Progressive high school teacher Ralph Hinkley (William Katt) is given a class of delinquents including Rhonda Blake (Faye Grant) and Tony Villicana (Michael Paré). He falls in love with his divorce lawyer Pam Davidson (Connie Sellecca). He takes the kids on a field trip to the desert. The bus breaks down and he goes off to find help. He runs into hard-nosed FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) who is investigating his partner's killing. The odd couple has a close encounter with a UFO. The aliens give Ralph a powerful superhero suit. Ralph struggles to make it work (especially flying) after losing the instruction book.
It has a great premise for a superhero show when the superhero genre just got a leg up after Superman (1978). It's riding the first wave of superhero in the real world. The problem is that it doesn't follow through. It turns into an action procedural that Stephen J. Cannell would be famous for all throughout the 80s. Instead of digging into the ramifications and the personal lives, it becomes one rescue idea for each episode. There's a problem and the duo solves it after 60 minutes. In fact, the show doesn't even give Pam that much to do most of the time. Nine times out of ten, she's simply the girlfriend character despite being the third character to know Ralph's superpowers. The show eventually makes her a third wheel while they get rid of the students. Even Ralph's son fades into the background. The characters don't grow and the show becomes episodic in nature.
The most memorable episode is when the duo encounters two old men who had a suit back in the day. However the silly episodic stories mount up. There is a ghost in one episode. They're digging for gold in another. With voodoo, Bermuda Triangle and everything else, the second season simply has too many stupid episodes and the show never recovered.
It has a great premise for a superhero show when the superhero genre just got a leg up after Superman (1978). It's riding the first wave of superhero in the real world. The problem is that it doesn't follow through. It turns into an action procedural that Stephen J. Cannell would be famous for all throughout the 80s. Instead of digging into the ramifications and the personal lives, it becomes one rescue idea for each episode. There's a problem and the duo solves it after 60 minutes. In fact, the show doesn't even give Pam that much to do most of the time. Nine times out of ten, she's simply the girlfriend character despite being the third character to know Ralph's superpowers. The show eventually makes her a third wheel while they get rid of the students. Even Ralph's son fades into the background. The characters don't grow and the show becomes episodic in nature.
The most memorable episode is when the duo encounters two old men who had a suit back in the day. However the silly episodic stories mount up. There is a ghost in one episode. They're digging for gold in another. With voodoo, Bermuda Triangle and everything else, the second season simply has too many stupid episodes and the show never recovered.