Five-O Revisited: Death's Name is Sam

Season 8, Episode 173
Original air date: 10/10/75

Written by: Jerome Coopersmith
Directed by: Michael O'Herlihy

Coopersmith and O'Herlihy are probably my favorite writer/director team from the show. They consistently brought out the best of Hawaii Five-O. In this episode, Five-O stumbles upon a plot to shoot down a plane with an important international dignitary aboard.

I decided to review this episode after George Takei's recent cameo on the reboot. I found his cameo all too short. I had hoped they would give him something more to do. Takei's performance in "Death's Name is Sam" is memorable and has stood out in my mind after all these years since I first saw it.

Why is this man hailing a cab so far from the terminal? He is accidentally hit by a blond woman driver.

He has a mysterious observer.

The man is taken to a hospital where he immediately asks about his belongings. He can't find something and proceeds to rip a cyanide pill from his jacket and kill himself.

For some reason, the director starts some scenes with shots like this. Later on, there's a great close-up of Steve's phone.

The team picks up on the unusual story. Turns out the missing item was simply being held for safe-keeping by the hospital.What a waste of a perfectly good cyanide pill. Steve snaps out his always handy magnifying glass and determines the writing on the object is Russian...and that can't be good. Steve suspects it's military hardware. He tells the guys to put a freeze on any information about the death of the mystery man, identified as Timor Ambok.

McGarrett pays a visit to a military specialist who concludes that the object is part of a surface-to-air missile (ergo, "Sam"). Steve is not happy about this. The specialist, Pete Masters (played by Lou Frizzell), has great drawing skills.

This is McGarrett's oh-hell-no-that's-not-going-down-on-my-rock look.

Here's that great close-up of Steve's phone. Doc is giving the run down on Timbok's death. Yep, it was cyanide. McGarrett decides to put the "Iron Brain," his name for the HPD computer, to work and find an officer who can take over Ambok's identity.

The best episodes showed the team working together closely, pulling the evidence together.

The "Iron Brain."

McGarrett meets with the HPD fill-in for Ambok, Nathaniel Blake (both played by Takei). I like this first shot because I'm pretty sure that's Lord's trailer at the top of the shot. As a lifelong Trekkie, I'm also amused that Takei's character is a helicopter pilot (see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).

Just a man and his car. F6-3958 forever.

McGarrett bemusedly informs Blake he's been picked by computer. Blake asks, "What did I win? A trip to Hawaii?" McGarrett likes his pluck.

When McGarrett tells Blake he's been chosen to carry out a "sensitive assignment," Blake says, "Let me guess, I'm playing Sky Masterson in the police department production of Guys and Dolls." Blake asks if they know what the target is, and McGarrett tells him no, but they've narrowed it down to "192 flights a day" coming and going from Hawaii. Of course, Blake is far too conveniently perfect a match to replace Ambok, but that's TV for you.

We learn the target of the SAM is the exiled leader of an Asian country (in this case, given a fictional name in the show - "Camponesia"). The team races to transform Blake into Ambok so he can take over his mission. The transformation includes a gold tooth which Blake shows off to McGarrett, who responds sarcastically, "That's beautiful."

McGarrett tells Blake he will arrive at the hotel at exactly 8:05 a.m.

Blake is wrapped up like a mummy and taken to the hospital where he emerges as Ambok.

Props to the art department for making sure Blake does indeed arrive at 8:05 a.m. They seem to have left L.A. adrift in its own peculiar time though.

With Chin and Duke on the lookout, Blake is met by a woman who pretends to know him and takes him to an estate (which Magnum P.I. fans will immediately recognize). The mysterious powers that be have set up a decoy to take Five-O off the trail.

Blake quietly struggles to figure out the situation. Everyone acts like they're at a party. When he sees the puzzle, he's relieved to see what he needs to do.

Blake is taken into the terrorists' trust and the plan is revealed to him. He escapes by helicopter which has conveniently just arrived.

I'm pretty sure that's Beau Vanden Ecker polishing up the sports car.

Meanwhile, McGarrett enjoys himself perhaps a bit too much interrogating a woman caught at the airport with another SAM segment. These interrogation scenes with McGarrett, though, are one of the very best things about the show. Here, as often happens, the suspect plays it cool at first, but McGarrett meticulously chips away at her.

This is McGarrett's I'm-about-to-pound-you-into-the-ground smirk.

I'd say there's some suggestive sexual play in this scene, the way McGarrett handles the SAM segment as he works on the woman. At one point, he's tightly gripping it.

When she realizes McGarrett's aware of her affiliation with the Camponesian terrorists and their plot, she asks for her jacket. McGarrett has Duke give it to her. She tears desperately at it, but obviously can't find what she's looking for.

McGarrett holds up a cyanide tablet, like the one that Ambok took. "Looking for this?" he asks her. She launches herself at him furiously. Duke and Chin hold her back. And thus concludes another great bit of cat-and-mouse in McGarrett's office. The fact that the woman doesn't say a word the entire time adds to the intensity of this scene.

Blake contacts McGarrett and gives him some info but meets his demise before he can give the location of the terrorists. A lot of characters die on Hawaii Five-O, but I was especially sad to see Blake get killed.

John Colicos as the terrorist mastermind, going after Blake. I fondly remember Colicos from the original Battlestar Galactica.

And Five-O was not known for its great special effects. Then again, special effects were yet to be mastered, and affordably, in the mid-70's.

McGarrett realizes he's just lost Blake.

McGarrett doesn't quite have all the information to stop the terrorist plot. A call to Jonathan Kaye in D.C. resolves that. McGarrett, as usual, is angry about being left in the dark, but he has to quickly move on to the problem of stopping the plot. Pete Masters continues to lend a hand.

They try to divert the flight to Hilo, but that runway is sabotaged. I gotta say, if this is the Hilo airport, they could really use some improvements.

Masters breaks the bad news to McGarrett. They ultimately decide on flares to try and draw the SAM off course. Pretty desperate move but, of course, it works.