The Invisible Man
"The Other Invisible Man"

Airdate: August 25, 2000

While burning the midnight oil, The Official is savagely beaten and all the evidence points to Darien being the attacker. Except his tattoo doesn't indicate that he's anywhere near Quicksilver Madness and all of the counteragent has been accounted for. While The Official recovers, Eberts fesses up and reveals that Darien wasn't the first Invisible Man and as far as he knows, Simon Cole, the first human lab rat, is still out there somewhere.

The Quicksilver Gland

Fawkes and Hobbes track down Simon's girlfriend only to find that she hasn't heard from him since he left on his last secret project, The Quicksilver Project. Darien's Spidey-sense starts tingling and by causing only his eyes to dissapear, he can see the outline of Version 1 to his Version 2. More clues and investigating by Darien, Bob, and Claire lead them back to the lab where both Cole and Fawkes were cursed with invisibility.

There the trio discover Cole's hidden journal and as Darien reads the thing he gets a sense that his reaction to having the gland isn't all that crazy. The continued references to his brother Kevin and revisiting the spot where he died casts an even greater aura of gloom over our naturally pessimistic hero. He begins to identify with Cole and that's when things start to get interesting.

This week's episode contains chuckle-worthy humor, some very promising teammwork, a bit of foreshadowing, a couple of dashes of angst, and -- my favorite -- Vincent Ventresca shirtless. Unfortunately it's still a little too touchy-feely for my darker tastes, but if light> is what they're going for, then "The Other Invisible Man" is a fine effort from the makers of The Invisible Man.

While I miss Darien's introspection, we have begun to instead get more development of Claire's character. Her beginnings as a shadowy co-conspirator to The Official mutated into a role as confessor/comforter for Fawkes, but here she is painted more as full fledged member of the team. Not only does she help intimidate Eberts into spilling what he knows, but she takes an active part in the investigation as well. Of course, her medical/scientific knowledge, coupled with her handling of a Dirty Harry-sized gun, will draw comparisons to The X-Files' Scully of old, but there is probably even less UST between Claire and Darien now than there ever had been between Mulder and his partner.

So what we've got here is a smart, tough woman who knows how to take care of herself. If she had to lose her shroud of mystery, I'm glad this is how it turned out.

-- Linda M. Najera

The Invisible Man airs at 8pm EST, Fridays on The Sci Fi Channel.

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