This series ran over two very short seasons. It consists of 3 double episodes (90 min; the pilot, the first episode and the last episode) and 9 single episodes (45 min).
The production values are very low by modern standards. Climbing scenes that were clearly created with the help of horizontal walls and weird hand-to-hand combat sometimes even remind me of the old Republic cliffhanger serials. But for a 1970s TV series this is normal. This one clearly had a much smaller budget than
Batman (1966), for example.
For fans of the comic or of the Spider-Man films, it is important to understand that this is not an adaptation of the original story so much as an independent detective TV series that is inspired by it and borrows selectively from it.
In this series, Peter Parker is a university student as well as a freelance photographer. MJ does not exist, freeing Peter up for the romance of the day in his dual roles as himself and as Spider-Man. Newspaper boss J. Jonah Jameson is much more likeable than usual. In fact, he is quite similar to Bewitched's Larry Tate, and in the pilot is even played by the same actor. Moreover, his sassy secretary Rita really knows how to handle this choleric. Also, police chief Captain Barbera plays an important recurring role. Perhaps most important: There are no supervillains here, just more or less spectacular criminal cases.
Even for those of us without childhood memories of this series, it may still be worth a look. I enjoyed it overall, although I really found the pacing too slow.
