First I will say that I wanted to do this review because for me as a German this is one of the “typical American” episodes along with “Trial by Treehouse” and “Little Boy Lost”.
THE PLOT:
Kelly has lost a tennis match and blames Scotty for it. It comes to a fight between the two friends. The consequence: Kelly und Scotty separate. Scotty takes on a job at the space center explaining the American space program to high ranking politicians. Kelly goes on living his relaxed life as a tennis bum.
After Scotty apologized to Kelly for his behavior, they meet in a nightclub. Kelly brings Bronwyn with him, a girl that also works at the space center. Then Margo, a nightclub singer, appears, claiming that Scotty is her ex-husband owing her more than four thousand dollars of maintenance.
Bronwyn tells Scotty she knew about a possibility to get the money he needs. For this reason, he is invited to Bronwyn’s friend Bobby who tells him that all he has to do for the money is gain some secret information.
Scotty remarks too late that Bobbie – with the help of a brutal guy named Roger – has kidnapped Margo and knows that the whole story of Scotty and her is a lie. They are brought to a freight depot, where they are locked in a freezer wagon. The train begins to roll and Kelly begins his search for Scotty.
After the rescue, Kelly and Scotty are flown to the Rockadyne jet propulsion facility in the Santa Susanna Mountains where they have to keep Bobbie, Bronwyn and Roger from blowing up the whole area…
WHAT MAKES THIS EPISODE SO SPECIAL FOR ME:
It begins with the opening: The viewer having accompanied Kelly and Scotty through more than sixty adventures becomes a shocked spectator in a brutal fight between the two men who always seemed to be inseparable. More so: For years, Scotty has kept the secret of having been married and being a father. He also has nobody told about his debts.
The teaser reminds us that Kelly is a tennis player and Scotty is his trainer. This theme – which was supposed to be the basic idea of the series – has not been used for a long time. Although we don’t see Kelly actually play tennis, we see them after a tennis match. This is clever, because in the meantime, the subject of Kelly being a tennis pro seemed to be almost completely forgotten.
Additionally, we see Scotty in the role of a completely average man going to work in the morning and coming home in the evening. We have seen him in this kind of role before: it was in “Trial by Treehouse” where he played an average American husband and father working in a factory to feed his family.
It was a clever issue not to let the viewer know that all (the fight, the ex-wife, the debts) was a fake. The viewer is unable to believe in what he sees, but he has to believe it until the moment Margo is kidnapped and the whole story is explained.
A clever choice was made to let Pippa Scott play Bobbie as a lesbian. She is very convincing in her role as a woman talking coldly and heartless to men while she is rather lovely and friendly to Bronwyn who the spectator supposes to be her girlfriend.
And then there is this point why I liked (and do like) “I Spy” when I was a twelve-year-old child: “I Spy” is so “real” in many ways. Cars do really drive on the street and not in the studio in front of a screen. The same is to say about the stunts. Robert Culp did a part of the climbing at the end of the episode himself. This can be clearly seen in a lot of scenes.
FUNNY SCENES IN “APOLLO”:
The funniest scene in the whole episode is surely the one in Margo’s apartment. After a fight between Kelly and Roger (who has hidden behind the door), Kelly is held in check by an old lady with a rifle. The lady believes Kelly is a criminal because Roger has told her so, and she adds that Kelly is “too pretty for an honest living”. The whole situation is completely grotesque and overly funny.
The second funny scene is the last one. In the nightclub, Margo introduces the guests to Scotty, adding that he is – her fiancé! Then Kelly tells Scotty very ironically about normal life as a husband having work and children and a house. Finally, the two friends escape from the nightclub – and Scotty from a marriage.
SUMMARY:
“Apollo” mixes an intelligent story, a convincing red herring, good characters and spectacular stunt scenes to an episode staying in the viewers memory for a long time. The fight between Kelly and Scotty after the tennis match is one of the most intense scenes in the series; the portrait of Scotty as a man having an ex-wife and children adds mystery to his character for the time until the story is shown to be a fake. All these elements show for me that “I Spy” was – and still is – a unique and special series.
