User Reviews

This episode lets Silliphant's philosophical bent run free. Milner's dialogue sounds at times like Hamlet; we are used to some pondering aloud in the series, but this really lets the dogs out. It's easy to forget that characters we now see as hackneyed stereotypes, like the workaholic genius with personal ghosts to exorcise, were once fresh creations. I like to think Silliphant was near the beginning. Imagine regular folks sitting around the B&W tube on Wednesday night, watching this? It's a kind of nostalgia that feels justified.

Arthur Hiller directed this visually poetic story about, of all things, racing speed boats. John Larch makes his third appearance in the series as a humorless, driven creator of speed boat engines who is preparing for a race that will demonstrate the superiority of his latest creation and set him up with lucrative contract offers from manufacturing companies. Todd has become his assistant.

Larch's estranged daughter shows up. But he refuses to see her both because he's focused on his amazing creation, (which he seems to value more than his human creation) and because he's still mad at her mother for leaving him with her. His wife has just died so she wants to reconnect with her father but won't tell him about the death of his wife because she wants him to connect with her of his own free will, not because he feels obligated. So she stays in her room and plays loud music, refusing to turn it down until her father comes to her.

She finally gives up and leaves just as the big race is about to begin. Todd tells Larch what she's doing and he hands the boat over to Todd as he goes to his daughter. The race has already started but thanks to Larch's superior engines, Todd quickly catches up and we see a shot from the air as the field parts and he motors on through them to take the lead, moving rapidly into the distance. Tod, in a voice-over, recites this poem as we see the boat charging forward:

Whoever fights the future has a mortal enemy A faceless enemy Because the future has no being of its own It steals its being from each man. And once it's tricked him of his secrets It appears outside him, waiting A predator he must meet.

But it can be met and it can be vanquished If you reach out with open arms and a hungry heart.

Russell Johnson plays the company's head mechanic. Of course he does- he'll be playing "The Professor" on Gilligan's Island in a couple years. Elizabeth McRae has a cameo as rival scientist who pretends to be drowning so the boat will stop and she can get a good look at it. Lois Smith, who played the beauty to Nehemiah Persoff's beast in the season 1 finale, "Incident on a Bridge", is the daughter. George Maharis appears briefly at the beginning and at the end, probably because he was busy filming the next episode while they were filming this one. It might have been fun to link the two and say that this was what Todd was off doing while Buz faced his crisis in that next episode.

The visuals of powerboats on Lake Havasu carry this entry. The plot itself is pretty sketchy, mainly involving an obsessed Sandy Mason's drive to monopolize the powerboat business with his new engine design. Why exactly Tod puts up with his abuse once he hires on is not made clear (then again, maybe I missed something). Toward the end, Sandy's estranged daughter Dana (Smith) shows up to add more of a plot, but has the appearance of a last- minute add-on. Anyway, which of the two will Sandy now pay attention to—his needy daughter or his passion for powerboats.

As a whole, the series dwells a lot on lost souls trying to make a connection with others. Here it's Sandy and Dana. Of course being neither a cop show nor a western-- both popular at the time-- the series couldn't depend on crime as a weekly theme. Plus, lost souls allowed head writer Silliphant to wax philosophical as he does here. Anyway, Maharis puts in a token appearance, but otherwise it's all Tod. Larch is commanding, as usual, as the driven Sandy. But I admit I didn't recognize Lois Smith as the comely Dana. For me, she really registered as the barroom drudge in James Dean's iconic East of Eden (1954). There, however, she was frazzled and disheveled, still delivering an affecting performance. Seeing her here, I'm suddenly smitten. All in all, the entry's mainly for those wanting a good look at Lake Havasu, with something of a story thrown in.