BLACK SCORPION

Superhero capers in Angel City

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

Darcy Walker is a cop in the City of Angels, where the Mayor is corrupt and the police force are inept. By night, she doubles as Black Scorpion, a female vigilante who can do behind her mask what she can't do behind her badge. When the Mayor launches a new armed taskforce under the command of a twisted commander, a masked villain with a machine gun for an arm and the name Firearm targets the politician for going back on his word about arming all civilians.

In the patheon of superheroes, the name Black Scorpion will be lost somewhere way down at the lower ends of the list. This is because she is a creation of the Roger Corman school of low-budget quota quickies. She first appeared in a couple of TV movies and now graduates, if that's the right turn, to a full series all of her own. It's very easy to be sniffy about low budget efforts, but the reason about being sniffy with this opening episode isn't so much the budget as where the budget has been spent, or rather more accurately where it hasn't been spent. This is mainly the script. BLACK SCORPION appears to have been moulded in the spirit of the (television) BATMAN series. This is not necessarily a bad thing since both that show and the WONDER WOMAN show had great success with their primary-coloured, cartoony plots and action, but they were back in the 60s and 70s. By 2001, such treatment of the genre should have been well past its sell by date. We'd already had a decade of the darker doings of Tim Burton's incarnation of the Dark Knight by this time. Judging by this opening episode, it certainly is oaut of date.

The Black Scorpion's outfit is the most impractical crime fighting garb ever, consisting of a leather leotard, fishnets and thigh length boots. The villain is a man with a gun extenion glove fitted over his hand (even Martin Kove deserves better) and the plot makes very little sense, not least because the Mayor has clearly hired a man with severe mental issues to act as his military aide (though this has taken on less of a problematic air following more recent Presidential appointments. The dialogue everyone is required to spout is laughable at best and both Darcy and her new partner/love interest Rafferty are pretty dull at best. The less said about the ineffective police chief and his two 'comedy' sidekicks the better.

The car, at least, is cool although it does come with a mechanic sidekick who also inspires no confidence and has his own nagging girlfriend to make matters just that little bit worse.

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WAVE GOODBYE

The Mayor is dumping untreated toxic waste into Angel Bay to finance his re-election campaign. The spill affects a marine researcher, giving her power over the sea and weather. Her lab assitants become toxin spitting acolytes. She sets out to force the Mayor to clean up the bay, even if she has to set the largest and most destructive hurricane ever seen on the city.

There is some value in a villain who has echoes of Poison Ivy in her origin, even though her powers are completely different. Her mission remains the fight for the environment and the greedy individuals who will poision it for their own enrichment.

Beyond that, however, the script is not good the acting from the principals is fine, but the supporting cast are just living cartoons and the action remains threadbare with horribly amateurish fight sequences.

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BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

When a photojournalist tries to trick Black Scorpion into revealing her identity in a photograph, she accidentally blinds him with the ring power. One experimental laser surgery later, he becomes Flashpoint and intends to blind the entire city unless Black Scorpion reveals her identity on the five o'clock news.

Facing off against a villain of her own making (albeit inadvertent) provides just a hint of depth to this episode. Subplots about Argyle and his girlfriend's superhero costume shop and the superior officer's failing marriage don't help matters at all. The inept pair of colleagues Darcy is saddled with remain an embarassment.

The villain's revenge plot also doesn't make sense as it involves stealing a diamond that is ridiculously more valuable than his revelation of Black Scorpion's identity could ever be to him. Still, it is possible that the younger audience may be entertained by this nonsense and the dads may still be entertained by the heroine's ridiculous costume.

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HOME, SWEET HOMELESS

At a time where the Mayor tasks the police to remove the homeless from the streets, Darcy learns that Aftershock, a villain with the power to create earthquakes, is not dead as suspected after their last encounter, but is living amongst the displaced people.

It is fair to assume that the last meeting between Aftershock and Black Scorpion took place during one of the two TV movies that predated the series, since the villain's story is told through a series of flashbacks, stock footage and updated shots of Michelle Lintel as Black Scorpion. It's also safe to assume they share the same seamstress Aftershock's costume is just as impractical as the heroine's. Once established, Aftershock immediately sets about her old scheme of creating one of the largest earthquakes ever felt in or der to flatten the city above and allow the homeless to emerge to take over.

Bringing the plight of the homeless to the fore is the only positive for this episode. Bringing back an old villain means there has to be an introductory remembering what was forgotten through amnesia infodump, which gets things off to a poor start. That's followed up by a fight with supposed martial artists that is embarrassingly bad and then some plotting that is even more embarrassing. The hideous dialogue is just the decorative straw for the camel's back.

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LOVE BURNS

Darcy is envious of her partner's ability to pick up dates, so she is delighted when she meets a handsome and brave fireman with the unlikely name of Burns. An accident at a powerplant turns her firefighter into a firestarter and he determines to wipe out the whole city in vengeance.

This episode tries to emulate the Batman and Catwoman frisson from BATMAN RETURNS, but fails utterly (of course). The introduction of the love interests taxes the acting abilities of all involved a bit too far and, in the end, Black Scorpion's takedown of her lover turned nemesis is almost perfunctory, which is even more notable since the trained crimefighter is taken out by two people in this episode in fair fights. That's got to sting.

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OUT OF THIN AIR

Professor Phoenix resurrects an old adversary of Black Scorpion's, Breathtaker, in order to further his study of the criminal mind. At the same time, members of the Angel City Police Department start to suffer disturbing hallucinations.

Holy acting icon, Batman! Breathtaker is played by non-other than the original dayglo knight himself, Adam West. This might explain why Phoenix's nubile assistant immediately falls under his spell. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the audience since the star's acting is covered by a gas mask for a large part of the proceedings and his villain (returning from one of the original TV movies) is not particularly exciting. His plan to send the city insane with hallucinations caused by a gas mixed in with the city police vehicles' fuel is clever in its delivery system, but is otherwise uninteresting, much like the hallucinations that both Darcy and Rafferty suffer, inevitably involving each other.

The link in tone between BLACK SCORPION and TV's original BATMAN series is underscored by the star villain, but there is nothing of the older show's quality on display.

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NO STONE UNTURNED

Minerva Stone suffers from a skin condition that she can temporarily reverse with water from a magical spring. As Medusa, she possesses a 'plaster blaster' that allows her to turn all the men who reject her advances into statues. Darcy's partner Rafferty is her next target.

Matters go from bad to worse. Whilst there is some mileage in having a villainess whose grudge is male arrogance and indifference, nothing else about this episode improves on anything that has gone before and is narratively less coherent. Black Scorpion is beaten by Medusa's two huge minions quite easily, but later on is able to beat them up just as easily as they took her out. The villain has her revenge on the city ready to go, but fails to press the plunger on any of the opportunities she is given. The fight sequences are lamentable, but the hallucination sequences are worse.

And let's not even start on the body shaming, implied homophobia and bachelor auction. It was an earlier time.

CRIME TIME

Unjustly imprisoned, Clockwise has used his time in jail to become a master of time and now he plans to turn the population of Angel City into prematurely aged pensioners.

The original Riddler, Frank Gorshin, adds some manic energy to this episode, but it's not enough to lift the show anywhere near watchable. When the sidekicks are called Big Hand (tall and strong), Little Hand (a little person) and Hourglass (pneumatic female), you know you're in trouble.The time-based puns only make bad things worse.

If there's anything in here worth considering, it is the fact that incarcerating the innocent only turns them into supercriminals.

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NO SWEAT

Aerobicide uses her exclusive exercise club to identify women with rich husbands who can be exercised to death. This, though, is just the first step in a plan to take over the city by robbing men of their testosterone.

Wow, a story that manages to be sexist to both genders at the same time. That's quite an accomplishment. Once again, the story centres on men's mistreatment of women, but throws in the fact that women are either gold digging harlots or incessant nags. It also throws in an awful lot of shapely women stripped down to the leotards. Apparently, only attractive people exercise.

Black Scorpion gets beat down twice by the villain this time around, which is a surprise, but there's an explanation for that. It's not a surprising or good explanation, but it is an explanation.

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AN OFFICER AND A PRANKSTER

Professor Phoenix resurrects dead supervillain the Gangster Prankster, who also happens to be Argyle's brother and the reason he ended up in prison in the first place. The professor has placed a limiter on the Gangster Prankster so he can do no harm. The Mayor decides to put the new citizen on the police payroll, but can a limiter overcome inherent behaviour forever?

There is the potential here for an examination of societal limits against natural instincts in the Gangster Prankster's situation. There's also scope for some sibling angst as Argyle is caught between doing right by his brother and just doing right. Both of these are, of course, ignored for buffoonery and sub-comic book capers that are even more cartoonish than usual thanks to the Gangster Prankster's methods of policing, at least until the inevitable happens and the limiter is damaged. Though clearly an homage to The Joker, this villain is not in the same league.

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LIFE'S A GAS

A fan of the supervillain Breathtaker, new wannabe bad guy Pollutia falls foul of a secret compound and becomes able to alternate between cloud of gas and fully corporeal woman, makign it that much harder for Black Scorpion to kick her ass.

Adam West is back as the now-incarcerated Breathtake, but is perversely given more screen time as he doesn't wear the helmet that obscured him so much the last time around. Here, he gets to play the supervillain as a Hannibal Lecter type figure, locked up but still affecting the world through proxy followers and, frankly, he's needed since the villain Pollutia is as uninteresting as most of the others put forward by this show. She also has two useless sidekicks, as pretty much all the others have had.

There is a theme in the show of villains being created from well-meaning scientists who are ignored and then suffer a mishap, very much like Poison Ivy in the DC universe, and once again an environmental slant is involved, this time the pollution of the air in the city. That said, it has no depth or meaning to it.

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ROSES ARE RED, YOU'RE DEAD

It's Valentine's Day and a villain named Greenthumb is threatening to release a deadly pollen, all in the name of winning back his first love, who now just happens to work for the Mayor.

The relationships between Darcy and Rafferty and Argyle and Tender Lovin' are brought front and centre by this Valentine-themed episode. This is not a good thing. These relationships are almost as painful to watch as the dialogue is painful to hear.

The villain, Greenthumb, has a large green thumb and a power over plants, but is otherwise painfully uninteresting, even when we get an extended flashback to why he hates love and lovers.

Women don't come out of it generally looking well since the Mayor's squeeze is perfectly happy to dump her current beau just as soon as someone more powerful comes along.

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FIRE AND BRIMSTONE

There's a villainous Cupid making people fall in love. To catch him, Darcy and Rafferty must pretend to be lovers. This causing friction with their ex-partners Inferno and Medusa.

Bringing back two old villains allows for the re-use of previous footage, if only to explain why they aren't as dead as they appeared to be at the end of their respective episodes. This makes the episode look even cheaper and more threadbare than usual (and we didn't think that was possible).

This is the second episode in a row that leans hard on the love interest between the leads, but since we have no investment in that because of their wooden characters and unimpressive acting, this doesn't provide any depth to the proceedings.

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VIRTUAL VICE

The Mayor rejects a proposal to have the poor live in a virtual paradise. The scientist responsible then suffers from an overload of her own equipment and becomes Mindbender. She traps the Mayor and Darcy's co-workers in a virtual world where they get to fight in a gladiatorial arena.

Virtual reality proves to be an interesting plot point way ahead of its time. The virtual world, however, isn't interesting at all. This is despite the presence of THE INCREDIBLE HULK himself Lou Ferrigno as a fighter in the arena. Ferrigno doesn't have to do very much and adds very little to the scenes he is in.

Argyle's hacking into the system to provide support to Darcy gets her out of corner, though it isn't explained how he is able to program the Black Scorpion's external appearance and skills into the existing virtual reality system with such ease and speed. The fate of the villains does seem a little bit cruel at the end.

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BAD SPORT

Rafferty's ice hockey playing pal is paralysed by a collision orchestrated by his jealous teammates. One armoured exoskeleton later and he is Slapshot, determined to take revenge on those who betrayed him, including the fans.

Putting a plot in front of an ice hockey arena freshens things up just a little bit, but otherwise this is just the same old, same old. Substandard fights, Scorpion getting knocked out a lot and a remote control that has to be got hold of before an arena is destroyed. Ho hum.

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KISS OF DEATH

Darcy reports her new fellow female police officer for excessive force. One unfortunate incident later and that officer is using poisoned lipstick to kill off criminals all over the place.

It's rather funny that Darcy continues to have a ridiculous crush on Rafferty in this show when he acts like such a complete and total jackass. His reaction to Darcy doing the right thing is akin to that of someone challenging Judas over his kissing of Jesus in Gethsemane. Then again, so little about this show makes any sense that it's just one to add to the list.

The Angel of Death is given a striking look, but has very little else about her. When she takes out the Sanitation Psycho, she effectively kills a man who just wants to make his city clean. After that, it's a quick trip to the prison to bring out a load of the old villains for cameo appearances.

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HE WHO LAUGHS LAST

The Gangster Prankster frames his brother Argyle for the theft of the Mayor's stretched limo. He then convinces him that Tender Lovin' has a sugar daddy, so Argyle immediately breaks them all out of prison and goes along with the Prankster's plan to kill anyone who laughs.

There's a hint of THE KING OF COMEDY about this tale as the Gangster Prankster takes offence to a stand up comic who is mocking him and sets about taking his revenge. Considering how unfunny the stand up routine is, it's hard to imagine why anyone would get upset. The speed with which Argyle believes his girlfriend is betraying him on the say so of villains is a little offensive and the speed with which he manufactures the breakout should be enough to have the whole prison system overhauled.

Aside from that, it's the usual nonsense. Argyle goes along with his brother's schemes and risks the deaths of millions and yet is forgiven at the end.

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POWER PLAY

An accident with an electric chair sees the deputy chair turned into a power-hungry villain called Stunner with a plan to electrocute the whole city.

Setting a 'comedy' superhero story around an instrument of the death penalty isn't so much skirting the boundary of good taste as leaping over it and running into the interior. That tastelessness aside, there's almost nothing here to mark the episode out from any of the others, which means there's little to recommend at all.

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PHOTO FINISH

Flashpoint is broken out of prison and reveals Black Scorpion's true identity to the world. In a desperate measure, Darcy has herself cloned, but the copy is imperfect and decides that Angel City isn't big enough for two Black Scorpions.

Considering that her family is dead and Argyle is her only friend, Darcy doesn't exactly have a lot of people to protect with her secret identity, so cloning herself seems a pretty extreme length to go to so she and Black Widow can be seen in the same place. And that's before we consider all the trouble caused by the people Professor Phoenix has resurrected to date.

After that, it's all pretty straightforward stuff, including the final sacrifice that proves to be no surprise to anyone.

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FACE THE MUSIC

Desperate not to lose the election, Mayor Worth recruits the terrible band Bleeding Eardrums and hooks them up with a subsonic device that makes kids go criminal when listening to the music. As he denounces the violence, more youths buy the CDs.

Fear of music's effects on the younger generation has been around almost as long as music itself. It's hard to make an argument for that as a theme to this episode as having a theme suggests some level of depth, which is not something that can be said of this show. Instead, we get a barely coherent storyline and star of 80s erotic thrillers Shannon Whirry as Vox Populi, a musician who just happens to have a stun-shot firing guitar and martial arts moves.

It's fair to say that the music isn't as bad as some we've heard from actual musicians.

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ZODIAC ATTACK: Part 1

TV psychic Professor Prophet's show is on the way out, so he predicts that Angel City will be attacked by all four elements. These turn out to be Aftershock (Earth), Inferno (Fire), Breathtaker (Air) and Hurricane (Water). Black Scorpion has defeated them all individually, but can she stand up to their powers combined?

A two-part big finale from the show and it's inevitable that it gathers together villains from the past rather than coming up with something new. The action involves all the stock footage destruction the producers can lay hands on (including all the shots they have used so many times in the show before) and some pretty lacklustre fights between five people in a single room. It is, expectedly, underwhelming, but there is one last episode to come that could change things.

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ZODIAC ATTACK: Part 2

Darcy has quit the force and abandoned her alternative persona of Black Scorpion. Instead, she wants to pursue her relationship with her ex-partner Rafferty even as four major villains continue to ravage the city. This leads Argyle to take drastic action.

The desire to be a hero balanced against the desire to live a long and decent life are pitted against each other as Darcy struggles with what it actually means to be the Black Scorpion. Her resurrected father (24 hour engagement only) represents the former as he served the city well, but died for it, leaving her alone. It's obvious how all of this is going to work out and there is a convenient way to get rid of all the villains that somehow the only-recently revived parent immediately hits upon, but the Black Scorpion never discovered.

It's an attempt at emotional depth, which is to be lauded, but it's too little and far too late as every other aspect of the finale fails on even the simplest of levels. The final scene shows the situation reset for a second season that thankfully would never come.

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SERIES OVERVIEW

Roger Corman is famous for having built a studio on cheap productions and quota quickies, hiring inexperienced talented people for pennies and selling the results for very little more. This is a business model that has given him a longevity that others might envy and has also, from time to time, produced interesting work.

BLACK SCORPION is not amongst that interesting work. If there is a single word to describe this show then that word might be 'lame'. on virtually every level, the show fails, quite often from not really trying to be better. The characters are lame. Darcy Walker is an uninteresting, underwritten main character and isn't helped by being played by Michelle Lintel, who fails to do anything other than fit the leather leotard, knee-high boots and mask combo that is the worst superhero costume of all time. And she is the best thing about the show. Her partner, Steve Rafferty changes to be whatever the week's script needs him to be and never embodies the qualities that would make him feel like a believable love interest for either the cop or the vigilante. There is zero heat between them. This is not a Batman/Catwoman scenario. All the other regular characters are just horrible 'comedy' caricatures, from the venal mayor and his braindead bimbo secretary to borderline racist Argyle and Tender Lovin'. The less said about the incomptent Captain and fellow officers the better.

The show tries for a 60s BATMAN or 90s WONDER WOMAN camp comedy vibe, but misses both by the proverbial country mile. Even borrowing actors from better shows, such as Adam West, Frank Gorshin and Lou Ferrigno, only remind us how much better those other shows were. It is perhaps possible to kindly write off the show as being aimed at the younger audience, but the humour is often pitched at a more adult level.

And then there is the 'action'. Lame doesn't even begin to cover it. A couple of high kicks in a confined space usually covers the fight scenes. The same cop car smashes are shown week in and week out and the Scorpionmobile (yes, that's what it's called) changes its appearance in only two locations time and time again. Reusing expensive or background footage isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but rarely has it been so extensively deployed as it is here.

To find anything to enjoy in BLACK SCORPION you would have to be the least discriminating audience and getting through the entire season is something of a grind. Fortunately, there was only the one and we did it so that you don't have to.

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