50 years of "Time And Memories"

[Bobbi]

S03E04, Time And Memories aired 50 years ago tonight.

Here's another episode where we see McGarrett has something of a life, or at least he used to. It takes form as an ex-girlfriend Cathy Wallis (Diana Muldaur). Problem is she is currently in Honolulu with her husband Frank who she finds dead in their rented beach house. They're not there alone, as Frank's daughter Joan (Kathy Cannon) has tagged along.

Things become complicated as evidence piles up against Cathy making her the prime suspect in Frank's murder. He was bashed in the head multiple times with Cathy's hair dryer. Cathy isn't the only the suspect as Five-O discovers a buddy, Roswell Borden (Edward Andrews) had motive because Frank was about to rip Borden's company out from under him. However, the real culprit is Arthur Dixon (Martin Sheen) who is Joan's boyfriend/fiancee but Frank was against their marriage.

How Dixon is caught is weird and I still scratch my head at it and I worked in communications during my active Air Force years. Mr. Mike does a good job tackling the issue in his excellent review: http://www.fiveohomepage.com/5-0log3.htm#52

There is a lot about this episode I like, one of which is the on location filming at the USS Arizona Memorial. In the story, Cathy's much older brother was on board the ship when it was hit. It fit and made sense with her connection to Hawaii.

Another outstanding scene is when Danno suggests to McGarrett that he allow his team to take the lead on the case due to McGarrett's involvement with Cathy. Jack Lord has the expression of a viper about to strike as he nearly leaps over the desk! It was creepy, intense and absolutely priceless. Needless to say, Danno backs down right away. It gives a great insight into the team dynamics and specifically, the dynamic between McGarrett and Danno. Too bad we couldn't see more of this type of dynamic in the reboot (just sayin'). Proof the two shows are as different as apples and oranges. (Ok, enough of my soapbox).

While again, not one of my favorites but I could watch this one without a second thought. It's a nice trip down memory lane.

Happy 50th "Time And Memories"!

[epaddon]

I like this episode in general but it has one of those explanations so common to TV shows of this era about how "he had time to fly in, do the murder and catch a plane back" explanations that always take for granted that one can get to and from the airport so quickly to the scene of the murder!

[epaddon]

Not often one got to see Diana Muldaur in a bikini, even if it was for just a split second in a flashback montage!

[Bobbi]

I agree epaddon...I've always had a problem with how quickly he could have made it back to the airport!

I've always liked Diana Muldaur - i first watched her in Star Trek: TNG. She was one of the beautiful women in the 1960s and '70s, IMO. She's full of talent too.

[Todd]

As an aficionado of old telephone systems, allow me to explain this "tie line", and why it didn't make sense at all in this episode.

A tie line is actually a direct long distance line between two locations. This was popular for large businesses around the time of this episode (1970), because of the pricey per-minute long distance charges, as well as the cumbersome nature of placing some long distance calls at the time.

Employees wishing to place calls between offices would pick up the office phone, dial a short code (often 2 digits) to indicate which office they wanted to reach, and the tie line would make a quick connection to that office, giving the employee another dial tone. Then the employee would dial an extension number, and would be connected to the number he wanted to call. This was quick and much cheaper, though establishing a tie line was expensive (usually $1,000 per month, per line -- about $6700 per line today!)

However, tie lines had a huge limitation. They could only call within the office buildings with which they were connected! There was no way to use a tie line to call elsewhere within the city!

Recall that the party in question was at Roswell Borden's house. A tie line could NOT have been used to call Joan there! In fact, it couldn't have been used to call anywhere in Honolulu EXCEPT for Frank's office! (If the party had been at Frank's office, this plot device would have worked better!)

That was problem #1.

Problem #2 was the little dramatic demonstration McGarrett did at the end. When Arthur Dixon got the call, and the operator said it was "from San Francisco", this would not have happened, because tie lines specifically exist to avoid using the operator! That's the whole point of them! The operator would not and could not have been involved in placing that call.

Problem #3 was the ability of McGarrett to access the tie line from his office. Doesn't work that way. You had to be physically present at the office where the PBX system is located in order to access the tie line. You can't just call the operator and say, "Tie line, please!"

One other problem with this episode was the fact that McGarrett didn't bother to verify the phone records until near the end. Whenever an alibi depends upon a phone call, that is checked very early on in the investigation -- back in 1970 AND today!