If you can appreciate the prescient humor of the above scene, thirteen years before Donkey Kong, then you have already gotten every available ounce of enjoyment out of the particularly weird “The Night of the Simian Terror.” If you wish for it to be spelled out further, Jim is attempting to rescue a girl kidnapped by a giant ape, but he cannot get to her because the ape keeps throwing barrels at him. Was Shigeru Miyamoto inspired by this episode to create the first Donkey Kong game? Probably not , but it is a funny thought regardless.Like I said, it is about the only amusing bit in a strange mess of a story. Jim and Artie are assigned to travel to Kansas and retrieve a senator who has defense bill held up in committee. They find his estate is barricaded and armed to the teeth with visitors not welcomed. But when one of the security team is literally crushed to death by what could have only been a giant animal, our heroes he to et to the bottom of things.
The bottom of things is the senator had a child named Dimas years ago who was not quite right, so he faked the kid’s death and gave him to an anthropologist who once failed at an experiment to nurture an ape from birth to make him more humanlike. Dimas and the ape became pals--just go with it--so the ape has been killing off family members so Dimas can inherit the family fortune.
Dimas is killed in a fistfight with Jim, which I would think is implausibly ridiculous if I had not seen Jim engage in fisticuffs with the ape just a few minutes prior. Past experience makes it seem a bit more plausible. The ape dies in a hail of bullets from an angry mob that has formed in response to the killings. There might e some social commentary in there somewhere, but I had lost interest y that point and do not care to dig for it.
Richard Kiel plays Dimas. He is essentially playing Dimas exactly as he did Voltaire. The characters are so much alike, it is odd Jim and Artie do not comment on it. Actors get recast o The Wild Wild West all the time, so it is a accepted part of the show. But this is like hiring Michael Dunn to play another evil villain similar to Dr. Loveless, but with a different name. Actors who play iconic characters cannot pull that sort of thing off. At least not for dedicated fans.
“The Night of the Simian Terror” does not work for me. It attempts to be dark, but has too many absurd elements to pull it off. Not the least of those elements is Jim fighting the ape and holding his own far longer than logic would have it. You know, like more than two seconds. Those of you who really enjoyed dating high school girls--dumb, but fun--may get a kick out of it. I hardly did.
We finally end the terrible third season tomorrow before heading into the series’ wonderfully weird fourth and final season.
Rating: ** (out of 5)
