The wedding is upon us. Now given normal wedding preparations, it would seem most likely Max and 99 would not be at work the day before, or the day of the wedding. But the day before, Max goes a bar to meet a KAOS scientist, a Dr. Madre, who now wants to give him a map to a uranium mine-something they've been wanting for some time.
Right from the get-go we see this will not be a logical episode. Why is the scientist involved with the map to the mine? Max barely sits down with the man and we see him slip some liquid into a glass of wine that was brought for Max. Max downs it right away as Madre tells him about how he converted a map into a liquid that will form on Max's chest in 48 hours. I'll suspend logic and accept that this is possible. What bothers me is why Madre feeds this to Smart without being paid and without Smart asking for it or knowing about it.
Even though it will take two days to appear fully, Madre tells Smart he has to stand up and stay vertical for the next 48 hours. This leads to him trying to eat spaghetti while standing up. He can't twist the spaghetti enough around his fork, even while standing, which means had he tried while sitting, he wouldn't have been close to the end of the incredibly long strings of spaghetti. So he pulls out his revolver and shoots the spaghetti to be able to eat. Two shots, right in the bar. Sure.
Max goes to the Chief, tells him the story in such a poor manner the Chief thinks he just is afraid to get married and tells him he can't postpone the wedding for two days. 99 has the same reaction, telling him it's tomorrow or not at all.
If the map part was all that was wrong, this could still have been a funny show. But the illogic continues. 99's mother comes to the door of Max's apartment, not 99's. Apparently she's staying with Max. She comes just inside the door, gives a pillow present to the couple, and 99 says, "Mother, would you like to make us some coffee. The kitchen's right back there."
Your mother just flew from Idaho to Washington, D.C. and almost as soon as she gets through the doorway, you're asking her to make you all coffee? Mother does so without arguing, but it would have been much better if the script had just called for her to ask where the "powder room" is.
Max and 99 talk for a few seconds. Max says she can't stay with him and 99 says "If you're worried about all your protective devices, don't worry, I've rewired them all." The example we get is a real head scratcher. We know that Max has numerous protective devices that someone could accidentally activate, but that's never been a huge concern. One is a big weighted net that drops down on people standing right next to the couch, activated by a button near the couch by the phone.
But instead, when Max goes to the bar so 99 can make him a drink, (forgetting about the coffee Mother is making, I guess) he tells her he can't sit down. 99 says, "Don't worry about sitting on the bar stool. The net doesn't come down that way any more, it only drops when (as Max leans on the bar) you lean on the bar. So Max is under this big rope net when Mother comes back. She calmly says, "Oh, you're going to do some fishing on your honeymoon?"
This illustrates my complaint about how almost nothing makes sense in this episode. We never knew 99 was a veritable electrician. But how would making the net drop when you lean on the bar be any safer for her mother than sitting on the barstool? Seems like a lot of work for her to do without any benefit whatsoever.
A moment later Mother reappears with the coffee. Then 99 says she's sorry, but "We won't have time to drink it. We weren't watching the time. We've got to go." She doesn't even say where and we viewers have no idea either. How rude, especially to your own mother.
We jump ahead to nighttime where the doorbell at Max's rings. He falls down the stairs and admits Dr. Madre, accompanied by two KAOS goons who know all about the map. Now Max was in his pajamas and robe, which makes no sense since he can't sit down at all. If you have to stay vertical all night, would you bother to change to your bed clothes?
Now the apartment is all dark, naturally, when the trio enters. One of the KAOS men reaches for the switch to his left near the door and from a panel of 5 vertical switches, he immediately pushes the correct one to turn on the lights-almost like he's been there before.
The goons say they're staying with Max until they can read the map. They tie up Madre and hang max on a wall hook with his hands tied so he can't scratch the itches and destroy the map. By the way, no mention is ever made about whether Madre still has a copy of where the mine is, or if he could make another of his liquid maps to do the same thing a second time. With all that he tells Max he must do-stay vertical, not scratch for 48 hours, I would think he'd have prepared for the possibility that this won't work and still have a paper copy of the map somewhere.
Hours pass and just a half hour before the wedding, Max tells his captors that Admiral Hargrade is coming to pick him up to go to the wedding. They take Max off the wall and have him stand near the desk while the admiral enters. Max is able to trigger a knife that sticks out from his desk and untie himself. He then knocks a gun away from a bad guy and gets the drop on his two captors. Rather than knock them out or calling for backup, he opens a closet door and says, "Inside the closet." Immediately, he steps into it, closes the door, and with the two men looking at each other in amazement, he comes out and says, "Just as I thought...it's big enough for both of you" and directs them inside and locks the door.
Now he, the admiral, and Madre are going to the wedding. Luckily, Smart has a loaner car because his is in the shop. It is a weird-looking vehicle. When Madre says he can't drive at all, Max says the admiral will have to drive because he (Max) needs to change his clothes while standing in the back seat part of this semi-roofless car. But when the admiral falls down again, Smart puts him in the passenger seat and Madre will have to drive this stick shift auto, even though he doesn't know how to drive. The admiral, remember, drove to Smart's to pick him up and drive him to the wedding, but now we're taking another vehicle and even though the admiral is awake, we'll forget about him driving either vehicle and have the doctor attempt something he's never done.
By now the KAOS guys are out of the closet and they start to chase our trio. So Max stays vertical in the car, a sitting duck for the flying bullets, yelling at Madre, alternately, to go slower, then go faster, as they have a Keystone Cop-type car chase for a few miles. Personally, if I were Max, I would have said, "I'm not standing up to get killed like this. Heck with the map, I'm sitting down!" But that's just me. Besides, if Max is killed, the map won't finish developing on his chest and they won't be able to get it anyhow.
To make things more chaotic, the scenes I've described keep switching with a shot of 99 saying, "He's not coming. He doesn't want to get married."
Just after Max & Co. arrive at the church, the KAOS guys do too and big brawl breaks out right in the aisles between all the attendees. They make it frenetic by switching camera shots every 2 seconds. A man wants to step in to help, but his wife tells him not to-"It's between his family and hers." The couple are played by Don Adams' manager and his actual wife.
The good guys win and we can have the wedding. 99 is wearing a fine dress but her "veil" looks like some white flowery hat that folds down around her head like some sort of winter hat would. Absolutely awful looking. I think the funniest scene was when she descends the stairs and is greeted by the Chief (who is giving her away) with his shirt all torn up from the fight. They literally step over bodies in the aisle as they head to the front. Max has his shirt badly ripped, but because he took of his jacket before the fight, when he puts it on he the rips are all hidden.
I wish to mention William Schallert's Admiral Hargrade. He was feeble enough in his first appearances on the series, but they stretched him too feeble in this one. Max handed him his jacket and he just took it in his arms and fell over backwards, for example.
After the ceremony, we get the couple saying good night as they start their honeymoon. 99 leaves the room and we see the Chief lying in the bed at the hotel, and he has two helpers hang Max up on a hook, as they have to wait until the map fully develops on his chest.
There were a few funny bits but this was, as zsenorsock wrote, not nearly one of the better episodes. I go with a 4.
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