"Captain Cold" - "The Flash S01E17 Review

No, it isn't Wentworth Miller. And it isn't Grant Gustin. Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesterday: specifically, November 1, 1990. 24 years before The CW brings the Flash back to TV. The Michael Keaton Batman movie by Tim Burton had made superheroes big again, and Superman: The Movie didn't hurt. For some reason, CBS had glommed onto Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo as the up-and-coming producers of superhero shows. Since Batman and Superman were already spoken for, Bilson and De Meo went to DC and got the rights to do Flash.

One of the odd things is that they decided to transpose some of the current exploits of the comic book Flash, the former Kid Flash known as Wally West. They cast the black-haired John Wesley Shipp as the blonde-haired Barry Allen, although he didn't look much like the red-haired Wally West, either. They also thought he should be more hip, and had apparently seen a lot of Miami Vice. Not to mention Burton's art deco style, which they transferred onto The Flash so it often looked like it took place in the 30s.

But the origin is the same as Barry's in the comic books: he's a police scientist working late, gets hits by electrified chemicals, and gets superspeed. Barry meets with Tina McGee of STAR Labs, and she helps him develop his new powers. He dons a special costume and goes out as an initially-invisible crime-fighting vigilante.

Part of the problem with the show is that the then state-of-the-art special effects were expensive. The velour-looking suit was pricey, and the super-speed effects weren't cheap. To keep the costs down, CBS initially went with relatively "normal" bad guys: gangsters and mad scientists. Later they realized that Flash's "rogues gallery" was part of the reason for the character's popularity, and brought in the Ghost, Trickster, Mirror Master, and... the title character of this episode, Captain Cold.

Part of it was that unlike the 2014 version, there were no real "metas" for Flash to fight. This meant he went up against normal criminals originally, and then bad guy humans with gimmicks. Fighting villains with super-guns and gizmos worked in the comics--barely--but on the show Flash spent a lot of time talking when he should have been running. Yes, Flash was a noob hero early on. But there was never any real development of the character power-wise. He typically fell into obvious traps and got taken out like an amateur. He did it early on, he did it later on.

Now, the current Flash creative team has brought in most of the original show's cast. John Wesley Shipp plays Barry's father as well as another Earth's Flash. Amanda Pays plays a different version of Tina McGee. Alex Desert had a brief role as an alternate Earth police chief. Heck Vito D'Ambrosio (Bellows) plays Central City's mayor turned criminal. And now we have the "Earth-90" (i.e., 1990) Flash in the current CWVerse Crossover that starts December 9.

As we start "Captain Cold", four criminals are gathered at the St. Diogenes Social Club. and discussing out-of-town punk Jimmy Swain (Jeffrey Combs). It's summer and they're all complaining about the heat. An albino man (Michael Champion) claiming to be an AC repairman shows up and assures them that cool is his specialty.

Later, Barry is called to the crime scene and discovers the four criminals are frozen solid. A reporter, Terri Kronenberg (Lisa Darr) asks for an exclusive and is doing her best Lois Lane impersonation. Barry doesn't fall for Terri's dubious charms and has the show's comic relief cops, Bellows and Murphy, take her away.

The aforementioned Jimmy Swain is congratulating the albino killer on his style cleaning house. Jimmy offers the albino a permanent position. The albino, Leonard Wynters, turns him down and Jimmy pays him off with money from his safe. He then asks Wynters to take one other job: take out Flash. Wynters sees it as a challenge and agrees.

Garfield tells Barry and his partner Julio (Alex Desert) that they'll be working with Terri. She'll become one of Barry's sort-of-love-interests throughout the show's run. Barry then goes to STAR Labs and meets with Tina McGee (Amanda Pays). She's another of Barry's on-again/off-again love interests. Tina also knows Barry is Flash and is his scientific consultant and treats his "condition".

Eventually Wynters sets three bombs and forces Flash to speed around the city disarming them. Flash is exhausted by then, which was another of the show's shticks: Barry often got exhausted using his powers. Wynters freezes Flash's leg with a nuclear-powered cold gun but is forced to leave when the cops arrive.

Tina soon discovers the origin of the gun, and Barry's contact Fosnight (Dick Miller) gets a lead on Wynters. We find out Wynters is an ex-soldier and a stone-cold killer, uses the alias "Captain Cold", and works for Jimmy. Terri is also running a story about the collaboration between the police and STAR Labs, and Barry is less than thrilled. It turns out she's trying to build a career by working for a tabloid and doing Flash stories.

Jimmy isn't happy with Cold's public profile and fires him. Cold gives him an exploding snowball that freezes Jimmy solid. And again, Champion's performance is pretty interesting. Unlike Wentworth Miller's over-the-top acting, Champion turns the false humility on and off Columbo-style. He does it earlier when he's posing as an AC repairman, and with Jimmy here.

Terri disguises herself as a frozen victim and lures Flash to a warehouse. Cold is also waiting there and freezes Flash, and Terri escapes. She tries to sell her story that Flash is dead. Tina has picked up Flash's frozen life signs, steals the ambulance with him inside, and takes him to STAR Labs to revive him. Cold goes to capture Terri, although he does a lot of "bantering" and cold puns that make him sound like Mr. Freeze from the 1997 movie Batman & Robin.

Flash arrives and knocks out Cold. But Cold uses mini-cyro grenades in his shoe heel and a freezing device in his dark glasses to escape the station. Meanwhile, Tina gives Barry a portable heating unit but warns that it will only work once. She's also worked out that Cold's freezing ray can be reflected by a mirror. Because that's how "cold" works. Uh-huh.

Cold goes on a rampage to lure Flash out and finish his job. Thanks to the heating unit and a convenient mirror, Flash defeats Cold and thaws out his victims.

Although "Captain Cold" has all of the typical flaws of Flash during this era--bad humor mostly from the comic-relief cops Murphy and Bellows, an obsession with Barry and women, a reliance on Flash being a dope--it's probably the best episode to capture the comic book feel of the character and his exploits. Other than a brief burst of puns, Champion makes an impressive Captain Cold. Making Cold an albino is expected but gives him a better-looking appearance than if he was just Joe Blow. Rather than dressing him in the parka from the comics, costume supervisor Perri Kimono gives Champion a well-tailored blue suit and they keep blue lights on him to enhance the effect. He comes across better than either the 'eh David Cassidy as Mirror Master, or the over-the-top Mark Hamill as Trickster.

Champion himself was always a class act. He's probably best known as Richter's assistant Helm in the original Total Recall, but Champion bummed around TV and movies during the 80s and 90s. I'll always remember him as club owner "Harry Deal" (possibly the Devil) in the "Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" episode of Father Dowling Mysteries.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?