My Weekly Spock 3/11/13 Nimoy in ‘Baffled!’ The Series that wasn’t

Hard to believe, but it was 4o years ago that a fun and creepy mystery movie  called Baffled!  was shown on TV (by NBC) as a ‘movie of the week’.   Nimoy played the main character, Tom Kovack, a race car driver haunted by strange and scary visions which turn out to be psychic.  The  beautiful Susan Hampshire played Michele Brent, the book historian fascinated with ESP who is convinced that Kovack has a gift that might save the life of a woman in danger.   I remember watching it when it came out, and envying the young girl in the film (who played a girl my age), and was so disappointed when it wasn’t made into a weekly series!  In fact, Baffled was made as a pilot for NBC (although it was shown in some countries as a feature film, hence the movie style poster).  It was smart, funny, and suspenseful, but we can only imagine the future adventures (and romance) that would ensue for these two characters. The only thing I found a little unbelievable was that Tom was a midwesterner -seemed more New England to me.   Alas, the network didn’t know what gold it had,  and although ESP was becoming a hot topic in the early 70’s, NBC settled on the much less entertaining comedy The Girl With Something Extra, (with Sally Field) which only lasted one season.  I would have happily taken a season of Baffled over that.   Another great opportunity lost.  🙁   So in recognition of 40 years of what could have been, here’s some stills from Baffled, you can pay 4.99 and have it streamed on Amazon.

6 thoughts on “My Weekly Spock 3/11/13 Nimoy in ‘Baffled!’ The Series that wasn’t

  1. 1. Baffled is my favorite ever Nimoy. Leaving Spock out of it, which one can, cos he’s real, isn’t he?
    2. I absolutely love your captions to the pictures.
    3. Sadly, the, or at least a, reason Baffled wasn’t picked up was that Leonard would have had to decamp to the UK with wife and children and he didn’t want to, with their schooling and all that. One of life’s great tragedies, in my opinion.

  2. I’m sure that would have changed his home life a lot, but heck, even if it was for one season, it would have been worth it! There was potential there for a good series, although, he may have never come back to play Spock if that were the case. Oh well. I suppose there could always be fan fiction! In researching this, I discovered that Baffled was included in a 40 minute documentary called “TV’s Greatest Failures”

  3. Nnnoooo!!! I adore Baffled! And it would have been a wonderful series. Especially if they could have sustained the is it or isn’t it supernatural theme. And yes, there was fan fiction, a lot of which I wrote, such was my craving for more Baffled.

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