5: Part 3

"5" was an unprecedented five-episode prime-time story chain, and needless to say little would likely be resolved in episode three -- but a lot of links and seeming loose-ends and red-herrings start to get sifted near their proper places, here, as private investigator Stuart Bailey (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) begins to uncover what's really at stake behind the seemingly simple job he started with. And not only is the mystery suddenly a lot more serious than was usual for this series in prior seasons. but the acting takes a giant leap upward in one scene.

When Bailey looks into the death of Eva Stehlik (Patricia Rainier, seen in flashbacks), he goes to see her father, who has been left to care for her one-year-old child. Joseph Schildkraut, in the third-to-last screen appearance of his career, gives a performance in this scene of such quiet dignity and tragedy that it risks overwhelming the rest of the episode and the story, as relatively well-played as those are. But it's this scene that makes the whole five-episode arc worth watching, even for non-fans of either the series or mysteries in general, just to savor the performance that they're seeing.

The rest is great, although Gene Nelson's portrayal of what seems to be the writer's idea of a "flamboyant" Greenwich Village eccentric with a penchant for dancing, can get on the viewer's nerves as much as it does on Bailey's. But those five minutes with Schildkraut are golden, and ought to be screened in every acting class.