Spoilers

“The Lost Diablo”

It has been awhile since I watched an episode of The Greatest American Hero. The second season has been up and down, with some really good episodes and some episodes that I could leave. Episode seven is right in the middle.

Ralph, Bill and Pan took the kids on camping trip. However, Bill has a different idea. He had a map for a hidden treasure called the Lost Diablo and he wanted help gathering it up.

There were some silly moments in this episode, including a group of thieves setting themselves up to steal the claim out from under them.

Some of the action inside the cave where the gold was hidden was fairly dumb. There was one bobby trap and the mine was constantly threatening to collapse.

I was a little sad because I always like my heroes to be heroes and when the entire band of bad guys got crushed in the mine collapsing, I really wanted Ralph to be able to save them. Instead, he just left with Bill saying that none of them could have survived.

Not sure what this episode was really about, but it was okay, but not in the upper list of the show.

Spoilers

“Classical Gas”

It has been a long time since I have done one of the episodes of The Greatest American Hero. So long in fact it was no longer on Amazon Prime, where I had watched the first season plus. Fortunately, the show is now on Peacock, which I do have a subscription for so I continued with the fifth episode of the second season. Unfortunately, “Classical Gas” was perhaps my least favorite episode of the rewatch so far.

There were so many cliches and tropes swirling around this episode that just made it a tough one to sit through. How about the kids that Ralph teaches becoming a band? How many bands are formed on TV shows- from the Brady Bunch to Joanie and Chachi.

Secondly, Ralph finds himself jealous of Pam spending time with MASH’s Col. Flagg and his atrocious toupee. Edward Winter, who played Flagg, is a music exec. in this episode who happens to be crooked, but also trying to make a play for Pam. And, of course, Ralph was jealous and used the suit to spy on them.

The main antagonist of the show was named Hydra and he had apparently planned an escape from a German prison by having someone have plastic surgery to make him look identical and they flipped spots. Plastic surgery? Please.

Up to this point, Greatest American Hero has been better than I remembered and was an underrated series. This episode was a real flopper.

Spoilers

“Don’t Mess Around with Jim”

Did Tony flunk?

I ask because at the beginning of this episode of The Greatest American Hero, Ralph was getting after Tony to meet him at his house an hour after school let out in order for them to work together so Tony would not flunk. Tony wasn’t excited about the extra work, but he eventually agreed to Ralph’s pressure (Sure felt like blackmail to me). However, Ralph was kidnapped in the school parking lot after school and taken away.

And there was not one mention of Tony after that.

I really expected that there would be some kind of tag at the end with this dangling plot point, but there was not. So I can only assume that Tony was going to flunk.

The episode was pretty good in-between the fate of Tony. The man who had Ralph (and Bill) kidnapped was a man who had just faked his own death. A man who was big enough of a figure in the world whose funeral would be aired on live TV. This man had his will taken and needed Ralph and Bill to help him reclaim it.

The truth was mixed though. The man knew about the suit from the “little green guys” and his friend was able to tell Ralph how to use the suit’s telekinesis.

Turned out, the man who had faked his own death, at one time, had a suit of his own from the aliens. He apparently abused the power and the aliens took it away from him.

The idea that Ralph was not the first to be approached by the aliens is a fascinating idea and helped to build the world even more.

This episode was really solid and shows that this show had spent time doing more than just breaking cases. This episode was a development for both Ralph and Bill. This was the third really good episode in season two.

Spoilers

“Operation: Spoilsport”

I think this was the best episode of The Greatest American Hero that we have seen so far.

I actually remember this episode from when I first watched it back int he 1980s because of what was different. In the episode on Amazon Prime that I watched today, there were several songs used as a soundtrack as Ralph and Bill raced around trying to prevent the launch of nuclear weapons via a computer program called Operation: Spoilsport. The nuclear weapons were intended to be a preemptive strike on the USSR and General Stocker (played by John Anderson) was behind the strike, bringing the story of Dr. Strangelove to The Greatest American Hero.

What I remember clearly about this episode was the use of the song “Eve of Destruction.” I believe it was the first time I heard this song and it was so much more powerful with this than the songs than the original songs that were on the version on Prime.

There was a definite thrill in this episode as the chance of a launch of nuclear weapons from a crazed general is a danger that loomed large in the 1980s. Ralph and Bill’s desperation fit right in with the tone of the episode, which still had its comedic flavor, but the humor was in its proper place and was not over used. The threat of nuclear war was real at the time and this story of two heroes doing everything they could to prevent it was epic.

Yes, the special effects are of the 1980s TV variety, but that is not the show’s fault. The storytelling was strong and these two characters reacted in ways that you understood.

Connie Sellecca was reserved for a phone call cameo, apparently since she was pregnant at the time.

We also saw the return of the little green guys who communicated with Ralph through the radio as well as through a dead guy (which was actually kind of creepy).

Great episode.

Spoilers

“The Two-Hundred-Mile-an-Hour Fast Ball”

We start off season two of the Greatest American Hero with the happy return of Ralph’s original last name, Hinkley. Ralph Hanley is gone for good. At the end of the last season, they had to change Ralph’s last name because of the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan by John Hinkley.

Ralph is going undercover on the California Stars, a MLB team (meant to be the LA Dodgers as it was filmed at Dodger Stadium), because someone is beating up the Star’s best players in an attempt to make them lose. Ralph and the suit are able to throw the fastest fast ball and attracts the attention of the bad guys.

This was a weird episode with Ralph using the suit to actually play major league baseball and not just go undercover. Bill got him a contract and everything.

Markie Post was guest starring as the Stars owner. Don Drysdale appeared too as the baseball announcer.

There was a scene where Markie Post told Ralph that Mike Douglas wanted him on his show, but every time Ralph said the word Mike Douglas, it looked like his lips was saying something else. Maybe “Merv”, like Merv Griffin.

Connie Sellecca only made a cameo appearance in the episode on the phone.

Kind of a strange episode. The Stars’ manager was involved in the plot and was trying to fix it so his team would lose. However, it is sort of a performance-enhancing situation with Ralph and his super powered suit. That does feel like he cheated in the end which did not mesh with the character of Ralph Hinkley.

Spoilers

“The Best Desk Scenario”

It is a day for wrapping up season finales for the TV shows I am watching. I just watched season three finale for Bates Motel, and now I finished season one of Greatest American Hero with the oddly titled “The Best Desk Scenario.”

The first season of this show has been a lot of goofy, cheesy fun as Ralph struggled to learn how his super suit worked. This episode he tried for a pyrokinetic power, which did not go exactly how he thought it would.

You would also think that at some point, all the crooks brought to justice by Bill Maxwell who claimed were brought in by a guy in red long johns might start to add up and someone might question what was going on instead of just shipping them all off for mental checks.

Bill was having his own trouble here as colleagues of his were dying and it was making him look at his own mortality and question if he had lost his own step. It was an interesting idea for Bill, but it is not really dealt with during the story. It is there, but not with any real depth.

Ralph and Pam’s career successes were causing Bill to be jealous and to doubt his own career. A new head at the FBI, a really young guy, also brought Bill’s insecurities to the surface.

Season two is the longest of the three seasons for Greatest American Hero so we’ll get started on that one soon. Season one was fun and quite a flashback to the 1980s.

Spoilers

“Reseda Rose”

Something odd happened for a few episodes of the Greatest American Hero during the first season. Ralph Hinkley suddenly became Ralph Hanley. This was the first time one of Ralph’s students referred to him as Mr. Hanley.

This was done because President Ronald Reagan had been the victim of an unsuccessful assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr. and the show’s producers clearly did not want their titular character to be connected in any way to that.

It was a very weird time during the series with the change of name, but it only lasted a few months (according to Wikipedia) before the show reverted the name back to Ralph Hinkley.

This was a fun episode where Ralph and Bill were checking on a list of ‘bad guys’ when Ralph’s student Rhonda arrived to look for help. Her mother had disappeared had was missing.

This seemingly unimportant piece tied right into a huge international incident with Russians and Ralph and Bill had to try to stop.

I still d not know why Ralph doesn’t wear some kind of mask. His face is right out there. The show could have said that the suit automatically projected some kind of facial protection. It would have prevented Ralph from always having to cover his face with his arms when someone was shooting at him.

There was also a potential story beat of Ralph not being a very good father, putting the super suit ahead of his son Kevin, which we did see this episode. It is not something the show really touched upon, probably because it is more serious of an issue than the comedic lean that the show had. Still, Kevin was pushed off to Pam most of the time. It is a good thing Pam is so understanding.

Another fun episode with so much potential.

Spoilers

“Saturday on Sunset Boulevard”

I enjoyed this episode of the Greatest American Hero more than some of the other episodes so far in season one. The story with Bill Maxwell failing the lie detector test for the FBI because he couldn’t talk about the suit and Ralph was a neat idea.

This gave the character of Bill Maxwell a little bit of development as he has to face the government that he loves so much. There was some subtle acting from Robert Culp in this episode. He typically played Maxwell in a very bombastic manner, but there were some moments here that were really well done.

I also enjoyed the use of the students’ from Ralph’s class in the story even though it is very improbable. The use of Tony in particular with Ralph was a nice character moment in the show.

This episode kept the super hero antics from Ralph t a minimum and I think that worked very well too.

Spoilers

“The Hit Car”

The Greatest American Hero is a fun show. It is a quintessential 80s silly action/comedy. It was never going to win any Emmys, but it was a good time just watching the TV.

I do like how the show has taken some time to set up the relationship between Hinkley and Maxwell, and they made it fairly antagonistic. The two main characters are actually quite a bit alike which is why they do not work amazingly well together. Yet, they overcome that challenge to catch the criminal at the end.

The drug dealer Johnny in this episode is pretty dumb. There is no way that he would act the way he did. Why would he be in this hit car that he owned and not some secondary hit man? All because Maxwell dumped some spaghetti on his clothes?

Again, at this point, the joke is how Ralph cannot control his super suit and the basic storyline of the episode is not that important. It is just giving Ralph some chances to fly into things or crash into the water.

That joke would not be able to be maintained for too long so I do hope they develop something more than just Ralph’s crash landings.

The super speed bit was a funny addition and I know, as we see in the opening credits, invisibility is coming.

The Greatest American Hero is fun and silly. Sometimes that is good enough.