Why Found-Again? I’ll admit it: I was one of probably thousands of people who sat crying at their desks the day Leonard Nimoy passed away. Seeing him as Spock on Star Trek: TOS when I was a kid was the first time I can remember seeing a character on TV who was valued because he was smart, and it made a big impression on me. (Due to my mother’s unwillingness to deal with my hair, Spock and I also had the same haircut when I was younger, which is a distinctly less heartwarming memory.)
But I also liked the show from my childhood that Nimoy hosted and narrated: In Search Of….
The Premise: It was a weekly look at various longstanding mysteries and outré subjects—and after I saw the Amityville episode sometime in the ’80s, I dumped all my dolls in the closet for quite a while. So it was with the aim to scare myself again that I picked up season 1 on DVD last week.
First and foremost, it’s part of my moral code that I will never, ever say a bad word about Leonard Nimoy. That said, let’s just say his wardrobe on In Search Of… seems to be an homage to Gary Collins’s psychic investigator character on The Sixth Sense TV drama from the same era.
It’s reminiscent of The Sixth Sense show in another way, too: a number of the segments are about psychic phenomena, and it becomes obvious that part of the ’70s was spent waiting for people to unlock the more arcane powers of the mind (by the same token, we can assume cynicism about this had set in by the time Ghostbusters came out). And a lot of the actual bits of evidence presented (specific famous photos of Bigfoot and of Nessie, for example) have since been officially discredited: the program now seems to work better as a time capsule than an exploration, even though we’re still not sure where Amelia Earhart/yetis/aliens/Atlantis might be.
The Verdict: I find myself unsure whether anyone not around for it the first time could enjoy this show, but if nothing else, you have the voice of Nimoy.
Well, you also have unintentional hilarity resulting from the show’s title (one episode ends up being “In Search of…Killer Bees,” which sounds like a terrible idea) and some incredibly dressed 1970s-era scientists. Someone should start a Tumblr with screenshots, because those guys are amazing.
Might go well with: The X-Files; The Sixth Sense; the chips and bean dip I was undoubtedly eating the first time I watched the show.
Next time: We all watch Highlander and feel better about our own dating skills.
