They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Tell that to the NBC commissioners of the mid-’70s. For after canceling one adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man after a single season, they simply replaced it with another. And just like its hero, even more viewers seemed to vanish into thin air, too. In fact, ratings were so poor for the much lower-budget Gemini Man that only five of the 11 episodes filmed were ever shown.
First aired 50 years ago this month, the season premiere, “Smithereens,” makes few concessions to those who hadn’t tuned in to its scene-setting pilot screened several months earlier. Indeed, there’s no explanation about the identity of its leading man (Ben Murphy’s government agent Sam Casey), his superpowers (turning completely transparent with the touch of a button), or how he acquired them (an underwater mission-gone-wrong which radioactively altered his genetics).
