If I'd done like I often do, and posted right away, instead of seeing what else was said, I would've posted the same thing
Entertaining and good are not the same thing lol... But it's only my rule, of course. Like my firm no-Keanu policy.
John Saxon does not exactly have range, but I've always found him to be an appealing character actor.
Yeah, he CAN do evil pretty good, can't he? It's whenever I see him in a "good guy" role that I think he's been miscast.
Pretty much. I think when they replaced Alex Cord with Saxon in the sequel to Genesis II they were trying for a more traditional heroic type, but it didn't quite work out. Not that he was bad; I just think Cord was more appropriate. Saxon would have been better as Cord's nemesis.
Well,to be fair, the script (it was Planet Earth, actually) was a little awkward in that one. "Women's Lib? Or Women's Lib gone mad?!"
My iconic role for Saxon has to be the "Vampire" episode of Starsky and Hutch. Even if you're not a fan of the series, this episode is worth a look. It's a hoot. And Saxon (over)plays it just right.
He was also good in the Clint Eastwood western, Joe Kidd. He played an outlaw/good guy in that 1972 film.
Little Orphan Airplane *** Austin must retrieve important footage from a downed scout plane. This is actually a simple story, but I rather liked it. Even so I didn't rate it higher because I think it could have been better. I liked seeing Greg Morris guest starring although I'd have liked to see him with more to do. Some of the f/x shots were a bit cheesy and didn't work as well as they could have. In the early season there seems to be some experimentation in different ways to depict Austin's abilities. When it really comes down to it I just don't think Austin is particularly challenged here.
"Doomsday, And Counting" ***** Steve must deactivate a failsafe nuclear explosive to save an earthquake damaged Russian power plant. Perhaps I'm being generous here because this episode isn't perfect and could be better, but I think it's been the best episode so far. And I think I like it better than "Day Of The Robot." There's more going on in this story. I also like how the Russians are not played with overly thick fake accents---it might throw some off, but I found it more acceptable than accents being overdone. The Russians are also not treated as overly cliched either as they often were in those days. My favourite stunt was Steve jumping from a great height and yet without the sound f/x that will inevitably be present in later seasons. There isn't much of any character development here and it's mostly plot, plot, plot, but at least there also isn't much extraneous dialogue when effective facial acting can suffice.
^Except that my recollection of Lee Majors's "facial acting" is that it's pretty much limited to the movement of one eyebrow.
I'm one of the ones who was thrown. Non-cliche accents, fine. NO accents made all the russians sound like they were from Gary, Indiana. You have to have some way of indicating we're dealing with a foreign country. And I'm sure it wasn't a conscious, literary decision on the part of the showrunners. They probably just didn't want to wait for the guest stars to undergo language coaching.
"Eyewitness To Murder" *** Steve witness the perpetrator of an assassination attempt, but can't reveal how he can recognize him. This was actually kind of neat although I felt it dragged in parts. It was interesting that while Steve Austin could positively identify the killer he cannot reveal how he is able to so because no ordinary human could have seen the man in the dark from such a distance. I also liked when Austin clues into the killer having a twin and then takes off to stop the double from carrying out the killing. I can just imagine the stares he would have gotten as he raced down the sheet at a speed far faster than any normal human could run. it's almost a shame they really couldn't depict it well enough. "Rescue Of Athena One" **** Steve must rescue a damaged spacecraft with the help of the first American woman astronaut. Farrah Fawcett-Majors guest stars as America's first female astronaut. We get Farrah with her trademark hairstyle that millions of women would emulate and millions of boys would drool over. (-: That said Farrah doesn't make for a very convincing astronaut. She just doesn't seem to fit the role. Even so this story is written by none other than D.C. Fontana and you can see the effort to portray a competent female pilot and at the end of the story we even get Steve Austin to utter the words "the final frontier." It's a nice touch. My quibbles of Fawcett fitting the role aside I thought this was a good story and decently told. My only other quibble is that the f/x used weren't all the effective. We also get quite a bit of previously seen stock NASA footage to depict the space scenes.
"Dr. Rudy Wells Is Missing" **** Criminals abduct Rudy Wells hoping to profit from his bionics research. This was actually kind of fun as well as mildly disappointing. This is a decent story although I felt there was a bit of a logic flaw: how did these criminals even learn of Rudy Wells' bionic research? It's kept vague and never addressed which is weird because it suggests a helluva security leak. Oscar Goldman should be hellbent to find any kind of security leak. I laughed my head off over one stunt. When thugs are trying to run Steve off the road he just reaches over and tears their steering wheel off. I can just imagine the expression on their faces when they can't steer their car at speed. On the disappointing side was when Steve is pitted against four attackers simultaneously. This should have been a fun spectacle, but the slow-motion f/x style saps all the energy out of the action. And in the fights Steve comes across as too much of a "play fair" boy scout. These guys are out to seriously get him---in his place I wouldn't pull any punches. When he kicks one guy in the chest you can be sure he should have shattered the breast bone and ribs. In a real straight up fight with the strength we've seen Steve display none of these guys should have walked again anytime soon. There's a cute idea in this story in having the criminals being Austrian and trying to "manufacture" a "superman." Some dreams never die.
Science isn't really something you can do in total secrecy, because it requires peer review and the free exchange of ideas across the scientific community. The fact that Rudy had actually put his theories into practice might be classified, but the fact that he was a researcher in the field of bionics would've probably been public knowledge. I'm not sure just how much detailed knowledge the bad guys had, though. But this isn't gritty realism, it's '70s action-adventure, and that means the violence is kept to a minimum. The heroes don't believe in killing or crippling people and the laws of physics and biomechanics are flexible enough that they can do superpowered fight moves without causing any permanent harm to their opponents. And as someone who grew up with '70s TV heroes as my role models, I wouldn't have it any other way. I have little taste for more modern "heroes" who kill or maim without compunction.