Spoilers

“The Beast in the Black”

I haven’t watched an episode of The Greatest American Hero is quite awhile. There were a couple reasons why. One, I have been watching a bunch of shows over the last couple of months and the schedule has been tight. But the real reason was the previous GAH episode I watched was probably my least favorite of the series so far and it kind of stunted me on the show.

However, watching season two, episode six reignited my love of the show. This episode, entitled “The Beast in the Black” was one of the best ones of the series so far.

Ralph recruits his students to come to an old house, scheduled for demolition, with the understanding that whatever they were able to salvage from the location would be theirs to sell. Ralph discovered a hidden safe and he and Maxwell went to the house before the kids to see if they could get into the safe, using the suit.

Ralph was seeing strange things, such as a fireplace that had a fire in it that Maxwell could not see. Turned out that the house was haunted by a wayward spirit and Maxwell had a bronze chandelier dropped on his head, killing him. At this point, the spirit, a woman, entered Maxwell’s body and possessed him.

This was a lot of fun and some of the special effects were funky. For the early 1980s on TV, this was very well done. Ralph had to go through a 4th dimension guarded by the Beast in the Black, in order to save Maxwell.

This was unlike any other Greatest American Hero episode we had seen before and I really found this to be creative and enjoyable. I thought this was excellent.