A Man Called Sloane

Robert Conrad's best depiction of a secret agent was in Wild Wild West, when he was leaner, but not meaner. Playing a modern-day James Bond in this series, Conrad seems miscast. He has none of the charm or the body to make the acrobatics here look credible. Would you believe (Sorry about that, Max!) Conrad fighting karate-crazy girls and ninjas, flying through the air with pulley-aided strong cords, out-of-this-world weaponry, rather than usual fare of fisticuffs against scruffy ruffians (as it was on West)? Sure there were gadgets and explosions in West, but at least they made some sort of sense. He wasn't hip enough to pull this off but to its credit, the show is campy.

This show wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good. I was a big fan of The Wild Wild West and the spy genre in general, so i had high hopes for this series when it premiered. Sadly, it was underwhelming. There were occasional moments, but I kept waiting for something cool to happen. Unfortunately, it was severely limited by budget and mediocre writing.

Robert Conrad was OK in the role, but it lacked depth and he seemed to be going through he motions. Ji-Tu Cumbuka was fairly interesting as the reformed henchman turned partner, Torque, with his metal hand, of multiple uses. Otherwise, it was pretty bland. KARTEL never seemed that menacing and there wasn't much scope to the series, not to mention it was played a little too tongue-in-cheek.

It was a nice idea, but poorly executed and probably would have been better suited for the 60's.

The easiest way to describe the show is that Fred Silverman of NBC had a say in the production, and it was another formulaic action adventure program under his reign that lacked charisma.

A classic example of what went wrong with the show was that the protagonists had an AI system that would provide information by speaking as well presenting video. In one episode, the computer explains what will happen if the villains use a nuclear weapon by showing clips of nuclear explosion. Many people may turned the channel after that scene.

Michele Carey was working on and off as an actress during this period of her career. Concentrating on taking care of her teenage son, she was called by her good friend Robert Conrad to do the voice over for the super computer ELFIE.

Maybe Conrad was onto something as I for one would love to have her do my GPS and Google voice overs.

Sadly, we lost Michele this past November at the age of 75.