of the guy.
Mr. Mike's review is so much better than my summation. https://www.fiveohomepage.com/5-0log5.htm#112
This is one of those 'meh' episodes for me. It's not bad but it's not exactly super memorable for me either. It does hold its own compared to other Season 5 shows that have aired thus far including The Vashon Trilogy and "The Child Stealers". But obviously, the bar was set high in this season.
I think the issue is that there are some flaws in the episode. For one, towards the end, McGarrett has Fowler and Danno trade clothes. This was pretty physically impossible. It would have made more sense to have Danno take Fowler's jacket and part ways without Cerberus being aware.
Secondly, this came to me as I was writing this, but just how in the heck did Cerberus plant bugs into Fowler's clothes without the doctor knowing!? That's nuts! Yes, in the course of the episode, we discover Cerberus broke into Fowler's house but still - this seemed to be a dumb and overkill plot device.
Finally, when does Cerberus have time to do all this crap!? Being a mail carrier, they're on a schedule and they can't deviate much. Someone was bound to notice their mail being late or not delivered. Yes, this was in the decades before Informed Delivery, but I would think someone would notice their stuff wasn't being delivered properly!
Regardless, Happy 50th, "The Listener"!!![]()