Editor's Note

Our reviews of Get Smart: Season One (published September 3rd, 2008), Get Smart (Blu-Ray) (published November 10th, 2008), Get Smart's Bruce And Lloyd Out Of Control (published August 6th, 2008), and Get Smart: Two-Disc Special Edition (published November 13th, 2008) are also available.

The Charge

The Smarts are back in control.

The Case

And who asked them back? Certainly not television audiences who thankfully ignored this trash-pile in 1995, leading to the series being mercifully euthanized. Don't be suckered into thinking this is the original series, or entertaining for that matter.

The new show brings back original Get Smart alumni Don Adams and Barbara Feldon as Maxwell Smart and Agent 99. These days Smart is the Chief of CONTROL, the covert spy agency, and 99 is a congresswoman. Assuming their former mantle as crime-fighting super-agents is Zach (Andy Dick) and Agent 66 (Elaine Hendrix). Zach also happens to be the offspring of Maxwell and 99 and takes after his dad—he's a bumbling jackass. Agent 66 is the competent and bosomy half of the partnership. Throughout the seven episodes that make up the entire series, our two heroes battle the sinister KAOS corporation by infiltrating a casino, going undercover as rock musicians, deep-sixing the launch of a nuclear missile and thwarting a human organ black-market ring. And, gods be praised, that is the end of this ill-advised relaunch of the classic spy series.

Allow me to break it down for you. There is but one reason this loathsome and forgettable piece of broadcast history is seeing the light of day on optical disc and that's Steve Carell's forthcoming big-screen Get Smart adaptation. And that's it. This series should never have been green-lit in 1995 in the first place, much less burned onto DVD and shoveled onto store shelves in time for the film's opening.

It is not funny in the least. The comedy corny, sophomoric and lazy—case in point, the "humorous" opening sequence with the various stars driving into a car wash that's actually the entrance to the CONTROL headquarters and wouldn't you know it, Andy Dick, that silly goose, is soaked and gets on the secret elevator covered in suds—and, worst of all, features weaksauce canned laughter, which must have developed sentience during the filming of the show because it ultimately seemed as bored and disinterested in the jokes as I was.

Then there's Andy Dick, the centerpiece of the series. I don't know how you might feel about him, but I find the guy as funny as a friction burn and twice as irritating. His goofy shtick wears out its welcome approximately 12 seconds after its debut. From the on, friends, it's misery. Even if you're hard up for some television nostalgia, the sight of Adams and Feldon embarrassing themselves so thoroughly in this refuse will you're better served by simply staring at 40-year-old TV Guides.

The full frame/2.0 stereo technical treatment makes the show look just like it did in 1995. Not a compliment. A bizarre offering of two NewsRadio and T.J. Hooker "minisodes" (abbreviated episodes) and some old trailers (Casino Royale?) is it for extras.

This disc is a waste of raw materials.

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