User Reviews

Larry-view: This one features three or more good magical sequences. There is the evil spikes, a sword suspension, and then the big safe escape. I really like that sword suspension.

Bill Bixby directs this one. Other than the bungled magic of the final scene I didn't notice him, good nor bad.

The girl is played by the actress that played in "Play Misty for me" with Clint Eastwood. DON'T DO IT TONY!!! This one features some laugh lines... Just a few jokes add so much sparkle to the script. In this case we get a charming 20 seconds where Tony's hitting on the girl and she's rebuffing him with funny comebacks.

The tepid romance elements in this one worked for me, I like how the girl intelligently rebuffed Tony's early advances, but then succumbed to them in the end. Not much romantic content there, but it worked.

Huge plot hole: The bad guys' plan to kill Tony, as shown, was simply to not raise the safe on time. Well that's silly, the trick was for Tony to escape from the safe, and since they did nothing to interfere with that, there's nothing to keep Tony from simply swimming to the surface even if they don't raise the safe, in fact, that's the way the trick was designed to work and nothing we saw from the bad guys would have prevented that. So there's a hole.

Another bungled magic trick!!! With the big escape sequence being extensively edited you don't get the feeling that you're watching a live performance and so the whole thing falls flat. The empty safe, Tony's disappearance, and his subsequent reappearance. The close up of Tony's reappearance robs that event of its impact. This should have been filmed with the least amount of cuts possible in order to preserve the effect of a live, undoctored performance. The crane should have been within the wide camera shot so we could get an idea of the distance involved in Tony's surprise appearance. They could have done the whole thing with just one or two cuts. They only really needed the one cut to allow Bill Bixby to exit the safe before it was put into the water.

They give us a giant exposure in this episode. That seems to be part of Wilson's style. I just got his "Magic Circus" DVD (his show in the 1970s) last night and he does an exposure there. In another episode I had said that the exposure seemed out of character with Wilson's orthodox magic styling, but I guess it's not. In this case they play out a large scale escape production for us, and then play us back the tape and explain how it all works. In the process of that they expose several techniques of misdirection and metamorphosis style changing places. Note however that some of what is presented as an exposure actually isn't. For instance the evil spikes illusion is not going to be done with a lock pick...that would be silly. If you could hide a lock pick in the curtain, as shown, you could just as well hide the handcuff key. No matter how good you are, it would take more than 20 seconds to pick four handcuffs, especially when you have to do the first one with a single shackled hand. Also, I don't think the safe escape could be done the way shown here. All said, the exposure of the techniques used in the big escape sequence are quite interesting.

I've got an opinion on the hotly debated subject of camera edits used in televised magic. I don't like it. Any idiot can devise any magical effect using camera edits. Part of the beauty of magic is the skill, cleverness, and gall that goes into pulling an effect off right under your nose. Also, I understand that magic is lying, but to sincerely state to the audience that "no camera tricks will be used" before the show and then to simply flatly go against that and use edits....to me that's lying and that's rude. On top of all of that, it's not impressive to watch an edited sequence, but it is impressive to watch a live one, so in additional to being rude, it's bad magic and bad TV. Just today I've lost a lot of respect for Mr. Wilson on this issue. While watching last night's Magic Circus, the announcer made this announcement: "And remember, as with all of Mark Wilson's magical effects, what you see at home will be exactly what our live studio audience sees. No trick photography will be used of any kind." And then he flatly makes that statement into a lie by extensively editing the ending credits where he magically produces the credits on magically changing cards. There is an edit almost every trick. To me, that's simply lying to the audience. When he tells me that there will be no camera tricks, he's giving me his word that he will give me a certain high quality of performance. When he goes back on that, my trust in him and his word of quality is disappointed.

In spite of a lot of talking head action, with the aid of a pointing stick and video screen even, I didn't get the whole plot. Why did the old guy need the picture to fail? How was it going to benefit him? Dominic gets a good part and finally learns how a trick works. I like the way he delivers the line "I don't know how to tell you, Tony." and the smug, satisfied way he looks into the camera after pulling off the climax. That was a fitting end to this series. The character of Dominic and the actor made an important contribution to this show.

The owl gets the final portrait shot of the series...that's great.

Judging from the final enigmatic shot, I figure everyone knew the series had been cancelled. That explains the seeming indifference of the writer and stars. Bill Bixby gives it his all as director, and Lew Ayres is good as always. But the episode never rises above the mediocre, and Bill Bixby as Tony is no better at playing an Agatha Christie-style denouement detective than he was in the last episode as an insurance investigator.

The plot doesn't make much sense, either, except as a way to keep the budget down by filming on the Universal backlot for the most part. The movie they're filming is nonsensical. People keep saying it's a major financial hit, but all we see are two magicians performing "real" magic when there's no point. Why does Harry have to hide a lock pick in the table It's not like anyone searches the table before the illusion, and even if they did they'd be an actor and could "fake" not finding the pick. Ditto for the safe escape at the end: why does Tony have to do a real escape, when they could use camera tricks to make it look like he escaped the safe. And who lets a "star" film a scene without telling the production crew what he's doing?

It doesn't help that they gaslight all this. One of the bad guys, Quinn, is a special effects coordinator: why doesn't he do his job and just do special effects to simulate the "illusions"? Maybe he's teamed up with Houser because the studio put him out of work doing real illusions instead of special effects?

Which just gaslights something else: the villains are even more motiveless than usual. Why does Quinn work for Houser sabotaging the film production, and is willing to kill two men? Why is Houser willing to commit murder when his whole motive is rendered meaningless when he casually moves the construction to another location? Did he need the Braden land or not?

Lew Ayres as Braden is good, because Ayres is a class act. But he's hurt by the lack of a back story: he and Tony's father were buddies? When have they mentioned Tony's father before? and the fact that his connection to Tony (who he "loves like a son") has never been hinted at. Ah, the 70s, when non-episodic TV was at its peak.

Jessica Walter has the thankless role of playing a woman who is an accountant, and she doesn't care but really cares. She ends up as Tony's romantic interest, when she goes from unsympathetic bean counter to "I care too much" woman. It beats being a corrupt femme fatale, I suppose, as the show indulged in lot of the time

Walter and Bixby have no chemistry, but then again Bixby almost never did with any of his female co-stars. He still plays a smug jerk. And why does Dominick pose as a diver? Dominick is a club owner and a chef, not an action adventure guy. This is the kind of role that calls for someone like Jerry, but he's nowhere to be seen in the back half of the season. Black Actors Matter!

And what's up with the old-timey swim outfits on Dominick and the divers, anyway? There's a poster at the studio lot for 'The Great Gatsby', which was in '74. Did Universal get the swim outfits from that movie?

Overall, "Evil Spikes is a mediocre end to a show that occasionally was good on occasion, but never rose above its limitations.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?