Mannix The Dark Hours (1967–1975) watch online HD

This show begins with Mannix being hit from behind and knocked cold...only the 204th time (give or take) he was knocked out in the show's history. In fact, he'd get knocked out a couple more times...but I am getting ahead of myself. The thugs then drag him off, shoot him and toss him down a hill. When he's found, the EMTs and cops say he's dead and throw a blanket over him on the stretcher. However, on the way to the hospital, he shows signs of life...because he's like the terminator and cannot be killed! Oh, did I mention he'd been shot about a dozen times in the series before this?!

The show then uses a series of flashbacks to show what happened before he was knocked out. It begins with him meeting a new client, Karen (Elizabeth Ashley), as she's worried about some man who keeps following her. The case soon turns out to involve a couple mob bosses, Brandon (Victor French) and Kordick (William Devane)...and a plan to do away with one of them. How does the nearly dead Mannix sort all this out, solve the crime AND never seem to ask anyone to pay his fees?

Other than the fact that I laughed at the knock outs and shooting and an AMAZING feat of shooting*, it's a very good episode--- exciting and OTHERWISE original.

*The shooting stunt was hilarious and the second time I saw this on the show...but this time it was not performed by Mannix. Like the Mannix shot several seasons before, this involves a guy with a rifle and scope opening fire on a guy with a revolver way down below. The guy with the pistol is able to shoot the marksman...a feat nearly impossible...even if you are an Olympic caliber shooter!!

This is a pretty good episode, and it's a nice recovery from the two-part disaster of the previous two episodes. The show has returned to form and to its basic premise, and that's always a good thing.

In this one, Joe gets shot early on in the episode, and while in his hospital bed, he tries to figure out who did this to him through flashbacks of the events that occurred just prior to when he was shot.

One notable thing about this episode is that after a long, excruciating wait, during which many of us have struggled to cope, I'm happy to announce that the long national nightmare is over because the moment we've been anticipating for so long has FINALLY arrived. Yes, believe it or not, for the first time this season, Joe gets clobbered on the back on the head!!! In fact, for special emphasis, it happens in the opening scene, AND it's shown TWICE!! Yes, that's right - twice. Once in the opening scene and then again later on in one of Joe's flashbacks, so it's double the fun!! Perhaps the writers did this because they wanted to remind everyone (especially the doubters and skeptics) that they definitely have NOT forgotten about this cliché and figured that showing it twice would really drive this point home. Or maybe they figured that after fifteen episodes without it, they desperately needed to make up for lost ground so they can meet their head-whipping quota for this year. Whatever the case, the headaches are back for Joe.

One thing I didn't like about this episode is William Devane's performance as Al Kordic. He's too timid and soft-spoken and too agreeable to everything that anyone says, which is just not believable for a syndicate boss. There's also some overacting by Joe from the hospitable bed, and of course, as previously mentioned, the head-whipping cliché that we know and love has returned. I don't how we survived without it!! However, even though it was shown twice, I'm only deducting one point for it because I'm going to cut the writers some slack here since they somehow managed to keep it out of the previous fifteen episodes and I know that HAD to be difficult for them.

So overall, not a bad episode.