The Magician // All 21 Episodes Plus TV Movie Pilot

So glad they finally published an official DVD version of the Magician. As far as I can tell, every episode is uncut, and the picture and sound quality are fine. Only the incidental music at the Magic Castle shows is unoriginal.What makes this show to stand out is first the basic premise of a professional magician Tony Blake (Bill Bixby) working as an unpaid private sleuth, aided by an investigating journalist Max Pomeroy (Keene Curtis). Blake solved the mysteries through a combination of intelligence and magic, not ever resorting to outright violence or meanness -- or going sci-fi. Pomeroy provided Blake with confidential and difficult to get background material (remember, this show was made during the real-life Watergate scandal). Both Bixby and Curtis played their roles extremely convincingly. After all, Bixby was an accomplished amateur magician, and supposedly performed himself all his character's tricks in the show.Second, most guest stars are first rate from William Shatner to the gorgeous Lynda Day George.Third, the show is a visual treat if you like early 1970's fashion from clothing and cars to interior decoration. The studio actually built a real size mock jet interior, and later an imitation of the Magic Castle's stage room. Blake drove a brand new white Corvette (Chevrolet supplied the cars for the show from a Caprice to a Nova), and was probably among the first to wear a digital wrist watch.Originally, the plan was to make a TV show "with lots of flair", in Bixby's words. He planned to fly in his character's Boeing jet "Spirit" around the world to promote the show. Nothing came of this, and the series became a great might-have-been.The making of the Magician got to a poor start due to screenwriters' strike, delaying the production. Once it got underway, the standard of scripts, direction, and production varied greatly from one episode to another. They had to film 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. While Bixby said he liked the rushed schedule, the pressure inevitably had a negative impact on the overall quality of the show. The producers, writers and directors disagreed on what the Magician should be like: in the end there was no obvious target audience: some episodes appealed mainly to children, others to more mature viewers.This mixed bag makes you appreciate all the more the really good episodes, and heartily laugh at the more campy ones. Thus, even if the Magician was not the best-made action series of its era, curiously its shortcomings rather add to than diminish its appeal.Bixby's charisma was the show's carrying force. Other regular cast members' personas were underdeveloped. Pomeroy / Curtis became fed up repeating Blake's altruistic motives to get involved in strangers' troubles, and abruptly left the show in mid-season. His replacement, Joe Sirola (Dominick), was an accomplished actor, but his role as a funny butler was less original and interesting than his predecessor's. Pomeroy's son Dennis (Todd Crespi) was dropped from the series after a few episodes.Blake's pilot Jerry Anderson (Jim Watkins / Julian Christopher) became extra baggage after Blake ditched his Boeing jet and moved into the top floor of the Magic Castle. Curiously, Watkins remained a cast member in the opening titles to the very end of the series, although he no longer appeared in the episodes.In addition to the varying quality of the episodes, failing to fit into established Hollywood action series' pigeonholes probably contributed to the the Magician' undoing. He wasn't a traditional macho like Cannon, as realistic as Kojak, or sci-fi unlike the Six Million Dollar Man -- all popular series at the time the Magician flopped. The Magician flew and still flies in its very own orbit, and that makes the show so captivating entertanement.

I would have been just the right age when this series aired in the early 1970s, but somehow I missed it. As a young wanna-be writer I was already steeping in pretty much all the private eye, police, and SF shows out there (too many to list, but think everything from Cannon, Barnaby Jones, Harry O, Name of the Game, McCloud, Baretta, Six Million Dollar Man, Incredible Hulk, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Starsky & Hutch... the gamut). I only learned about it recently, while reading up about Bill Bixby, an actor whose work I've always enjoyed. And when this series, though it was short-lived, popped up on DVD, it was a no-brainer. The short version: I loved it. Yes, it's flawed, it's occasionally campier than it should have been, and it suffered from (I barely remember this) the writer's strike, and eventual tinkering with the cast and premise. But... but... but it's about a professional David Copperfield-style magician who lives in his own jumbo jet, drives a cool white Corvette Sting-Ray, and solves crimes with magic, empathy, and a little help from his friends (and pilot). What's not to like? Even the corny title theme music is great in that 70s way with its fanfare-laden disco beat. Bill Bixby was himself an amateur magician and performed most if not all his own tricks. The show's changing background probably helped kill it, but overall it's a solid slice of TV-action from a period that was, admittedly, full of some pretty great TV-action (especially if you were a kid with an imagination and a new Montgomery Wards manual typewriter, as I was). I recommend this to the inner kid in everyone who grew up in this time period, anyone who likes the idea of a sleuthing magician (who wouldn't?!), and definitely anyone who loved Bill Bixby. Others have done a better job of reviewing the nuts and bolts of the episodes. I'm just sayin', get this and go with it -- it's very entertaining!--W.D. Gagliani, author of The Judas Hit

Still breaks my heart that it only ran one season.Product arrived quickly and in perfect condition.

An interesting series that was marred by producer interference. One of the supporting characters was quietly removed because in the 1970s, a reporter living with a mistress and not a wife was too risque. Half way through the series, the magician Blake moves off his jet and into a magic cabaret. While it was nice to see the showcasing of other magical talent, Blake's assistant Jerry Anderson (Jim Watkins) and his friends from the first half of the season were replaced without explanation. I liked the Magician for the magic -- and Bill Bixby doing his own tricks on the show, (2) showing Jim Watkins as a competent black man who was a pilot for a large jet (unheard of on TV series at the time), and for reporter Max Pomeroy's disabled but brilliant son played by Todd Crespi, another radical departure by having a disabled person as a regular supporting character. That Keene's character as a famous reporter always dropping things to help Bixby's character Blake stretched credulity after a while, but to have the other supporters vanish without a word was troubling. Some of the shows were a bit dated, but in larger, they held up, and the music score helped sell the series. I think if it had been given a chance to gel instead of being repeatedly tweaked, it would have caught on and lasted 3-5 seasons.Trivia piece, in the TV series X-Files, when Mulder's sister is abducted, The Magician is playing on TV, a deliberate choice by that show's creator, Chris Carter. The Magician was the second of Bixby's four successful TV series, a remarkable achievement -- My Favorite Martian (3 seasons), The Courtship of Eddie's Father(3 seasons), The Magician (1 season), and The Incredible Hulk (5 seasons).

Really enjoyed watching. Surprised the show was cancelled.