Oh, Mighty Isis! Joanna Cameron stars as Andrea Thomas, a high
school science teacher who discovers a lost treasure while on an archeological
dig which endows her with the magical powers of Isis! She can soar like the wind,
run like the gazette…and be completely ignored by the deaf community--because
the company who released the complete Isis series on DVD forgot to put either
closed captioning or English subtitles on the discs. Thus, while watching the
series as a kid, I could only make out about a third of what was being
said--thanks to lip reading and the occasional clarity in the crappy sound--now,
as an adult, I find myself doing the same darn thing. Although, these days, I
must admit that I’m looking very carefully at Joanna Cameron, who was a
smoldering sight to behold--in either role as Isis, or as the mild mannered Thomas.
Isis was a half hour show that aired on Saturday mornings, along with Captain
Marvel (he makes a guest appearance in three episodes--all of which are included in
this set), and it’s a wonderful slice of the 1970s. Or, at least, it was what a
Saturday Morning TV show thought of as what the super 70s really were. You see,
each episode of Isis has a very special moral that gets pounded into the viewer
at the end--just in case they’re too numb to realize what it was in the first
place (don’t play with daddy’s gun, Timmy; and stay away from his special stash
of magazines, while you’re at it!). It’s a cheerful, breezy and very silly
superhero fantasy that dutifully follows a standard storytelling formula, which
has Isis constantly rescuing her dippy friends, fellow teacher Rick Mason (Brian Cutler)
and student/damsel in distress Cindy Lee (Joanna Pang).
One episode that thankfully breaks from this stale formula is
No Drums, No Trumpets, where Andrea temporarily
loses her Isis necklace, and is unable to change into the super heroine just
when she and two of her students are taken hostage. Cameron is still greatly
appealing as Thomas/Isis, and although it was cheesy, the show should still be a
lot of fun for those of us who were old enough to watch it when it first aired.
The DVD set is very well done, as it’s complete with a commentary on the episode
Dreams Of Flight, as well as interviews with selected cast and crew members, and
other goodies. Yet if the DVD producers can go this far with the special
features, then why not get closed captions, too? Granted, Isis wasn’t exactly
Shakespeare, but it still would have been nice to have been able to understand
what they were saying.
--SF
