Dr. Stephen Strange (Peter Hooten) is a compassionate psychiatrist at a big-city hospital. He’s a man of science who lost his parents when he was eighteen and who has no idea that some of the items he inherited from his father have the ability to cast magic spells. Strange is treating a young woman named Clea Lake (Anne-Marie Martin). Clea has been having strange nightmares because she has been possessed by the sorceress Morgan Le Fay (Jessica Walter). Morgan Le Fay hopes to use Clea to kill Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme (John Mills) before he can appoint Dr. Strange as his successor.
Before there was Benedict Cumberbatch, there was Peter Hooten. A journeyman actor with a long list of TV credits, Hooten was cast to play Strange in this TV movie, which was obviously meant to serve as a pilot for a television series. Unfortunately, beyond having a mustache, this Dr. Strange doesn’t have much in common with his comic book counterpart. He’s not a former surgeon who injured his hands and is now looking for redemption for his former arrogance. Instead, he’s a mild-mannered psychiatrist who takes a “golly gee” approach to discovering that he has the power to travel between dimensions and cast spells.
CBS aired Doctor Strange opposite Roots, which was such a cultural landmark and a ratings phenomenon that a movie about a not widely known comic book hero didn’t stand much of a chance against it. It’s actually not that bad of a film. Jessica Walter is a sexy Morgan Le Fay, and Clyde Kusatsu is perfectly cast as Wong, who is more of a potential mentor here than he was in the later adaptations of Doctor Strange. The scenes where Strange travels from dimension to dimension are done well enough to suggest that, if the movie had led to a series, it could have captured the feel of the comic book. The only real problem is that Peter Hooten is a little bit bland in the title role. Hooten’s Strange would not have been a dynamic hero or an enigmatic figure. He would have just been a typical television lead.
Dr. Strange did not lead to a series, which means viewers were cheated out of a potential Nicholas Hammond/Bill Bixby/Reb Brown/Peter Hooten crossover event. After the failure of the film, it would be 38 years before Stephen Strange again showed up on screens across the world.
