NightMan

Glen A. Larson's fellow '70s TV veterans at Universal (Stephen J. Cannell, Donald P. Bellisario, and most notably Steven Bochco) managed to move with the times and score success in the 1980s and 1990s, but not our Glen; this skin-crawlingly bad feature-length pilot for a series about a Marvel Comics hero (and not even a major one at that) must have fallen out of a time warp from the 1970s. The stereotyped Evil Foreign Villains From Eastern Europe... the clunky dialogue (how did Patrick Macnee say "You're tuned to the frequency of evil" with a straight face?)... the terrible effects (the studio mockup of the Golden Gate Bridge has to be seen to be believed, if then)... the awful acting... it's pure torture to watch. Like the subsequent series (I STILL can't believe this pilot sold, even for syndication), the only good thing about it was the theme music (there was a different one for the pilot). Shame about the show...

The show converts the same values as a comic onto the screen in a similar way to the original batman series. It uses charm as it's main weapon, and pulls it off with room to spare. It has a strange ability to cut through the mental blocks of brainwashed viewers who would usually not watch a program with a low budet, bad effects and/or dodgy acting. Most people can actually appreciate this show, if only for humour value. This show and it's exellent jazz rhythm should be on the TV more. 10 stars.