Blacke's Magic

As a kid I was always a fan of the Bill Bixby series THE MAGICIAN, where Bill played a famous wealthy magician who used his magic to out smart the bad guys. Here is an updated version of that premise. Post "Barney Miller" Hal Linden plays Alexander Blacke, a wealthy magician who decides to not only use his magic to entertain, but to also fight crime. Blacke is living the good life as a bachelor when all of a sudden his life is interrupted when his father Leonard Blacke, played by post "M.A.S.H." Harry Morgan moves in. Leonard grew up working as a carnival "con man" and always seems to get involved with Alexander's crime solving by either interfering, helping or employing several of Leonard's old "Showbiz" buddies. Alexander usually used his magic as a ways to solve show the criminals did things such as make statues disappear. Like THE MAGICIAN this was a fun show, unfortunately it didn't last long and the NBC network started shifting it around the schedule. Also at the time since Morgan and Linden just departed very lucrative roles on their own successful TV series, I think the viewing public had a tough time adjusting.

The people who choose to cancel this show should have given it more time to catch on. This was show was created by the same people who created Murder, She Wrote, and unlike that show that needed a murder in every story. Blacke's Magic occasionally solved a murder but also dealt with other crimes like inexplicable robberies, unexplained phenomena, and also once in awhile helping people who were either being blackmailed or going up against powerful people. It's too bad that this show was cancelled.

Blacke's Magic was generally enjoyable - the main problem (if you want to call it that) is that it was more of a mystery show, and more of a "con-game"/scam type show, and less of Blacke as a magician. Speaking as a magician myself, I would have liked to seen more of the latter and less of the former. They often seemed to forget they were dealing with a magician as the main character! It's generally enjoyable, and deserved to run longer than it did.

I liked the series, but noticed they copied a number of episodes from other tv series. The magician being shot in the pool while in a casket underwater. It came from the original burke's law, and also from 80s burke's law remake. The disappearing sculpture is from banacek, there's another but i can't remember. The father is annoying and a buffoon. He takes away from the show. Loved the different guest stars. Have always liked Hal linden. Wish they could have had him doing more magic. Maybe if they had gotten rid of Harry Morgan, the show would have lasted longer. Even in the series mash Morgan was an idiot, same thing with dragnet, his so called advice and jokes were lame. Bad enough jack Webb walking around looking and acting wooden.

Enjoyable plots, but there was very little magic to see, which I thought was the main idea of the series. The main character, Alexander Blacke, was not as self-reliant nor as self-directed as was Anthony Dorian in "The Magician" series that had come before it. I also missed how the magician, using only his own wit and skills, solved the mystery/problem without much outside help as did Blacke seem to need from his carny father, let alone from many other characters in each episode. Hal Linden may not have been the best choice for this series, perhaps someone with a more bold personality, instead of Hal's lighthearted demeanor. Maybe it should have been called " Blacke's Acts ". Still, it was fun to watch.