More Notes on The Invisible Man

After my Monday post on David McCallum’s The Invisible Man, I revisited my discussion of the show in my 2003 Spy Television and found some points I didn’t include earlier. So here’s a bit more on the show:


According to Melinda Fee, who played Kate Weston, "The pilot was geared more to the lurking Feds scrambling to steal the formula of invisibility. It had the proverbial car chase, ending in a huge crash-and-burn sequence. The series centered on the relationship of Daniel and Kate."
Newcomer Fee was excited by her role, later claiming Kate Westin came along about the same time as women’s liberation. “She represented what women were striving for, separate professions, equality, recognition of intelligence and education.” But most U.N.C.L.E. fans, seeing a new vehicle for McCallum at last, found the attempt a missed opportunity. From the beginning, producers Bochco, Harve Bennett, Leslie Stephens, and Robert O’Neill admitted they were imitating The Six Million Dollar Man. As a result, more effort went into the gimmicks than the characters or stories. Fee’s most difficult job was playing to an invisible husband, which at that time wasn't as easy as it would become with improved special effects in subsequent decades. Shooting a simple scene in which a hypodermic needle was passed from hand to hand could take half a day to film. It was difficult for an unseen agent to express emotion. To let viewers know where he was, The Invisible Man bumped into pots and furniture so often, he seemed the clumsiest man on earth.
Ironically, like U.N.C.L.E. before it, the show quickly fell into comedy, only in a considerably shorter time. According to Robert O’Neill, "The Invisible Man was really a one-joke show. The minute you've taken the wrapping off his head, you've seen the joke.” Creator Harve Bennett had a different take. "By today's standards it was very crude, but in 1975 it allowed us tremendous opportunities. It was a very noble experiment, and I'm very proud of the series."
Some of the less satisfactory outings included McCallum going undercover for a cleaning woman, and one effort had him Held in a hick town by a corrupt sheriff for bogus traffic violations. The nadir of the series was one episode titled “Pin Money” featuring bank robbers with Frankenstein monster masks. The writer, James Parriott, admitted he was asked to write the script in the mold of the Six Million Dollar Man.
In this climate, commentators were reduced to speculating about the sexual possibilities for the couple. As the invisible man had to be naked to be unseen, he was often shivering and complained about freezing in public. Twenty-five years later, one fan recalled an episode in which Weston rode on a bicycle through a town, no doubt a most uncomfortable experience. One odd controversy arose when representatives from America's Bible-Belt in the mid-West complained that the show was obscene because it featured a naked, if unseen, man on TV. Writers tried to build sympathy for the characters by having Fee forced to seduce enemies as her husband looked on.
For most observers, the format simply didn’t jell and some attempted to rest the blame on McCallum. Harv Bennett noted networks were still uneasy about British leads on American television, and some felt McCallum was better suited to a supporting “color” character like Illya Kuryakin rather than a straight lead. Most believed the Tuesday night time-slot was McCallum’s No. 1 adversary, as MTM’s double-shot of Rhoda and Phyllis were ratings champions. Whatever the case, the show enjoyed great popularity in Europe, especially England, where the ratings soared after the cancellation.