In
“No Drums, No Trumpets,” a ham radio operator, Fred (Mark Lambert) is irritated
that he loses a science fair to a friend, Dorothy. At a crucial moment, his radio malfunctions, and he gets angry.
Fred speeds away from the scene in his car, and promptly drives it over a cliff.
Isis (Joanna Cameron) arrives just in time to
save him, summoning the wind to blow the vehicle back to the road.
Later,
Mrs. Thomas, Fred and Dorothy visit a nearby ghost-town, where local thieves
are hiding out.
Mrs.
Thomas loses her Isis amulet during a staircase collapse, meaning she can’t
stop the thugs, or save the teens.
Instead,
Fred must use his twitchy ham radio to contact the authorities.
“No
Drums, No Trumpets” is slightly more than the run-of-the-mill Secrets of Isis
episode. There’s still the Filmation
standard here of the “lesson of the week” (in this case: sometimes you learn
more by losing than by winning), but the danger is ratcheted up to a higher
degree.
Specifically,
Isis/Andrea loses her amulet in the middle of the story, which means she is unable to transform into the
Goddess and save the day. Instead, she
must rely on a temperamental teen, and on a different skill-set too, to deal with the menacing
criminals hiding out in the ghost town.
It
may not sound like much, but this formula deviation is enough to make “No
Drums, No Trumpets” stand-out from the pack So many
episodes of Isis drone on and repeat the exact same chronology and order of
events that it is an actual relief to see something different happen for a
change.
Also,
the scene with the teen in a car – teetering on the verge of death -- is
surprisingly well-vetted here.
Next week, Isis and Captain Marvel team up in "Funny Gal!"
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