User Reviews

No doubt the illness of Ross Martin shows here and in a lot of the rest of season 4. Charles Aidman does his first turn as Jeremy Pike. Aidman turns out to be the best of the attempts to replace Martin on the show. This episode looks to take advantage with guest star Pat Paulsen.

About this time, Paulsen is appearing on the Smothers Brothers Comedy hour. He is running his TV campaign for President. While the script here makes every effort to take advantage Pat because of his popularity from the Smothers. The script doesn't quite bring Pat to life but it does have some moments. Overall this is OK, but not the strongest of episodes.

With the real life crisis involving actor Ross Martin, who had suffered a heart attack, the Producers of WWW needed to act quickly. Martin could not appear on the show, so the first order of business was to find a temporary replacement for character "Artemis Gordon".

We get character "Jeremy Pike", well played by actor Charles Aidman. Pike will show up in some four episodes of the Wild Wild West; this is his first.

And for this story, the Producers also bring on guest star Pat Paulsen. He plays new-to-the-field Secret Service Agent "Bosley Cranston", who possesses a photographic memory ("The Camera").

It is hard to overstate the enormous popularity of Pat Paulsen in the late 1960's. Paulsen was a regular on "The Smothers Brothers" comedy/variety show. But his major claim to fame started as a spoof. "Pat Paulsen for President of The United States" was a humorous satire that suddenly took on real political significance. Automobiles all over the country sported "Paulsen For President" bumper stickers.

So bringing in Pat Paulsen was a master stroke for the Producers of WWW. It would ensure a large viewership.

Now, some fifty years later; the late Pat Paulsen doesn't have the recognition that he held in 1968.

So this episode is watchable, but at times it drags a bit. Especially when Cranston and James West are climbing the scaffold to the second floor of the mansion, then hanging from their drop lines as the bad guys enter the room. It takes too long.

It's not a spoiler to say that the clumsy, timid Bosley Cranston will win in the end, but it takes a long time to get there.

Very watchable, I rate "The Night of the Camera" 7 stars.

Comedian Pat Paulsen takes a spin in this episode as a memory expert and tenderfoot agent on his first field assignment.

But it's not an episode played for laughs. In fact, guest star Barry Atwater is one of the best villains they've had in a long time (though no one matches the incomparable Doctor Loveless). Atwater is cruel and shrewd as an opium smuggler working through his funeral parlor (though Paulsen looks like he'd make a good funeral director; these days people like Paulsen would prefer playing bad guys).

With a third member of the team (thanks to Ross Martin's faulty ticker, the second member being second-stringer Charles Aidman) there's no time for female companionship, so the typical lovely (either in distress or with something up her sleeve) never bows in. Paulsen is no replacement. Too bad they weren't forward-looking enough to make the memory expert a female.

Overall, Atwater makes this episode. The story is slight and so is Paulsen. His performance is execrable. Martin's loss is all but devastating. It's too bad Conrad and Atwater don't go head to head, but Jim sneaks around with Paulsen while Artie's replacement plays off Atwater, and pretty well, too, though he lacks that twinkle in his eye Artie always seems to have in disguise.

Overall, a pretty good episode (despite Paulsen) and it keeps moving, unlike so many episodes that start well but degenerate into lots of sluggish sitting around and talking.

Of course it is not the strongest of them all, but so unusual, so surprising. see for yourself: first Jim has to work without Arte, and in replacement he has not one BUT Two sidekicks. and one whom we'll never see again in the series. And what a Partner, a kind of ankward, clumsy, Stan Laurel like guy, so funny, so intellectual like but with a specific gift called photographic memory...And another gift which we'll find out at the end. and exquisite ending, so funny and surprising too. and I won't even speak of the very last scene, aboard the train, between Jim West and his two replacement partners. DON'T MISS IT, PLEASE !!!

Comedian Pat Paulsen guest stars as a Secret Service agent (Ross Martin was recovering from a heart attack, and the episode says that Artemus Gordon was in Washington). Paulsen plays the agent in a way that resembles Maxwell Smart--bumbling, but gets the job done. It works well enough.