Just started going through my DVDs of this series again. So far, they started off with a bang!
This episode introduces us to Max's apartment and to several special devices to help stop enemy agents, one installed during this episode by CONTROL and the others already installed by Max. We see these same devices throughout the series, working better sometimes than others. The ones Max installed included the dropping light by the liquor table, the net that drops next to the couch, the desk drawer that suddenly opens, and the fireplace suction machine that will pull away a bad guy's gun, or even the whole bad guy when a button is pushed. The one the Chief had installed was the oft-used invisible, bullet-proof wall. I note that in this episode it dropped down silently, while the rest of the time we heard a small noise suggested the wall being lowered or raised for a few seconds.
Max answers a knock at the door at the beginning of this episode. He admits a scientist whom he recognizes as a Dr. Haskell, thought to have defected to KAOS, but who tells Max he was abducted and has just escaped. He has invented an invisibility ray that he wants to give to our government. Suddenly a gun appears, as if being held by an invisible man and Max hears a voice, followed by another, as they take the professor back and tell Max that KAOS will sell the ray gun to the government for $10 million. They are to come back the following night.
They return and we see the two men holding guns on Smart, who boasts about his bullet-proof, invisible wall before learning that he is on the same side of the wall as they are. We are given no explanation for how Max could have lowered the wall by leaning on the desk-the only switch we are ever told about for the wall-and then gotten on the other side of the wall, near the door.
They take Max to some hideout, where he is, apparently, introduced to two men sitting in chairs, one holding a drink, one a cigarette, and a woman who carries a box over to offer him a cigarette. All three are invisible. I think the writers cleverly put in clues for the viewers to make them suspicious before Max is. The cigarette is just held, never "smoked" by the one man, and the drink is similarly just held level, never sipped from or put down by the other person.
Soon enough we see the leader, Ehrlich, the man Smart could see that was also in the room, go into another room where three people are at a big control panel. He tells them they are doing great with the wires and their voices-confirming to us that there is no invisibility going on here at all.
Back in the room with Smart, Ehrlich keeps the ruse going even though Smart is convinced. He has "Sophie" bring a tray of drink glasses across the room, but this time the person controlling the wires has trouble and the drinks fall to the floor in an awkward way. The way they fell makes it clear it wasn't a person dropping the tray. But our hero is not so good at figuring this out. He declares that Sophie and one of the others are not really there, that the third one (name escapes me) is a ventriloquist.
Some time later, he decides that Sophie is the ventriloquist. Only after 99 is brought in and helps Max does he figure out the ray gun they showed him is a fake. They are still taken hostage back to his apartment to pay the money supposedly there. Here Max gets to try out all of his devices, each of them failing to work properly, or the target steps away before it works. The one I always liked was the net that dropped down over the bad guys. It is supposed to be visible when you look up, yet nobody ever says, "Max, why is there a net hanging from your ceiling?"
Finally, the last device does work and Max and 99 celebrate another triumph over KAOS. Now in the early part when Max demonstrated to the Chief how his fireplace fan worked, it sucked up the Chief's hat and it was gone for good. At the end, after Ehrlich's hat is what's left of him, Max is especially happy because he thinks Ehrlich's hat will just about fit the Chief.
Scenes that had me laughing included when Max was prisoner and tries to figure out about the ray gun, two times as he boldly declared something he accidentally dropped his hand into a plate of food. It was funny when he thought one of the invisible men was a ventriloquist, but after gaining more evidence that the whole thing was a fake and he later decided Sophie is the ventriloquist, I had to pause my player until I could stop laughing.
This was also the first time we saw how the Chief was troubled by Max. He tries to dictate his plans to him but can't get going because Max has to ask for a piece of paper and a pencil. Then as the Chief says a couple of sentences telling him about Plan A, Max is just then writing, "Plan A," before he starts writing down the Chief's comments that have nothing to do with the plan. Later, he asks Max for some aspirin. Max suggests he see a doctor because he's been having a lot of headaches lately. The Chief says, "I only have them on occasion."
Max responds, "Really. You've had one every time I've seen you lately."
The Chief says, "Those are the occasions."
Of course everything connected with the fake ray gun doesn't totally make logical sense, but in a silly show like this, you cannot downgrade the episode for that. I say only downgrade the show if the actions of the characters do not make sense given the situation they are in. Here, there is no trouble with the actions of the characters.
The one scene that didn't work to me was in the beginning in Max's apartment when the two guns suddenly appeared, with the voices of the two men who supposedly just entered the room. Being invisible doesn't get you into Fort Knox unless you come in with someone else while the door was opened. Smart's door never opened again, and when he did admit the professor, there were not two guns that floated in alone.
I mean, how could Smart think two men entered without the door opening? Even, how could those two guns just appear? If invisible men with guns you CAN see walked in behind the scientist, Smart would have seen the guns. But these things were not all that significant in the story, so they might be worth noting for conversation, but they aren't anything that ruins the story. I give this one a 9.
This episode introduces us to Max's apartment and to several special devices to help stop enemy agents, one installed during this episode by CONTROL and the others already installed by Max. We see these same devices throughout the series, working better sometimes than others. The ones Max installed included the dropping light by the liquor table, the net that drops next to the couch, the desk drawer that suddenly opens, and the fireplace suction machine that will pull away a bad guy's gun, or even the whole bad guy when a button is pushed. The one the Chief had installed was the oft-used invisible, bullet-proof wall. I note that in this episode it dropped down silently, while the rest of the time we heard a small noise suggested the wall being lowered or raised for a few seconds.
Max answers a knock at the door at the beginning of this episode. He admits a scientist whom he recognizes as a Dr. Haskell, thought to have defected to KAOS, but who tells Max he was abducted and has just escaped. He has invented an invisibility ray that he wants to give to our government. Suddenly a gun appears, as if being held by an invisible man and Max hears a voice, followed by another, as they take the professor back and tell Max that KAOS will sell the ray gun to the government for $10 million. They are to come back the following night.
They return and we see the two men holding guns on Smart, who boasts about his bullet-proof, invisible wall before learning that he is on the same side of the wall as they are. We are given no explanation for how Max could have lowered the wall by leaning on the desk-the only switch we are ever told about for the wall-and then gotten on the other side of the wall, near the door.
They take Max to some hideout, where he is, apparently, introduced to two men sitting in chairs, one holding a drink, one a cigarette, and a woman who carries a box over to offer him a cigarette. All three are invisible. I think the writers cleverly put in clues for the viewers to make them suspicious before Max is. The cigarette is just held, never "smoked" by the one man, and the drink is similarly just held level, never sipped from or put down by the other person.
Soon enough we see the leader, Ehrlich, the man Smart could see that was also in the room, go into another room where three people are at a big control panel. He tells them they are doing great with the wires and their voices-confirming to us that there is no invisibility going on here at all.
Back in the room with Smart, Ehrlich keeps the ruse going even though Smart is convinced. He has "Sophie" bring a tray of drink glasses across the room, but this time the person controlling the wires has trouble and the drinks fall to the floor in an awkward way. The way they fell makes it clear it wasn't a person dropping the tray. But our hero is not so good at figuring this out. He declares that Sophie and one of the others are not really there, that the third one (name escapes me) is a ventriloquist.
Some time later, he decides that Sophie is the ventriloquist. Only after 99 is brought in and helps Max does he figure out the ray gun they showed him is a fake. They are still taken hostage back to his apartment to pay the money supposedly there. Here Max gets to try out all of his devices, each of them failing to work properly, or the target steps away before it works. The one I always liked was the net that dropped down over the bad guys. It is supposed to be visible when you look up, yet nobody ever says, "Max, why is there a net hanging from your ceiling?"
Finally, the last device does work and Max and 99 celebrate another triumph over KAOS. Now in the early part when Max demonstrated to the Chief how his fireplace fan worked, it sucked up the Chief's hat and it was gone for good. At the end, after Ehrlich's hat is what's left of him, Max is especially happy because he thinks Ehrlich's hat will just about fit the Chief.
Scenes that had me laughing included when Max was prisoner and tries to figure out about the ray gun, two times as he boldly declared something he accidentally dropped his hand into a plate of food. It was funny when he thought one of the invisible men was a ventriloquist, but after gaining more evidence that the whole thing was a fake and he later decided Sophie is the ventriloquist, I had to pause my player until I could stop laughing.
This was also the first time we saw how the Chief was troubled by Max. He tries to dictate his plans to him but can't get going because Max has to ask for a piece of paper and a pencil. Then as the Chief says a couple of sentences telling him about Plan A, Max is just then writing, "Plan A," before he starts writing down the Chief's comments that have nothing to do with the plan. Later, he asks Max for some aspirin. Max suggests he see a doctor because he's been having a lot of headaches lately. The Chief says, "I only have them on occasion."
Max responds, "Really. You've had one every time I've seen you lately."
The Chief says, "Those are the occasions."
Of course everything connected with the fake ray gun doesn't totally make logical sense, but in a silly show like this, you cannot downgrade the episode for that. I say only downgrade the show if the actions of the characters do not make sense given the situation they are in. Here, there is no trouble with the actions of the characters.
The one scene that didn't work to me was in the beginning in Max's apartment when the two guns suddenly appeared, with the voices of the two men who supposedly just entered the room. Being invisible doesn't get you into Fort Knox unless you come in with someone else while the door was opened. Smart's door never opened again, and when he did admit the professor, there were not two guns that floated in alone.
I mean, how could Smart think two men entered without the door opening? Even, how could those two guns just appear? If invisible men with guns you CAN see walked in behind the scientist, Smart would have seen the guns. But these things were not all that significant in the story, so they might be worth noting for conversation, but they aren't anything that ruins the story. I give this one a 9.
