30 Days Of Adam Adamant #14

[swordznsorcery]

28. Most surprising moment

It's not really a show that does surprising, but there is one bit that I think was probably supposed to be. It's certainly a huge surprise for Adam, but not to anybody who has watched as much television as I have! So I have to wonder if it was ever intended to be truly surprising to the audience. It's difficult to judge from nearly fifty years on.

In the pilot episode, we learn that Adam was frozen in his block of carbonite iceberg or whatever, by his deadly nemesis, after being betrayed by the love of his life. Her name is Louise, and she's revealed to have been in league with the enemy all along (that in itself might have been a nice surprise, had we met her for more than ten seconds prior to the revelation!) In one of the series two episodes, "Black Echo", Adam meets an ancient woman lurking in an old stately home; and, yes, it's Louise. Adam is of course shaken to the core by her appearance. He assumed her long dead, along with everybody else he used to know. However I think a modern viewer is pretty much inured to this kind of thing. We've become too familiar with every cliché. In the sixties some of these things weren't clichés yet of course; but still it's hard to see it as a surprise. A good scene, but really not a surprise.