Originally Posted by ringfire211 View Post
The Grandstand Play is always kind of a mixed bag for me. I do realize that it’s a good story with VERY good performances (especially Elliott Street, who I think works well as a man-child type of teenager) but I tend to find it a chore to get through, especially the second half. I think it’s needlessly padded out and would have been much better as a 1-hour episode.

Is it ever mentioned how old Gary is supposed to be? Or is he just labeled a teenager? He does look a bit older than your average teenager but again I don’t have a problem with him because he obviously has some developmental issues so his “man-child” look doesn’t really bother me. You can definitely tell there’s something “off” about him which makes sense in the context of the story.
I agree regarding The Grandstand Play's length.

Some 2-part/2-hour Five-O episodes have this problem. They had too much material for one episode, but not enough for two, so they padded them with useless/boring crap.

Grandstand and "Two Dead Cows in Makapuu" both would have done better as 90 minute episodes. Unfortunately, because networks did not want to fill the odd half hour left over, they tended to discourage the production of 90-minute episodes. "The Rockford Files" had one, which I felt was a perfect length.