Does anybody remember what decade this was made in?

There’s actually a pretty interesting book–well, paper–to be written on this show. It went wrong in a lot of ways. First of all, it couldn’t settle on a tone. It was clear it was meant to be a comedy/action hybrid, rather than a dumb but straight action piece like Knight Rider or Manimal, or even the more obviously tongue in cheek A-Team.

However, someone (perhaps the network) apparently kept pushing for more of a straight action approach. It wasn’t until the show was pretty much canceled that it went to outright comedy–I think the first such episode was the Six Million Dollar Man spoof–and thus it was only when the show was doomed that it really starting showing its full promise. The first number of episodes were also a tiring line of knock-offs of then current movies, like Cocoon or Ice Man. (Yes, Ice Man.)

Moreover, the actress who was to play the romantic foil for the hero (who also acted as a bridge for Cox’s teenage character) got pregnant and left the show. This unbalanced the cast, and I don’t think the show ever recovered from that. It was like News Radio after Phil Hartman was killed. And that was a show that had a far firmer sense of itself than Misfits did.

Anyway, all too soon after the show was off the air, two of its stars were dead, of a plane crash (the star was Dean Paul Martin, Dean Martin’s son, and he flew his military jet into a mountain) and AIDS respectively.

I really think this show could have been something if it would have had a bit more time. Hopefully someday all the episodes will be available on Hulu or whatever and a new generation can give it a look.