It's hard to believe that
The Flash TV series is now 20 years old. It's also pretty hard to believe there was a
Flash TV series ever, let alone in 1990. But perhaps the most unbelievable aspect is that this 1990
Flash TV series was somehow pretty great. John Wesley Shipp was am excellent Barry Allen, delivering heroic quips with an exceptionally square jaw. The show wasn't totally accurate to the original
Flash comics, but still far moreso than later superhero series like
Smallville or
Birds of Prey would eventually be. It ran for only one season but made it a full 22 episodes, some of which starred classic Flash baddies like Mirror Master and the Trickster. And it was scored by Danny Elfman before we realized his music almost always sounds exactly the same.
Of course,
The Flash TV series wasn't perfect. It was actually pretty goddamned goofy a lot of the time. But sometimes the show wallowed in its comic book/'90s TV silliness, and sometimes it transcended those limitations to be pretty awesome indeed. So slow down and take a minute to relieve the five best
Flash TV episodes... and the five most ridiculous.
THE MOST RIDICULOUS:
5) Out of Control
From the pilot episode forward it's obvious that The Flash and Tina McGee, his doctor, should date, and Dr. Carl Tanner is just one character that keeps them apart. This old flame of Dr. McGee develops a skin-melting drug and experiments on the homeless, and the results ain't pretty. After trying his drug himself, Tanner runs rampant across the city as a brutish mutant, or what one might call a Hulked-out Ted Nugent. It's genetic reorganization gone totally awry.
Shaking off the beating, The Flash dazes The Nuge, wrapping the monster in fencing and returning Tanner to his old nerdy self.
4) Ghost in the Machine
After escaping the Sandman-esque vigilante Nightshade, The Ghost undergoes cryogenic freezing in 1955 and emerges in '90, unscathed by the decades, and his pompadour still intact. He recruits a trio of thugs wowed by his button-mashing mastery at the local arcade, promising control of "The Future!"
Naturally, The Flash learns of his machinations, and bands with The Ghost's aforementioned adversary, now retired, to thwart the villain. Tracking the bad guy is easy, but the fight is not -- not interesting, specifically. It's more like an S&M event, with The Flash screaming as The Ghost warps his mind with provocative images, such as detonation of a nuclear bomb. He regains control, though, when Nightshade hits the scene, saying "Don't touch that dial" as he subdues the villain.
3) Done with Mirrors
In the comics, Mirror Master is a masked supervillian and, of course, well-versed in mirror trickery. But here Sam Scudder is a suave, mullet-sporting punk armed with holograms. What's more, David Cassidy assumes the role, carrying out a crystal heist at S.T.A.R. Labs West with the help of a blonde femme fatale, who later betrays him. As Barry and the blonde track down Scudder, Barry goes undercover as Dr. Zoom, alleged inventor of The Flash, the videogame, the laser disc and the microwave -- not to mention that Italian-Jamaican-Russian-French accent.
The ending is a little uneventful, as McGee uses giant floodlights to blind the Mirror Master and expose him among the decoys. Watching The Flash knockout Cassidy is fairly entertaining, however.
2) Alpha
This episode was promising until it became a poor man's
Terminator. Balking at her assassin directive, Alpha, a female android, escapes the lab of the National Scientific Intelligence Agency, and overnight she takes a job at S.T.A.R. Labs. She later meets Barry at the Apocalypse Wow nightclub, where "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" is a hot-ass track, to which Barry cannot shake at all.
NSIA agents, after several failed attempts to capture Alpha, unleash their heavy Ah-nold prototype, Omega, to rein in the fugitive. In their first encounter, though, The Flash jams a pair of live wires into the bulky android ... and its head explodes.
TV androids of the early '90s, folks. What can you do?
1) Child's Play
The Fastest Man Alive is also a guitar virtuoso.He takes on a cult of neo-hippies, thwarting a Jim Morrison, and that chick that plays Ari Gold's wife in
Entourage. The leader of the cult, like other villains, wants to expose the entire city to a hallucinogenic drug, or Blue Paradise, an addictive inhalant bearing kaleidoscopic side effects. Not long after handling a pair of runaway kids and strung-out disciples, The Flash is poisoned in the cult headquarters. However, a dose of Blue Paradise accelerates his molecules in way that sends him spiraling through a wall like an apparition.
It's interesting, but not as much as the moment when The Flash picks up an electric guitar. Like Yngwie Malmsteen, he rips an ear-shattering solo and brings the cult to its knees.
The best is yet to come -- because it's on the next page.
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