"A Cube of Sugar" is definitely one of the weirdest episodes from the first season. The team's mission is to recover a microchip taken by an agent who happens to be a jazz musician! He's been captured and pumped full of drugs in an Eastern European prison, locked in a padded cell and bound in a straight jacket. The team also must rescue the agent before he's killed in a crematorium because he's memorized the "code" to the microchip.
This episode was influenced by the drug culture in the 1960's, especially in the music scene. The late great Don Ellis contributed an appropriate sounding jazz soundtrack. Don Ellis, who was an experimental jazz trumpeter, later composed the score for The French Connection (another drug story), but died shortly after, so he is not well remembered today. He was kind of a thinking man's Miles Davis.
Some other highlights from this episode: Crazy psychedelic dance girls in a nightclub. Rollin uses the Mother of All Multi-tools while in prison - you'll have to see all the unbelievable things it does! Barney and Willy expend an enormous amount of effort to cut and dig their way into the crematorium - they use a real power saw, you can see the light bulb dimming when they turn it on! A surprising early use of the microchip in a plot, since they were still relatively obscure in 1967. The microchip is hidden in drug laced sugar cubes, hence the title (not a spoiler since they reveal this up front).
I suppose I'm biased in this review since I play the trumpet and made a living designing with microchips (aka integrated circuits or computer chips), but even if you're not like me, you may still appreciate this episode. One reviewer complained that it's similar to another episode, but the details make it memorable for me.
This episode was influenced by the drug culture in the 1960's, especially in the music scene. The late great Don Ellis contributed an appropriate sounding jazz soundtrack. Don Ellis, who was an experimental jazz trumpeter, later composed the score for The French Connection (another drug story), but died shortly after, so he is not well remembered today. He was kind of a thinking man's Miles Davis.
Some other highlights from this episode: Crazy psychedelic dance girls in a nightclub. Rollin uses the Mother of All Multi-tools while in prison - you'll have to see all the unbelievable things it does! Barney and Willy expend an enormous amount of effort to cut and dig their way into the crematorium - they use a real power saw, you can see the light bulb dimming when they turn it on! A surprising early use of the microchip in a plot, since they were still relatively obscure in 1967. The microchip is hidden in drug laced sugar cubes, hence the title (not a spoiler since they reveal this up front).
I suppose I'm biased in this review since I play the trumpet and made a living designing with microchips (aka integrated circuits or computer chips), but even if you're not like me, you may still appreciate this episode. One reviewer complained that it's similar to another episode, but the details make it memorable for me.