Sept.30-Oct.6, 2012 TV Club-The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries- Season 1-Ep. 5

[MacGyver]

Leave your thoughts, comments and reviews of "The Disappearing Floor" episode (featuring The Hardy Boys) of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries here.

[MacGyver]

I 've been kinda behind on a lot of things this last week or so- hopefully I'll get a chance to watch this episode soon and do a review.

[MacGyver]

Okay, I finally watched this episode again last night. It has been quite a while since I've seen any episodes of this series, so it's fun to watch it again now as I'd forgotten a lot of the plots and such- which made it more interesting to watch.
        Anyway, the first thing I wanted to point out is that this episode starts with a quick episode preview (about 30 seconds long) before the actual theme song starts and the episode begins. I don't know if this just indicates that this is the first of the teaser trailers that were available for the DVD release or if it just means that "The Disappearing Floor" is the first episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries where they started using teaser trailers before the episode starts. If I remember correctly, I do believe every episode from here to the end of the series now gets a teaser trailer at the start of the episode. It's a pretty cool idea in general I think as it gets viewers a quick idea of what the upcoming episode is about (and clues them in right away on whether it's a rerun or not for them) and for undecided, fickler viewers- it might just serve as the push they needed to get intrigued and watch the whole show.
        With this episode we also have a first for the series- this episode's title is the same as one of The Hardy Boys books! (#19 in The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories is entitled The Disappearing Floor as well.)
However, despite the episode sharing its name with one of the books in the series, it does not seem to share its plot with this book. There are perhaps some vague similarities which I will point out, but for the most part it's a completely different story. Of course, in the case of this book, there are both the original text version and revised text versions to consider. But as far as I can tell, this episode is different from both versions with maybe only a few things in common here and there.
          As near as I can remember after flipping through the book some (and I'm basing this on the revised version, for the record), the book deals with The Hardy Boys helping their dad stop a gang of jewel thieves who base their operations out of a mysterious old house, which apparently has a disappearing floor. The Hardy Boys also encounter a scientist who is unwittingly helping the thieves with some strange scientific equipment.
         The episode starts out with Mr. Hardy giving Frank and Joe an assignment to help him with in his new case, so that much is similar. (Of course, that could be said for nearly every Hardy Boys book, at least of the original 58 titles anyway.) And Frank and Joe are seen playing chess at the start of this episode, something that Frank is shown to be a fan of, particularly in The Hardy Boys Casefiles- but I'm pretty sure at least one of original Grossett & Dunlap books mentions Frank and Joe playing either chess or checkers or both at some point.
          Frank and Joe go out to follow a guy their father is investigating- and this is also how the book starts out, with Frank and Joe tailing a suspect. In both cases, Frank and Joe lose the track of the suspect, though by different means. In the book, it's because of a smokescreen the guy creates- in the episode, it's because Frank and Joe are distracted by the appearance of an apparent flying saucer.
           Frank and Joe come back home to report this to their dad as well as Callie Shaw (who's there to take notes for Mr. Hardy as his secretary) and Aunt Gertude as well. I noticed that Fenton tends to call Gertrude by the nickname of "Gert", which I thought was a nice touch since brothers and sisters tend to have such pet names for each other. And we get Aunt Gertude true to form here as she gives one of her famous dire warnings about having Frank and Joe involved in detective work, citing them apparently losing it (due to their claims of seeing a flying saucer) as proof.
I also love how Frank and Joe have their brotherly banter throughout the episodes and Joe passing off the duty of reporting back to their dad on Frank because he's older is a great example.
          I also love how Aunt Gertude asks Fenton in the middle of the night if she just heard the boys taking off in their van. Fenton just confirms it with a smile and comments that he wondered how long it would take them before they went back out to check out the site of their UFO again. And of course, we once again have Frank and Joe out investigating after midnight. (This is something they seem to somewhat routinely do- presumably this was not a school night. ) And back in the woods where they saw the UFO, they now see a man in the woods, who runs off. They chase after him and find a mysterious old house. And here is where Frank and Joe encounter the disappearing floor. As Frank comments, it's like a funhouse- in each room they have very weird encounters- Joe finds himself shrinking and the room growing larger on him in one room; Frank finds himself (as well as Joe) in a wooded area in one room- even though they can't be outdoors when they're on the second floor. And they narrowly escape from some vicious either dogs or coyotes of some sort. And Frank then stumbles over a disappearing floor somehow in another room and Joe helps him back up. (And hence we have a "disappearing floor" in this episode, as the book has one of its own- though not presented in quite the same way as it is here.)
             By the time they get back to Bayport, it's already morning and they are late to meet Fenton at the science complex that he is working for. Fenton has not been given privy to all the details of the case and argues some with his employers there about being told more about the case. Frank and Joe go looking for their father and Frank winds up hitching a ride in a golf cart-type vehicle with a young lady who works there.
            After catching up with their father and asking the guy they were tailing (who works at the science complex) about the UFO, Frank and Joe find that the guy doesn't believe them and then they take their father to see the house that they had found the other night. When they see it in the day time however, it seems to be just a normal house with none of the furniture or weird rooms that they saw the other night.
Fenton drives off and then Frank and Joe discover two men prowling around in their van- the men then take off and escape in their car after Frank and Joe see them.
           Fenton again talks with the people at the company that hired him (Alpha Tech) about the UFO incident and asks if it's connected to anything they're working on. He winds up getting fired from the case by Dr. Janice Cradic (one of the leaders at the company) as Frank and Joe find out when they all reconvene at home later. Frank and Joe deduce that the only logical explanation for what they saw (including the UFO and the mysterious house) would be holograms, which would seem to fit in with Alpha Tech has been working on. Frank and Joe visit with the girl who had given Frank a ride at Alpha Tech and find out that her grandfather is the man they saw at the house. Then they run into some guys who have broken into her house and they run off.
          Frank and Joe wind up back at the mysterious house one more time that night and find the girl's grandfather there, who is a Russian scientist who has been kidnapped. Dr. Cradic tricks them with a hologram set up of herself, which allows her time to escape, but Callie has already called in the police for Frank and Joe and Dr. Cradic gets captured in the end. The Russian scientist is freed and the holographic technology is now in safe hands.
            Overall, this episode is pretty confusing to follow. It starts out well enough, but somewhere in the middle, it becomes kinda hard to figure out what exactly is going on with everyone involved. Given that the book counterpart (particularly the original text) gets a lot of the same kind of criticism, perhaps it's pretty fitting. The holograms are pretty cool, I think and I like that science fiction aspect of it. This is something definitely a bit different for The Hardy Boys, but considering the supernatural elements they tangle with in later episodes (and some already in previous episodes), it doesn't seem too far out of the norm.
           I think it has some good moments and I still enjoy the episode overall, but I definitely think it could have been explained a little bit better. I like the aspect of even Fenton not being told exactly what he's investigating, which adds to the mysteriousness, but it was never adequately explained later on and therein lies the problem.
           It's too bad the episode wasn't closer to the book it was named after, though the story presented in the episode is interesting enough on its own. I just wish it had been fleshed out a little more and explained a little better. But even with such flaws, there are still some great character moments for Fenton, Aunt Gertude, Callie and Frank and Joe that are enjoyable. And it does share a few similarities to the book, even if only vaguely. Of course, I love all the episodes anyway, so it's still fun to me.              

[MacGyver]

I also noticed that this episode title is the first to break away from the standard construct of "The Mystery of" or "The Secret of", but then it is the same title as one of The Hardy Boys book, so perhaps it was done to be in keeping with that. (Even "The Disappearing Floor" episode is pretty vastly different from The Disappearing Floor book. As one other interesting tidbit, later British printings of this book actually did rename it The Mystery of the Disappearing Floor for whatever reason.)

[tomswift2002]

Well all three versions of "The Disappearing Floor" are vastly different from each other.

[MacGyver]

Yeah, I think the only things in common would be very big and vague concepts like "criminal activity" (which is of course in every book) and "science". Though I think all three still have some form of a "disappearing floor".