The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries "The Strange Fate of Flight 608" #2.8 (1977)

A cheesy, reasonably entertaining piece of fluff, 21 July 2017

A diamond smuggler is attempting to put one over on his New York associates by sending glass instead of the real thing. To cover his tracks, he decides to drug the flight crew in hopes of bringing down the plane. His thinking is that if the plane is lost, the fake diamonds will be lost. As you might expect, Frank and Joe are on the ill-fated flight.

I'm not going to go into a lot detail about the actual episode. It is about what you'd expect – a cheesy, reasonably entertaining piece of fluff. Instead, I want to write about a couple of things that stood out to me as I re-watched The Strange Fate of Flight 608 last night. First, I've said this before, but seriously, is there anything these guys can't do? We've already seen the boys fly a small, private plane. But here, they get the chance to fly and land a commercial airliner in the middle of a hurricane. Not a problem for the Hardys! And I loved the way the boys took charge after safely landing the plane on a deserted island. On a plane loaded with trained flight attendants, Frank and Joe are just about the only ones to keep their heads. How remarkable!

Second, I'm not sure what the thinking was behind the two diamond smugglers. I'm shocked they put these guys in a 70s TV show aimed at a teenage demographic. The character Goldman is obviously "inspired" by Sydney Greenstreet. And less obvious, but I'm sure no less intentional, is Herbie Braha's take on Peter Lorre who often played Greenstreet's henchman. I'm not sure any of the kids got it in 1977 (I know that as a 14 year-old, I didn't), so it just seems terribly odd. Not to mention, the characters seem wildly out of place.

5/10