Amazing!
Summary
While you can excuse some of the effects as a byproduct of the era in which the series was made, this show has some great storylines, one of the most accurate Spider-Man live-action costumes, and an appealing lead performance by Nicholas Hammond.
Plot: Grad student Peter Parker (Nicholas Hammond) takes on the criminal underworld as your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Review: Much like the Incredible Hulk series from the same era, I never watched the Amazing Spider-Man when it aired. Then again, I was a baby when it was on television, and TV was never my thing growing up. Unlike the Hulk series, though, I had at least seen images and knew who Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby were. Nicholas Hammond? With all due respect to Mr. Hammond, I didn’t know him before watching the show.
Well, that was my loss, because this series is, in one word, terrific. It lasted only 14 episodes (13 plus the pilot), which is a shame, because I would have loved to have seen them explore more with Hammond’s Spider-Man, and I feel the series was hitting its stride before it ended. Isn’t that always the way, though?
Let’s start with Spider-Man himself. The origin is the same (without Uncle Ben, so Peter’s just a good guy from the start), and I love how he just gets his powers and decides to be a hero immediately, without the “with great power comes great responsibility” thing. Nicholas Hammond is earnest, intelligent and heroic in the lead role, which is what you want from a Peter Parker portrayal. Spider-Man’s costume looks awesome, especially considering we’re talking the late 70s here; he has the webbing, the wall-crawling, and a version of the spider-sense (instead of danger to himself, he can sense bad things happening, almost like ESP). His eyes glow a nifty red/blue (and then white later), and he sees the images in an exposed negative fashion, which is a cool effect.
Do not expect to see Spider-Man’s rogues gallery, though – apart from a clones episode (one of the best of the series), there are no nods to Spider-Man’s nemesis. That’s fine, as the effects probably would have been cheesy, and besides, if you read Spider-Man comics, he takes on thugs as well as high-powered criminals. The series has some notable appearances, including a very young Madeline Stowe, Ted Danson, Lloyd Bochner, Morgan Fairchild, Andrew Robinson, Theodore Bikel, Geoffrey Lewis, and Gavin O’Herilihy. The supporting cast is excellent, with Robert F. Simon as J. Jonah Jameson and Chip Fields as Rita Conway (Gloria Grant, really), as the standouts.
For the episodes themselves, there are no real dogs. The best ones, in my opinion, are The Deadly Dust (where campus kids build an atomic bomb just to prove they can), The Kirkwood Haunting (where Spider-Man tries to expose a fraudulent spiritualist) and Wolfpack (where he takes on a corrupt industrialist with a mind-controlling spray). The series ends with Spider-Man in Hong Kong, showing how ambitious the show was getting before it ended. It would have been cool to see what other adventures they would have cooked up for ‘ole Spidey.
As for criticisms, I have few. The wall-crawling scenes became repetitive (as they happened at least twice an episode), and there were no Spider-Man swinging scenes (assuming the budget couldn’t afford it). The pacing got a little draggy at times, and it felt like some of the stories were getting drawn out a bit too much to hit the 40-minute+ run time. However, that’s about it; this show has very few flaws, especially if you’re a Spider-Man fan.
I urge you, if you have no problems watching 70s television shows and don’t get put off by lower budgets or aged effects, to give this series a shot. Nicholas Hammond is great, the supporting cast is there, the stories are good, and you get some Spider-Man action in every episode. For my money’s worth, that’s all I can ask for.