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2005-05-08 Entry: "Finishing Stuff"

We're on the final round with some of these shows, and we kick off with the last two Greatest American Hero episodes, beginning with "Who's Woo In America." And the regular stars get a family here... as Ralph's mother makes an appearance. She's intended to marry an import/export guy who's managed to get embroiled in a microchip smuggling operation that turns up as Bill's next case.

Then, in "Lilacs, Mr Maxwell" Bill falls for a colleague who wears lilac perfume. Ralph manages to catch some top terrorists purely by accident, and then the Russians are out to find out why Bill has a 95% success rate on his cases. Ralph can apparently control animals from a distance, when he persuades a dog to pull Bill out of his crashed car, while he's miles away viewing it as a hologram!

And I'm fairly sure they'll drop the continuity next season of Bill's love interest and the fact that she's a Russian agent.

And that finished season 2 - Yay, something finished at last! Fortunately, the rest of these shows should follow shortly.

One that won't however, is Wonder Woman. We start here with "Death In Disguise" and I have to question how this guy can be a top assassin, considering I picked out that it was a guy in drag in about five seconds. So how he manages to infiltrate a top defense agency, and fool Steve during an interview, is completely beyond me. Alright, ignoring that, there's an assassination attempt on IRAC...

And then we continue to put IRAC in danger in "IRAC Is Missing." Someone is stealing the processors from top computers around the country, and IRAC is on the list. Fortunately, the computer has a mobile companion recently constructed who contains a homing device that can find IRAC wherever the master computer is taken. They pretty much all agree to the fact that the computers know Diana is Wonder Woman here after pussy-footing around it most of the season.

Finally in "Flight To Oblivion" we have the requisite hypnotised soldiers who are told to destroy some top secret project, or generally cause sabotage. In this case, they're responding to a bell ringing and snow falling rather than a coded phrase, and Steve manages to get himself put under at one point. Oh, there's a test flight of a new fighter plane under threat, and Diana is undercover on the air force base to get to the bottom of it.

So, four more episodes of Wonder Woman to go (due to the 3 episodes per side, this show is being dragged out further than necessary!). But there's also only four of Knight Rider, and that's up next.

Starting with the feature length "Mouth Of The Snake" which turns out to be a crossover with the cancelled "Dalton's Code Of Vengeance." I'm not sure how the crossover arose, or the decision of this show to cross with (especially considering that show only lasted four episodes!). And I'm guessing the ridiculous athleticism and the close up concentration shots are taken from that show. Anyway, without knowing the cross, this is a pretty good episode... if I had seen the crossover, it might have rated excellent.

But to get that rating, you need to go to the next episode, "Let It Be Me" which sees the return of Michael's soulmate Stevie. Michael has to go undercover in Stevie's band after the lead singer is murdered, and there's a whole lot of bad Hasselhoff singing to detract from a really good episode. There's murder, stolen video tapes, very silly 80's rock and roll outfits, secret binary codes - It's binary? I'd never have guessed from all those 1s and 0s! - drug smuggling, and KITT scanning stuff and causing blackouts. One of their better efforts this season.

And finally, "Big Iron" sees KITT getting buried in a quarry and having to use the new trajectory control on the turboboost to magically get out! There's something going on about stolen construction equipment, but it's happily interrupted by Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying (which looks to be dull, but I'm not sure as dull as the Knight Rider episode!).

Anyway, that'll finish Knight Rider, and next up will be Quantum Leap, with two episodes to go...

Of course, I manage to squeeze them in before going out, so we'll need a synopsis of "Sea Bride" which is the episode which sees Sam up against the mob to marry a young woman (Elizabeth Sheridan)... of course, there's Vinny the Viper to deal with first, and the bride's father, General Martok to deal with. Okay, there's some pretty freaky guest stars here, but the gist of the story is followable!

And then, "M.I.A." sees Sam leaping into a police officer who's new at the office. Al seems determined that the purpose of the leap is to stop a young naval nurse ruining her life by giving up on her missing-in-action husband and starting to date a young lawyer who seems to be destined to hook up with her.

Of course, the naval nurse is Al's first wife Beth, and this is one of the best performances he gives throughout the show's run. It's minorly spoiled by the replacement of the music... if you're going to play up Al and Beth's song as Georgia, then you should keep the song... but what do Universal know? They just screw it up like usual.

Sam finally sees through the misdirection and manages to save his partner from getting shot up in a bar, but Al gives a really touching goodbye to Beth... this is where the show is really up to strength... lets hope it doesn't lose it in season 3 - I know it won't in the first couple, what with the Vietnam storyline, but when does the show start to be silly?

And then out for a couple of hours... and my taxi actually showed up so I made it home without having to search for a ride.

Then I decided watching a Dark Angel episode was a good idea... so we're on to "Hit A Sista Back" and Max finds that someone's searching for his wife (and his son's mother) on a milk carton... problem is, the photo is of Tinga.

Bigger problem is the son is showing signs of being a product of Tinga's genetically enhanced DNA, and Lydecker is showing a serious interest.

Fortunately for Max, Tinga shows up to help with the rescue... downside, so does Bryn, and she's clearly on the side of Manticore. She does however harbour a willingness to let Max go for saving her life... but it might not happen next time!

Of course, the supporting cast is what helps this... Cade Foster's appearance as the husband, and Tinga's emotional contact with her son carry this episode. Along with Zack's antagonism, the tensions in this episode are well strung.

And Lydecker has a wild card to play - the child has been infected with a virus that gives him a phone number bar code, and gives him a fever. He'll die unless he's handed over to Manticore... and Tinga's emotionalism makes the obvious call - they'll hand over Tinga for the cure for the son... because Manticore need whatever is in Tinga's DNA that allows her to carry her genetically enhanced traits to her son... which is the one thing Manticore is failing to do.

Okay... who's Bryn working for? And why has she been knocked unconscious? Oh, okay, Kira was meddling. And Tinga was captured... so where is she, considering Kyra doesn't want her returned to Manticore?

"Meow" is up next, and Max is back in heat. Lydecker is being cut out of the command hierarchy at Manticore, but fortunately Zack is keeping tabs on him and seems to be winnowing out the command structure.

Lydecker is getting devious, and apparently Max can be tracked by the implant in her brainstem... it was clear there was going to be fallout from that. And there's fallout from the hoverdrone episode as well, with Lydecker's picture being given to the Manticore controlled drones.