Terrible Shows I Like: Gemini Man

The 1970s were something of a golden age for science fiction.

With the debut of Star Wars and the cinematic revival of Star Trek, a marginalized genre dominated the entertainment mainstream. On television, the casting of Tom Baker as The Doctor coincided with PBS stations picking up the BBC series, expanding Doctor Who fandom into America.

This was also the decade that introduced The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, Space: 1999, Logan’s Run (the film and the spinoff series), the original Battlestar: Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century.

And somewhere within this bubble of space-age storytelling, albeit not for very long, was Gemini Man.

The NBC series debuted in September of 1976 and was clobbered by The Waltons and Welcome Back Kotter. Even in an era when networks were slower to go to the hook on a new series, Gemini Man was canceled after just five episodes.

But to me it wasn’t a terrible series – it just has the terrible reputation of a show that suffered such an ignominious fate.

The movie-length pilot Code Name: Minus One introduces our cast of characters: Ben Murphy as Sam Casey, maverick special agent for a government think tank called Intersect, and Katherine Crawford as Abby Lawrence, brilliant scientist who works with Sam for Intersect boss Leonard Driscoll (Richard Dysart in the pilot, William Sylvester in the series). 

On an underwater mission to retrieve an atomic-powered laser weapon, Sam is caught in an explosion. He miraculously survives, but his DNA is altered and he becomes invisible. Abby finds a way to restore his visibility by “building up a counter-field against the invisibility,” which can be controlled by that most futuristic of technology in 1976 – a digital watch. 

Of course, there’s a catch – Sam can turn visible and invisible by pressing a button on the watch, but if he stays invisible longer than 15 minutes in one day, he’ll fade away, never to return.

I think that’s a pretty good gimmick, if not entirely original. Special powers with time limits date back to DC Comics’ Hourman in 1940 (not to mention Roger Ramjet). 

The show was also conceived and guided by some heavy-hitters in television, including Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues among many others) Leslie Stevens (The Outer Limits), and Harve Bennett (The Six Million Dollar Man). Gemini Man was also one of the first writing jobs for Steven de Souza, who would later write the scripts for 48 Hours and Die Hard.

And yet, it’s almost as if everyone knew the series wasn’t going to be around long, as they crammed every tired sci-fi series trope into the first half-dozen episodes:

The Killer Robot

That would be Minotaur, introduced in the episode of the same name. Created by a mad scientist with a grudge against Intersect (Ross Martin, hamming it up to the hilt). Sam squares off against his creation, which looks like an evil gas pump. 

The Evil Twin

 In “Sam Casey, Sam Casey,” an enemy agent is transformed via plastic surgery into a Sam Casey lookalike.

Amnesia

“Run Sam Run” begins with Sam losing his memory, and then discovering he’s been framed for murder.

So yes, lack of originality was an issue. But that’s when you need a likable lead actor to freshen the clichés. Ben Murphy has what could be termed small-screen charisma. He just fits with TV better than he fits with movies, as evidenced by the number of series in which he starred – from hits like The Name of the Game and Alias Smith and Jones, to more short-lived efforts like Griff, Lottery and Berenger’s.

It’s not his fault the show didn’t last, though that hideous denim jacket Sam wears on several assignments probably didn’t help. 

The supporting cast didn’t help much either. For Katherine Crawford this was her only series and her last acting job.  William Sylvester spent a career playing limited variations on military and government authority figures, and brings the same button-down qualities here, but little else. 

More appealing were the show’s array of guest stars, including ‘70s dream girl Laurette Spang, the helium-voiced Lane Bradbury, Leonard Stone, Henry Darrow, Jo Ann Pflug and singer Jim Stafford, who played Sam’s friend Buffalo Bill, and probably would have become a regular had the series continued.

Gemini Man may have flopped here, but its 11 episodes played to greater acclaim in England and in France, where the series even received an official DVD release. If you’re curious you can order Le Nouvel Homme Invisible from Amazon.fr – or just watch the episodes on YouTube.