Gemini One

The publicity for the Will Smith movie “Gemini Man” makes me do a double take every time I hear it.

You see, when I was 14 years old, in 1976, there was a cave painting — er, TV series — called “Gemini Man.” That series was completely unrelated to the current movie, and had a completely different premise. But it was a remake of another TV show which had aired just a year earlier.

In 1975, there had been a TV show called “The Invisible Man,” starring David McCallum of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” (and “NCIS”).

“The Invisible Man” was cancelled, but its executive producer Harve Bennett (who would later go on to run the “Star Trek” movie franchise in the 80s) recast the lead character, made a few tweaks to the concept, and came back in 1976 with basically the same show, adapting some of the unused scripts that had already been written for the previous show. Wikipedia claims the special effects on “The Gemini Man” were more cheaply done than on its predecessor.

The main difference between “The Invisible Man” and “Gemini Man” was that “Gemini Man”’s lead character, played by Ben Murphy (of “Alias Smith and Jones”), had powers of invisibility controlled by a special wristwatch. Once triggered, the invisibility would only last for a certain number of minutes, and he would reappear.