Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
08.00 Misfits Of Science
Misfits Of Science. Episode 1. "Deep Freeze" People with super-powers stop Military bad guys.
Nifty pilot, this. Fast moving and lots of fun.
The first third introduces to Billy Hayes and Elvin Lincoln, scientists working for a group called Humanidyne, which has links to the Military. Something Billy and Elvin are not too happy about. The new boss at Humanidyne doesn't like their pacifist ways, and the odd bunch of super-powered people they are always trying to help, so he shuts down their department and fires the two guys.
Billy and Elvin are licking their wounds over this, when Billy gets a short and mysterious call from their original boss, who tells them that Humanidyne are mis-treating one of their previous charges/patients: a guy who can freeze anything. So, in the middle third of the movie, our two scientist heroes (one of whom has the power of shrinking to 6 inches tall) contact two previous subjects (each with super-powers, too) and they mount a rescue operation to get their cold-hearted friend, and their previous boss, out of the clutches of the heavily-armed bad guys. Cue: lots of action and rock music.
Final third finds the whole group together for the first time and realising that a huge and very, very dangerous weapon has been built out in the desert. So, since nobody else on the planet can stop it, they work together and save the day.
And, as I said before, it positively zips along. For many reasons.
1. It's funny. The whole affair is peppered with gags and comedy that works. A minor character (played by Diane Civita) is shown many times and always raises a chuckle. The main characters have an easy going camaraderie (think The A-Team) and their banter is good-natured and easy on the ears.
2. The guest cast is top notch. Larry Linville, Edward Winter and Kenneth Mars are three of television's more reliable performers. Linville is well-served by the script, Mars makes the most of what he's given and Winter is completely wasted. But it's always good to see him. Winter could have played the Linville role, since he had played characters like that in the past, but it hard to imagine anyone being better than Linville here. He's a hoot.
3. The main cast are superb. Dean Paul Martin and Kevin Peter Hall make great leads. They have great chemistry and it's fun to watch them and root for them. Courteney Cox is the best of the rest. She's cute and sincere. A lesser actress would not have made the material work.
4. The story, cleverly, waits a long time before introducing Johnny and Gloria and their super-powers. It relies on humour, good characters and an interesting story get the first third out of the way and then it unveils the super-fast guy who shoots lightening bolts, and the girl who can throw anything - big or small - around with the power of her mind. In this way, the middle-third - which you would expect to flag a bit in a two-hour pilot - is actually cool and fun. An example of great pacing.
5. The soundtrack is catchy and upbeat. The show's theme music (not heard properly until the end) appears on the score many times as a catchy melody. So, whenever the guys go into action as team you hear this catchy little ditty on the soundtrack from a few seconds. After an hour, it's impossible not to hum along. The big battle at the end is edited to match a great Kim Wilde remix and the climax of this movie is one of my all-time favourites.
With all this goodness going around there are only a few weak spots.
When the pilot stops to devote time to the romances between the characters it gets boring very fast. Luckily these scenes are brief and infrequent.
A+ all the way, from me. Fast moving and lots of fun.
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