The Invisible Man

This is one show I hope won't be disappearing anytime soon. I originally didn't think I would be interested in it at all. It's an old idea and I kept getting Vincent Ventresca's character from Boston Commons in my head when I saw the promos. What happened? A friend sat me down and told me I had to watch at least one episode. I am incredibly grateful. I went from that one episode to watching it devotedly.

I've had to reappraise Vincent Ventresca. I'd seen him in Boston Commons and Friends but never really put them together as being the same actor. He is quite good at being a variety of very different people. Darien is nothing like good time bobby or the snooty professor from Boston Commons. Ventresca has quite the job for him in this role. Darien is a fun loving, good guy with a past in theft and a cloudy future. The same Quicksilver gland that allows him to go invisible can also drive him insane.

No superhero is complete without his sidekick and so we have Paul Ben-Victor as Bobby Hobbes. I thought this was brilliant. Bobby Hobbes is a blast. I love the idea of assigning a paranoid agent a partner who can turn invisible. Bobby grows on you. Some people think the character is a little... annoying but he's a great guy and he's good at what he does despite being fired from several government agencies. Paul Ben-Victor does an excellent job with this character. His performance is a good part of why I'm watching. He's made Bobby into a very lovable character.

The supporting cast is good but we don't get as much of them as we do the main two. There are also well done special effects and some truly fun plot lines. If you want to watch something good on Friday night, this is it.

For some anonymous reason, the sci- fi channel decided to stop airing new episodes of their hit series "the invisible man", but that's not the point of this review. Turning invisible had always been a bit of a childish fantasy of mine and I was excited to see how they would work out the show. It turned it to be a superb job. The cast, especially Darian is great doing exceptional dark and sarcastic humor. Also, the narration by the main character sums up things quite well. The writers have out- done themselves by not creating a show simply about the ability but other things as well such as government conspiracy as well as sometimes romantic sub- plots. The show feels real, and instead of resorting to a cheap unbelievable gimmick for the protagonist to survive, it still stays true to realism. One other great thing is the special effects, once Darian turns invisible he has black and white vision but it's extremely cool to see things through his eyes. In some ways, it looks like the alien's vision from the 1998 movie "Pitch Black". Some minor flaws include too boring episodes or episodes that simply repeat, but everything else is exceptional. 9.5/10

The new Invisible Man series is excellent. The premise is very unique. Rather than the main character (Darien Fawkes, played by Vincent Ventresca) being turned invisible by a freak lab accident, it's really due to the Quicksilver gland put in his body. It has some interesting plot points to it. This series has great potential to be something great.

Somebody finally perfected the "guy with superpowers working for the government" premise. This is a near perfect blend of humor and action, with well-realized characters, sharp dialogue and intelligent plots. This is the show "Jake 2.0" and a bunch of others try to be, and it might have developed a bigger audience on a network.

A thief with a conscience tries to get out of life in prison by volunteering for an experiment. He winds up with the power to turn invisible and a dependency on a drug that keeps him from going psychotic. A low-rent government agency partners him with a guy who keeps a copy of "Lithium and You" in his van.

This show had me when the agents got their briefings through "tri dimensional data viewers", which turn out to be ViewMasters. There's even a reasonably plausible explanation for invisibility that also creates a cool visual effect. (Think about it: how do you make a guy turning invisible look interesting?)

The Invisible Man is a demonstration of a great show built on a classic foundation. Wonderful characters, humor, plot, atmosphere, the works. It and the Sci-Fi Channel's other top series, Farscape, are great examples of how SF is at it's core about telling good stories, some old some new, with the twists of imagination only sci-fi can bring.