Look at what's happened to me. I can't believe it myself. Suddenly I'm up on top of the world. Should have been somebody else. Believe it or not, I'm walking on air...

If you don't know the theme song you must have been hiding under a rock during the 80s. I love this show, it's my guilty pleasure from my childhood. So when the chance came up to get the season sets, I scrimped and saved for months to get them from the States. Happily, I still love them as much as I did when I was a kid and now my kids do too. The premise is brilliant, the cast are just fun to watch with their bickering, fun storylines as we watch this ordinary every-man struggle with this alien 'gift'. Sure some of the effects aren't up to current standards, and my adult brain quite happily finds continuity mistakes and bloopers, but do I care. Not one damn! It's still damned good clean family fun. I don't have to worry about my kids watching this and getting exposed to sex, graphic violence, or adult language. I've always thought that William Katt is an underused actor, since you never seem to see him in much these days, but I think he's really good in this.

The Season One set includes 8 episodes, and the unfinished pilot for the Greatest American Heroine. The pilot for the new show after the original was cancelled featured a woman receiving the suit from Ralph. It was good to see the original characters again, but I can't say I liked the woman much. It would have been interesting to see if she'd have grown on me more had the show been picked up though. As it was she's kind of irritating. But Robert Culp is a joy as always.

The episodes are:

1. Pilot

2. The Hit Car

3. Here's Looking at You, Kid

4. Saturday on Sunset Boulevard

5. Reseda Rose

6. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

7. Fire Man

8. The Best Desk Scenario

The picture quality is about what you'd expect for a TV show that is 25 years old now (god has it really been that long), with some softness or grain evident, particularly during the flying sequences. The picture is full-frame, no letterboxed or anamorphic transfer here, but not too surprising considering how the show was shot. The audio is Dolby Digital 2 and generally sounds pretty good. My one complaint about this set (and subsequent seasons), is that they have replaced some of the songs from the episodes. Well-known tracks that fitted beautifully with the episodes have been replaced by generic 'blah' tracks, or sometimes theres nothing there. I'd have happily paid a bit more if they had left the original music in. This is particularly irritating in later seasons where songs are directly mentioned in the episode, but have been replaced.

Still if you were a fan of this show, or just nostalgic for the 80s this set is well worth the purchase.

Pilot Synopsis

John, an FBI agent is pursued through the desert by Neo-Nazis in off-road vehicles. They eventually catch up with him, and kill him.

Cut too Ralph at the High School where he works. Having been assigned the Special Education class of troublemakers and rejects, he decides to take them on a class trip to the desert for a geology lesson. On the way, the class stops at a diner where Tony Villicana aggravates FBI Agent Bill Maxwell. Ralph tries to apologise but they fail to get along. Bill is looking for his missing partner, John.

Later, on the way home, the school bus breaks down. Ralph elects to go for help, leaving the students with the van. Walking along the road, Ralph is nearly run down by Bill, his car under the control of an outside influence. Once together, they are locked in the car, and an alien spaceship approaches. The aliens contact Bill and Ralph via the car radio, and offer Ralph a suit embued with unearthly powers. Bills murdered partner, John, delivers the suit to the pair, and leaves with the aliens. Bill promptly abandons Ralph in the desert. Ralph accidentally drops the instruction manual from the alien package in the desert.

Nelson Cory is extremely rich, and funding Senator Adam Taft to manipulate him closer to the presidency. He plans to do away with the President, placing Adam Taft in office, and thereby controlling the future President to advance his own schemes.

Ralph returns to the van and finding it now working, returns the class home. Later, he opens the alien container and finds the gaudy red supersuit inside. Pam, Ralph's attorney and girlfriend, rings to remind him that he has a court date in the morning for custody of his son. Meanwhile, Bill is snooping about trying to find out what happened to his partner John. He runs into Nelson Cory's bald-headed goons, who take him to Cory's base for interrogation.

Ralph takes a beating from Tony Villicana in the boxing ring to try to earn some respect from his students. Delayed in traffic to his court date, Ralph grudgingly decides to try the suit to see if he can get their faster. After flying uncontrollably down city alleys, he slams into a billboard, and is left unconscious on the pavement. A sleazy investigator takes pictures of him in the suit. Ralph is hauled away to the mental hospital by the police.

At the hospital, Ralph is humiliated to be caught wearing the red suit. He's restrained in a hospital room, pending psychiatric evaluation. The suit starts showing him visions of Bill and where he's being held. Ralph easily escapes from the restraints, but is having a hard time coping with the suit. When Pam arrives she is bewildered at his apparent mental breakdown. Ralph takes Pam's car keys and escapes the hospital with Pam in tow. They drive out to Cory's mansion to rescue Bill.

Ralph flies into Cory's mansion, locates where Bill is being held, and breaks down the wall to rescue him. They then fly over the wall, and crash down on the other side.

As they escape, Pam starts to have a mental breakdown coping with everything that is going on. They stop in a park to discuss it, and Ralph ends up proving to her that his story is true when he lifts her VW car with one hand. Bill starts cooking up all kinds of superpowered scenarios to beat back the Russians.

After working out what Nelson Cory is up to, and asking Rhonda (one of Ralph's students) to babysit, they approach an Army officer about Cory's skinhead military goons and plans. He offers to help them, but ends up taking them back to Cory's base. Turns out he's in on it too.

Ralph quickly subdues the guards with the help of the suit, and they escape their holding cell. Bill comes up with a plan to prevent the assassination of the President. Ralph flies up to the President's approaching helicopter and scares it away. He then defeats Cory's men, and Bill captures Nelson Cory. Ralph enjoys a flight home, the suit behaving itself for once.

Ralph and Pam meet Bill in the desert. Bill has cleaned up the mess with the investigator and photos. Bill apologises, but says they need to run the operation better and he's going to make the command decisions from now on. They settle into an uneasy partnership. The aliens return and praise Ralph's handling of the situation. They agree to leave the suit with Ralph. They suggest that next time Ralph tries using the power of invisibility. Ralph calls out for another instruction manual, but they leave.