Gemini Man: "Night Train to Dallas."

When I was doing study on "How To Make A Review Site," I found out many interesting things.  First, you can't really rely on the 'classic' Cult Films.  By this, I mean "Evil Dead" and it's various incarnations,  "Dead Alive" and various others that sort of betray their cult status by being recognizable.  The main goal of being 'cult' is being known to only a few, appreciated by that few.  Just having the word 'cult' attached to your movie just means that the filmmakers didn't have enough guts to take their movie seriously, so they ham it up, slap on some gore and there you go:  the 1990 Direct-To-Video Release.

And second, whatever you do, stay away from the creature above.

But here I've tried to create something that forges my two hobbies together:  Cult/Weird Cinema (meaning film) and Cult/Weird Television Series, which beats the former in numbers alone.  Out of the thousand or so shows created since TV began eons and eons ago, only a few are truly remembered.  Some of those are entertaining.  There are more of that bunch which are remembered but aren't really remembered; a memory or two will cross your mind before you forget again.

Then, we come to our subject today:  the TV Shows That Time Forgot.

I'm talking about the ones that you never knew about, the ones reportedly so bad that they were either shuffled off to face again the Ratings Giants and quietly shuffled away again, some episodes unseen, and promptly forgot about until a cable channel needs some cheap filler that might draw in some ratings strictly on nostalgia.  These series have a few signs to tell you that they are RARE:

1) Short episode run:  if these shows have less than twenty shows, they are Rare and possibly forgotten.  Maybe if they were lucky 3/4ths of the episodes were even aired (the rest, probably in Europe).

2) Characters come, Characters go:  Sometimes, the characters change when the creators whittle down their image of what the series should be.

3) TV-Movie, anyone?:  And, if it's made by Universal Studios, the series will be turned into either one or more 'movies' made from two episodes.  This has happened for the "Planet of the Apes" series ("Treachery and Greed on POTA," "Forgotten City of POTA," etc), "Galactica 1980" (or "Conflict For The Earth"), "Kolchak the Night Stalker" ("Crackle of Death" and the atrocious "Demon and the Mummy") and so forth.

Fortunately, all these fit our subject today:  "Gemini Man."

If you were alive in 1976 (which I wasn't), between September and October of that year, you would have seen Ben Murphy play Sam Casey, an agent for Yet-Another-Secret-Agency who is turned invisible thanks to an underwater explosion.  The only thing that keeps him visible is a device on his wrist disguised as a watch.  Now Casey can turn invisible again by deactivating the watch, but it has a time limit:  if he keeps it off for more than fifteen minutes, he runs the risk of fading from reality all together.

Meaning, "If the show is picked up, that would make one hell of a cliffhanger for the season finale."

But, needless to say, "Gemini Man" wasn't a hit.  Since it was supposed to be a more action-packed version of the 1970's "The Invisible Man" featuring David McCallum, the producers Harve "Time Trax" Bennett and Steven "Racing Aaron Spelling for Control of the World" Bochco went on to better things.  Out of the thirteen episodes made, only nine or so were shown on American Television until the Sci-Fi Channel picked it up and ran the whole magilla earlier this decade.  Thus, "Gemini Man" fell into the abyss over at Universal Studios, who acknowledged it's existence by combining two episodes featuring Jim Stafford together and calling it "Riding With Death."  Those who have seen the MSTed version of this are witness to Universal's BAFFLING editing blotch job, which includes dubbed dialogue, BAD editing, and confusing sequences in which Katherine Crawford is 'included' in the episode which she was never in.  Maybe a lame SWIPE at continuity? Nah, just laugh fodder.

Anyway, "Night Train to Dallas" starts with a scientist dying.  This scientist, Doctor A. Friedman (A FRIED MAN, get it?  Blech) is the creator of certain experiments that INTERSECT keeps secret.  So, Sam Casey must find the Doctor's ex-assistant so INTERSECT can retrieve the information from her photographic mind before 'the enemy' does.  Of course, this 'retrieval' involves either hypnosis or drugs which the assistant isn't too keen about, since she's about to swim for the U.S. in the Pan-American Tournament or something.  Then INTERSECT uses it's agents to kidnap the girl, extract the information, and the story is over.

No, wait, that was my common sense taking over.

Instead of just nabbing the girl and performing the procedure which is so vital that it threatens National Security, Sam trails the assistant and her fellow teammates on their train to Dallas using his invisibility to keep one step ahead of the enemy.  Of course, he gets knocked off the train, on the train, off the train, etc. before he finally gets the girl to submit to the procedure which ends up in a giant chase scene which involves a horse, a jeep, and a lot of desert and exciting music.  Then cops come, pick up the bad guys, and Sam tells INTERSECT chief Leonard that the assistant will undergo the process...after the tournament.  With National Security still in the hands of an uppity college girl who wants to swim and possibly still has agents after her, the episode mercifully ends.

The whole plot device of a train was quite silly, especially since this was made in 1976 when air flights were quicker and easier.  Plus all the elements in the plot could be reproduced on an airflight.  I would go into these elements, but since this episode is just a straight-out 'get girl to reveal info and fight the bad guys' bubblegum adventure I won't bother.  Needless to say, Sam gets the job done and...that's it.  Except for a 'humorous' scene in the beginning where a football squad made from thirty-five year old men beats up Sam and Sam risks his life to become invisible to simply KICK the ball away from them, the episode is merely boring as opposed to hideously unfunny humor.

But Ben Murphy would recover.  After "Gemini Man," he has gone onto more roles and finding constant work on various TV shows like "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" and more MSTable material like "Time Walker," aka "Being from Another Planet."  And so on.

RATING:  Boring episode, but the series would actually get interesting with "Minotaur" and "Run, Sam, Run."  Two out of Four Stars.  Not even able to be MSTed without pain.

ATTENTION!!  On July 7, 2000, the Sci-Fi Channel is planning on having a "Gemini Man" Chain Reaction!!   Be sure to stock up on blank tapes for this!  They might show some GOOD episodes.

PLUS!  If you have ANY of this show on tape (episode-wise), please contact me HERE.  I'd be willing to trade.