I noticed that this particular two-part Hornet show based itself on stock elements from "Lost in Space" and "The Time Tunnel" (two other 20th-Fox produced series of that era). The spacesuits and computer equipment were all from those Irwin Allen series. Looks like they wanted to save a few bucks by writing a story that cashed in on the hardware from other series.
shareMore trivia - the character of Dr. Erik Mabuse is a long used super villian from Germany. He was a master of the underworld and was endowed, at times, with mystical/super science powers.
"It's just television, get over it!" - David Letterman
"villain"
Now if that bastard so much as twitches, I'm gonna blow him right to Mars.
I'm a huge fan of TGH TV series but I always felt that with this episode the show was jumping the shark.This was closer to a Batman TV show episode rather than a TGH episode.Van Williams said in an interview that by the time this episode was being filmed the producers were scrambling to save the show,so they were trying out new ideas.Had TGH continued along these lines I would have given up on the show.The three two-part episodes that the show did over the season were attempts by the producers to show ABC that the series needed to be done in a one-hour format & not a 30-minute format.According to Van ABC was willing to renew TGH for a second season but only as a half-hour show again.The producers,& Williams,felt that to confine the show to 30-minutes was a disservice to the series,so they declined to come back.I can see their point,as an hour show TGH could have developed all of the series regular characters in more depth,as well as the guest stars.It would also allow for more elaborate & sophisticated plotting for each week's storylines.
shareI'm sure the situation wasn't so simple. Note that the previous episode, "Hornet, Save Thyself," has no "Produced by..." credit at all, and the producer of this season-ending two-parter has no other credit on the series at all (neither do its writer or director). Powersroc, I presume you got all that from the interview with Van Williams in Starlog #135, October 1988, wherein he also said, "We were winning our time slot." As they were up against the second season of The Wild Wild West, a major hit for CBS, that can't possibly be true, and Cinefantastique's nearly all-Batman double issue (December 1993-January 1994), stated--when the major cross-over episode came up in its detailed coverage of the 1960s Batman series--that The Green Hornet's ratings had been weak and the cross-over was an attempt to draw the larger Bat-audience to it. Williams paradoxically admits this in that same interview, so I feel obligated to take everything else he said there with a very large grain of salt.
The GREEN HORNET Strikes Again!
This last 2 parter had a new producer and new direction. This along with the crossover on Batman was the ONLY 2 episodes NOT approved by George W. Trendel.