Bill Bixby/Anthony Blake is never at his swarmiest or Leisure Suit Larry-like than here. But I'm only four episodes and a pilot movie in. Maybe he'll grow on me. I kinda want to kick him in the groin, so I'm not surprised when the local hicks take a dislike to him. Who can blame them?
Part of it is that the population of the small North Carolina town are played as such a bunch of hicks. Neville Brand must be in his "I'm too old to play a villain" era of his career. His character's 180 reverse heel turn isn't particularly telegraphed, nor his portrayal of a bad guy with qualms of conscience.
For all the hubbub about a pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill (the episode in '73: 'A New Hope' was in '77), Hamill doesn't have much to do here other than whine and blow his top occasionally. And you have to wonder about Tony performing flame magic in front of a bunch of psychiatric patients. Or whatever the "Kinwood Institute" is supposed to be. Word to the wise: never trust a magician who shows up on your doorstep at night and offers to perform fire magic.
The barn "duel" between Tony and Vic is badly underlit and goes on forever. I like how Tony uses a discarded faucet as a faux gun, but that just raises the question of why Tony doesn't carry a gun. So far they haven't said he's had anti-gun trauma in his past ala MacGyver. And they show him wielding a "stolen" gun later. Then again, MacGyver uses a Kriskinov against some bad guys in his pilot episode, too.
Keene Curtis is good as always in his brief part, but he's vague about Tony's past reason for crusading to Treasury Agent Yates. "Something in his (Tony') past" when Max hasn't been shy about blurting out Tony's South American prison incident in previous episodes. Did writer Walter Brough and/or Max forget?
"Lightning" really doesn't have anything to recommend it. The parts that are good, like the performances by Susan Foster as Maggie and Frances Reid as Gilpin, are so brief that they're barely there before they're gone. Beah Richards, who gets a "Special Guest Star" credit, is good but she really isn't relevant to the plot and is there mostly to give Tony's an excuse to do some fancier non-stage magic. Yes, she directs Tony to the barn that the bad guys used when they burned up the Treasury agent. But why did they burn him up _in their HQ_? That seems either kinda destructive or not very smart.
So overall, the memory doesn't cheat on this one because I don't remember it being that good when I saw it in '73. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Part of it is that the population of the small North Carolina town are played as such a bunch of hicks. Neville Brand must be in his "I'm too old to play a villain" era of his career. His character's 180 reverse heel turn isn't particularly telegraphed, nor his portrayal of a bad guy with qualms of conscience.
For all the hubbub about a pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill (the episode in '73: 'A New Hope' was in '77), Hamill doesn't have much to do here other than whine and blow his top occasionally. And you have to wonder about Tony performing flame magic in front of a bunch of psychiatric patients. Or whatever the "Kinwood Institute" is supposed to be. Word to the wise: never trust a magician who shows up on your doorstep at night and offers to perform fire magic.
The barn "duel" between Tony and Vic is badly underlit and goes on forever. I like how Tony uses a discarded faucet as a faux gun, but that just raises the question of why Tony doesn't carry a gun. So far they haven't said he's had anti-gun trauma in his past ala MacGyver. And they show him wielding a "stolen" gun later. Then again, MacGyver uses a Kriskinov against some bad guys in his pilot episode, too.
Keene Curtis is good as always in his brief part, but he's vague about Tony's past reason for crusading to Treasury Agent Yates. "Something in his (Tony') past" when Max hasn't been shy about blurting out Tony's South American prison incident in previous episodes. Did writer Walter Brough and/or Max forget?
"Lightning" really doesn't have anything to recommend it. The parts that are good, like the performances by Susan Foster as Maggie and Frances Reid as Gilpin, are so brief that they're barely there before they're gone. Beah Richards, who gets a "Special Guest Star" credit, is good but she really isn't relevant to the plot and is there mostly to give Tony's an excuse to do some fancier non-stage magic. Yes, she directs Tony to the barn that the bad guys used when they burned up the Treasury agent. But why did they burn him up _in their HQ_? That seems either kinda destructive or not very smart.
So overall, the memory doesn't cheat on this one because I don't remember it being that good when I saw it in '73. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
