A few years back, after viewing the entire DVD collexion of Mannix‘s first season, I posted a three-part article on the show’s inaugural year on my “home” site, captaincomics.ning. I devoted considerable copy to the character of Lew Wickersham and his interaction with Joe Mannix. One of the undertones that the show depicted so well was that, despite their different approaches to investigations, Mannix and Wickersham were true friends who respected each other.

The plots also took pains to show that Wickersham, with his belief in modern technology, was a capable sleuth in his own right. And sometimes—not often, because he wasn’t the star—his methods would prove handy.

One instance, for example, in the episode “License to Kill—Limit Three People”, Mannix is trying to locate a man who has deliberately gone missing. Wickersham virtually drags Mannix into the computer room, Joe griping the whole time. Lew interrupts his tirade, telling him, “You’re the one who’s always saying that when a man disappears on purpose, he falls back on something from his past.”—Lew hands him a two-inch-thick print-out—“There it is, Mannix, information on every home, job, hobby, and personal friend and acquaintance David Tate ever had.” It’s a rare occasion when Joe has to eat his own words.

Mannix the loner, of the subsequent seasons, had its virtues. But it was never as good as that first season.

in the first episode of the second season, “The Silent Cry”, first aired on 28 September 1968, Mannix is interviewing his client and it lapses into casual conversation.

“Well, I guess I’ve always been a loner. Even when I was with Intertect,” Joe tells her, and when she is confused by the referrence, he adds:

“Intertect? Oh, well, that’s a big detective agency. Big building, y’know, lots of machines, computers all the time. Tick–tick–tick–tick all the time! Well, one day I cussed at the machine, and I think I heard it cuss back, so I quit.”

The third episode of the season, “Pressure Point”, first aired on 12 October 1968, gives us the most direct link between the old format and the new. When Mannix is unable to find any leads to a subject for whom he has only a name, if it is a name—“Kelly Green”—his secretary, Peggy Fair, takes it upon herself to turn to Intertect’s resources. For one last time, we see the familiar Intertect computer room, and actor Martin Braddock reprises his first-season recurring character of computer programmer Parker.

After Peggy tells Parker what she needs, he replies, “That’s all very well, Peggy, but we have to have a charge number. Now if I don’t, Wickersham will have my head. As a matter of fact, ever since Mannix left Intertect, one hour of every day is devoted to hating him.”

But Parker does come through with a viable lead, which Peggy gingerly reports to her boss:

“I took the liberty of going to, uh, well, y’know, a certain organization and now don’t be angry because it worked! Intertect put ‘Kelly Green Frame’ through the computer and what do you think?”

Joe suggests,”That I’m gonna strangle you.”

The last reference is, as I said, oblique. In “The End of the Rainbow”, the fifth episode of the season, first aired on 26 October 1968, Mannix is seeking information from a woman at her place of business, a computer company. They talk while she works. After she loads her deck of punch cards (remember those?) into the computer tray, Joe pushes the run-job button, to the lady’s surprise.

“I used to work in a place like this,” he tells her.

Obviously, this was a nod to the show’s fans who’d been there from the first season.

Other than that, though, I don’t know too much about it. Hope this helps, ma’am.