User Reviews

This landmark episode in which 86 finally proposes to 99 is wildly uneven. The opening sequence where they parody "Mission Impossible" ranks among the best moments of the series. The whole sequence is great, and one of my favorite moments is when the tape does NOT destruct after five seconds and the Chief's voice on the tape then says "maybe six". Things hum along great as Max tells 99 he's NOT going to pick her as part of his team on this mission because he's concerned its too dangerous and he doesn't want her to get hurt. There's a great sequence where Max meets CONTROL scientist Dr. Simon (the curvy former Second City performer Ann Elder, who later won two Emmys for her writing for Lily Tomlin!). There's a genius comic bit where the Chief and Max have to fly to 30,000 feet to have a top secret discussion so they can be assured no one will hear them (okay, it gets a bit beaten into the ground, but it is pretty funny the first few times through). Jamie Farr has an amusing guest appearance as a contact in a record store. They score again as Max has to infiltrate the "Herb Talbot" band using the auto play trumpet provided for him by Dr. Simon.

But then, just about halfway through the episode, everything goes wrong. Herb Talbot is really the KAOS agent known as "the Leader". Unfortunately Aron Kincaid manages to turn "the Leader" into one of the most colorless and forgettable KAOS villains of all time. He gives no feeling of threat or mayhem, which really hurts the ending. Their cover blown, Max and 99 try to escape dressed as Charlie Chaplin impersonators...thus beginning one of the most embarrassing and unfunny sequences in the series entire run. They run about the studio in herky- jerky silent movie style while being chased by a villain and his henchman. Just two guys. Neither of which are particularly threatening or big. There's no Bobo (Claw's assistant) or Grobnik or any other tough guy Smart should be worried about. Instead we have two guys chasing them. Two guys! No army of KAOS agents. No Siegfried. No Craw. No killer robot. Just two guys they should easily handle. Instead, 86 and 99 find themselves trapped in a studio control room and facing what they try and package as "certain death", Max proposes to 99. The idea is right, but the lack of a real threat makes the entire scene seem forced, flat, and unworthy of what should have been a great moment in the history of the series.

Max enters a bus station and opens three lockers to get his assignment from the Chief in Mission Impossible style. Two lockers only have speakers, the third a tape recorder. I agree with the other reviewer that this scene was excellent. The recording almost seems to react to things Max says. When it finally "self destructs" the recording keeps playing, starting over and over. Max winds up taking it out of the station to keep others from hearing it.

At his apartment, Max goes through a bunch of photos, which include Alfred E. Newman and Tiny Tim, along with 99. Then 99 comes to the door and when she sees the pictures is disappointed to see her photo isn't in the stack of agents selected for the mission. She talks him into letting her go after all.

Of course, the odd thing is that never before did Max get to choose who works with him. For that matter, no other agents worked on the case anyhow so the whole scene was kind of pointless other than to give us an indication from Max's reluctance to let 99 go on a dangerous mission as a sign that his feelings for her have grown.

Even though time is of the essence, the Chief has a chartered, ridiculously large airplane in which he and Max will ride in until the pilot gets up to 30,000 feet. Only then can they speak in privacy. Of course, they have to go down and back up a couple of times for things they forgot to mention. I just thought: Wouldn't it be easier and tremendously cheaper to get a quiet room at CONTROL where they could sweep for bugs before going in to talk? Of course.

The pair go to a record shop and meet another Max, Klinger, from MASH, or at least Jamie Farr who will play Klinger in a couple of years. He has information that he suggests is best relayed by shouting it while standing right next to a loudly-playing record in the crowded store. When they can't hear each other because of the music, they agree to just turn off the record and speak softly. Just before he can reveal the name of the leader (known as The Leader) who will get the information out of the country that night, he is poisoned by the needle on the phonograph.

I guess we aren't supposed to question how he was able to put the needle on the record the first time without being poisoned. 99 spots a man watching, points to him and he runs away. Max chases him into a TV studio across the street but loses him. Then he gets further instructions from the Chief. For this, lets get back up to 30,000 feet a few more times. By now this seemed like a filler to make the show last long enough.

At the secret laboratory in the strip club, we have a new female scientist/dancer instead of Dr. Steele. Dr. Simon has a trumpet that can play any song on its own just by the holder saying the name into the mouthpiece. This is so Smart can be hired as a trumpeter for a Herb Alpert take-off band while 99 gets a job dancing in the chorus for a TV show to air that night. The chorus consists of several women all dressed like Charlie Chaplin, including little mustaches. When Max sees 99 in this outfit, he tells her she's cute in a mustache and suggests she not shave it off.

As they huddle to discuss how they have no idea who "The Leader" is or how they will smuggle the valuable information out of the country. Our heroes get lucky in that within earshot they hear the band leader (Who would ever think that "The Leader" would be somebody known as "the leader?") and a confederate going over the details of the plan, which in the usual contrived, awkward ways KAOS always wants to send information, he will signal the code, letter-by-letter (or number) with his arm while conducting the band that night.

The two baddies then happen to mention the name of a song and Max's trumpet, left laying on a chair, starts playing that song, and even though the henchman admits to having a computer trumpet himself, The Leader immediately figures that Max is no musician, thus he must be a CONTROL agent. They now try to find him immediately to kill him.

Instead of splitting up, where there wouldn't be any reason to suspect 99 (I'm sorry but there are just boatloads of gaffes in this script) Max and 99 start racing around the studio, both now dressed like Charlie Chaplin. We get an elongated scene ala the Keystone Cops where there is a hallway with about 7 doors and the four dash about, silent movie-style complete with piano music, in and out of the various doors. It was slightly funny when after Max and 99 go out of view through one door while holding hands, Max and one of the bad guys come out of another one holding hands, but overall it was quite lame.

Then they are trapped in the middle of a group of 5 control rooms, with long windows to let us see the setup, as the two bad guys have them trapped and hurl their bodies repeatedly to break through each of the doors on their respective sides. Our heroes set up chairs to block the doors knowing that will only slow them down.

The whole thing is to get our couple into a position where they are trapped and facing death, but can only wait for it to come. This is to get Max to open up and tell 99 that he loves her. She beats him to it, and they exchange a big kiss. When Max says if they ever got out of this mess, he'd marry her, 99 suddenly comes up with an old trick whereby they open the door on each side of the room, separately, so the guy crashing into it races through and knocks himself out when hitting the door on the other side of the room. It works and are heroes can now start planning marriage. Of course Max is now quite reluctant.

If you're a romantic and are delighted they finally admitted their feelings to each other, I can see where you'd say this was a good episode. I just wish they'd found a better script in which to have this happen. I noticed at the start that four writers are given credit, instead of the series' usual two. I'd say it was two too many.

The story is quite disjointed and very little made sense. From the second scene where Max is going through the photos-once we pass Tiny Tim, there really is almost nothing funny. The idea of the trumpet sounds cool, but any pretender musician would have trouble getting through a rehearsal using the computer trumpet because it only plays whole songs. At a rehearsal, there would surely be times in every song where they stop in the middle, then restart where they left off, or maybe a bit earlier in the song. All Max could do was have his trumpet play the whole thing, start to finish.

Now the two bad guys chasing our people didn't even appear to have guns. What happened to the guns our heroes normally carry? If Max wasn't seen with 99-he hadn't been, she could have been in no danger at all if they'd just split up when they heard the bad guys say they are going to kill Max. The whole long running through the doors scene just didn't have laughs either.

I give this one a 5 for the funny bus station locker scene takeoff on Mission Impossible and for advancing the characters into becoming engaged. Otherwise, it's a dud.