Superminds

Dr. Billy Hayes and Dr. El Lincoln are scientists working for Humanidyne and the military. They get fired after an incident with an iceman. Lincoln is a 7 foot tall black man who can't play a lick of basketball. He's been taking a serum to get smaller but he ends up with a shrinking ability. They have kept other mutants secret from the military. Johnny Bukowski is an electrically powered rock-n-roller with water as his greatest enemy. Gloria Dinallo (Courteney Cox) is a telekinetic teen with anger issues. Her sympathetic probation officer Jane Miller gets her out of the mental institution. Together in an ice cream truck, the Misfits of Science saves the world. Billy and El get back their jobs working under Dick Stetmeyer.

Yeah, I remember watching this show back in the day. It came and went after a few months. I remember the tall black guy who could shrink and the cute angst-ridden girl played by Courteney Cox not long after her Dancing in the Dark breakthrough. The writing is strictly 80's with a manufactured adventure every week. The show needs a consistent villain to give it a serial aspect. It struggles to come up with stories that could incorporate the group's abilities. More than anything, it needs a structure to generate the adventure for the show rather than this random generator from nothing. It has a light comedic feel although the funniest thing may be the naked giant black dude almost every week and the wacky one-liner experiments. It's not really that funny. This is not the best show but it has some passable fun and that unforgettable cute girl who danced with Bruce Springsteen.

Courteney was totally, totally hot. The show was really good too (hey, I was 15) but who am I kidding, I only watched it for Courteney.

From what I remember, the team was made up of Dr. Billy Hayes who was the organiser and fast talker, Dr. Elvin 'El' Lincoln who was really tall (and didn't like it) but after 'modifying' himself to be smaller could press a gland at the back of his neck and shrink to only a few inches tall for a short time, John 'Johnny B' Bukowski, a rock musician who could draw charge from batteries etc and discharge them as lightning bolts from his hands (but would get burned by water), Gloria Dinallo (Courteney 'sigh') who was a telekinetic and troubled teen, all Carrie-like in the pilot.

I remember to really have enjoyed this show as a kid. It had nice 80ies-TV-Action,suspense and characters you could relate to in contrast to Mutant X, that had only pretty people. Courteney Cox's intense performance was especially memorable. Her character Gloria was probably the most powerful of all the mutants, yet always sad. And man, was she beautiful! She was the main reason why I started watching Friends - resulting in owning 10 Seasons of DVDs ... I can't understand why they don't bring it out on DVD though - so much crap is released on DVD, but good shows like Misfits aren't. So, people, please, please release Misfits on DVD. I'll buy. I promise.

I was really into the show when it first aired. I remember being quite disappointed when the show got cancelled and was hoping for an eventual revival. But then one year later Dean Paul Martin met an untimely end in a plane accident, and then Kevin Peter Hall later died due to his medical condition. So much for that idea.

A couple of years ago I saw some episodes on TV Land. They hadn't aged quite as well but I still quite enjoyed them. I don't know if I could really recommend the show to someone coming in cold and who didn't have any childhood affection for the series, but it still has its moments.

I hated it when Misfits of Science ended. However, I did hear that it was because Dean Paul Martin died in an airplane accident. (He was, IIRC, a member of the Air National Guard.) It wasn't just cancelled.

(And I agree. I also had a crush on Courtney Cox.) :-)