Get Smart television Show Review Part 1

Initial Thoughts

            Having grown up surrounded with many nostalgic and very old items, many of which media items. it was no surprise that I fell in love with this 1960's T.V. show staring Edward Platt, Barbra Feldon, and Don Adams. This television sitcom won many awards and is probably the best James Bond knock off to date.

            Having seen every episode over the span of 5 seasons, and because I own all of the seasons as well, i felt that it was high time i reviewed my first Television Show. (Hence the late review). So does the James Bond knock off deserve all of the praise? Lets find out! this is the award winning T.V. Sitcom Get Smart!

Story: 14 out of 25

            This TV show did not change as much as other shows did, however it did have major writing shifts (especially during the transition between seasons 2 and 4), at the end of season 2 the writing Buck Henry quit the show, saying that "I believe I have run out of ideas for the show". After that the writers weren't all that consistent, changing allot more than it had been.

            Buck Henry

                        Buck Henry's writing style really differed from the writing styles of the later seasons. Buck Henry made the parody seem more serious, whilst keeping the humor and making fun of the original James Bond. He made Maxwell Smart seem allot more trained and sophisticated, still stupid but his attitude was allot more "down to business" than it is in the later seasons (especially season 5).

            Post-Henry

                        After Buck Henry left at the end of season 2, the style of the sitcom changed dramatically; the atmosphere became lighter, and made the situations seem less important and really emphasized the physical humor aspects that had been slightly established in the first 2 seasons.

            What does all this have to do with the story? Well, in this show the characters and situations contributed greatly to the overall story of an episode. In the first two seasons, the storyline of an episode would be liner and easy to follow, it would bring back the nostalgic values of the James Bond movies, yet make fun of them at the same time. However in seasons 4 and 5, the storyline and throwback to the original source material is put to the side, and physical comedy as well as stupidity comedy are the main focus. While this makes episodes more enjoyable and get more laughs, the storyline does suffer because of this tactic.

            Season 3 is less important in this aspect due to the fact that it included some styles of Buck Henry, yet the changes were beginning to emerge at that time.

  

            In short...

Seasons 1-2: More serious, Included a more strict comparison to the original James Bond (Its original base material). Instead of using lots of physical comedy, they used simple small changes in main character comparisons to get laughs.

Season 3: James Bond throw backs were still made however they were less frequent, and were more loosely adapted to the show. More bizarre and complex situations and plot devices were beginning to be introduced.

Seasons 4-5: Many Storyline and seriousness of the original James Bond has been dropped, many changes to the first two seasons of the show have been made, including (SPOILERS) Max and 99 being married, and having children. Many new plot devices have been introduced in numerous episodes. In addition many have been dropped, including the branch of Control known as the "Spies Behind The Iron Curtain" some of whom included Agent 44 (Season 1) and Agent 13 (Season 2-4).

Plot Devices: 25 out of 25

            This is one area that Get Smart does very well in, every episode has many different, and interesting plot devices, so many in fact that I just had to make an entirely separate section just to talk about them.

            For starters, the Plot Devices, like the Story, changed greatly after Buck Henry left the scene. And as I already mentioned, he focused more on story elements, than anything else. Once he left, the Plot Devices (while at the expensive of the story) was able to thrive in the 4th and 5th seasons of the show.

            In the 1st and 2nd season of the show, the plot devices that were introduced were more liner, and re-occurred in more episodes, Making for more room for the story. They also tied in more with the original James Bond movies, ripping off some iconic James Bond plot devices. In the 3rd season, it was Luke warm (for every aspect really) and so it is the season that really brings out the best of the entire series. and in the 4th and 5th season, the plot devices were very large and very different, in fact many of the devices established in the 1st and 2nd season were dropped completely, such as (SPOILERS) Agent 13 (He was in one episode in season 5) Agent 44, Fang, many elements of the apartment, And even Hymie the control robot was dropped in the final season of the show. Dropping these Devices left room to add many other *new* plot devices to make the show more *Hip* and *Refurbished*.

            Why all of the changes in the final seasons? well, it has greatly to do with the shows popularity. By this time, the James Bond knock off had been going for a steady 5 years, and coming up with new and interesting ideas to link back to the original source material was becoming very difficult. They hopped changing some of the elements of the show, and cutting the ties to its *Bond* background, perhaps the audience would take it to be its own show, rather than just a parody.

The final season was the season that really generated the best Plot Devices. This was the season that Really Tried to define the sitcom as its own show rather than just a knock-off. in this season we saw many different and quite interesting plot devices emerge, Probably the most significant one being (SPOILERS) Max and 99 having twins. However as i said before, there were some very interesting ideas that emerged in every episode so trying to list them all would take up allot of time and pages. However to sum them all up i can say that they have nothing to do with each other, they all are able to further push the story, and most importantly, generate many laughs.   

So this marks the half way point in my first ever T.V. show review, and the score so far is a...

39/50

Good

Without saying very much I can tell that over what we have covered, this show has lots to offer. And can pretty much please any audience depending on which seasons you purchase. If the story is most important to you, than you will want to buy the first 2 seasons of the sitcom, however if interesting ideas and comedy is what tickles your fancy, than the final seasons 4 and 5 are the way to go. But if you like both, no problem! just get the third season! it combines the best of them all!

Come back next time to catch the second part of this 2 part review of my Personal      Favorite Television Show!