Beginner's Guide to The Invisible Man
The Invisible Man (or I-Man as it's called in the second season.) was a series that lasted for two seasons on the Sci-Fi Channel back in 2000. Like most of the shows I watch, it was canceled and unlike My Own Worst Enemy, it was not ended on a cliffhanger.
Darien Fawkes is a criminal. After a job gone horribly wrong, he is sentenced to life in prison due to California's three-strike system. His older brother Kevin visits him in prison and gives him an alternative: If he becomes a test subject for the project Kevin's working on, he won't have to go to prison. He takes the deal and eventually ends up with a gland in his head that makes him invisible. Not long after learning how to use the gland, terrorists strike the complex and kill almost everybody except for Darien and Arnaud de Thiel, who is actually the terrorist Arnaud de Fohn and led the attack on the complex. After escaping, Darien ends up in the hands of the Agency, the government organization who was behind the project. With him being dependent on a counteragent to keep the gland from making him go insane, Darien is stuck working for the Agency until he can get the gland removed or get rid of his dependency on the counteragent. While with the Agency, Darien works with few interesting people and has to complete a number of odd cases.
Darien Fawkes
Our hero and the titular invisible man. At the beginning of the series, he was arrested for molesting an old man. (In fact, he was trying to break into the old man's safe, but the man caught him and the explosives on the safe went off, giving the man a heart attack. Darien stayed behind and gave him CPR. Naturally, the cops who showed up at the scene saw him on top of the man and automatically assumed the worst.) He agrees to getting the quicksilver gland implanted into him in return for his freedom. Of course, he loses his freedom because of the gland and the Agency. He's stuck working with Bobby Hobbes, a paranoid agent who soon becomes Darien's best friend, and forced to deal with the Keeper, a woman who gives him his shot of counteragent when she needs to and shoots him with a tranq gun when he needs to be.
Bobby Hobbes
Okay, I'm terrible at describing Hobbes, so I'll just let Nin do it.
(11:17:44 PM) ninael: A manic-depressive, paranoid former FBI agent who hates doctors and wants a raise?
(11:18:05 PM) Hawkstarinabox: ...you make him sound horrible.
(11:18:15 PM) ninael: XD
(11:18:36 PM) Hawkstarinabox: Honestly, in words he sounds like the worst character ever.
(11:18:44 PM) ninael: He does.
(11:18:45 PM) Hawkstarinabox: BUT HE IS SOMEHOW AWESOME
(11:18:50 PM) ninael: It's hard to make him so awesome
(11:19:09 PM) Hawkstarinabox: This is because he's Bobby Hobbes and you do not mess with Bobby Hobbes.
(11:19:18 PM) ninael: Despite being paranoid and wanting a raise he's badass and loyal to people he considers friends
(11:19:29 PM) ninael: And protective as hell.
Alex Monroe
Alex Monroe defines the word "superagent." She has a five-star-A rating, which means she holds the highest rankings in all skills, from weapons to surveillance, sabotage, seduction and infiltration. She has a natural beauty, is in peak physical condition, and is the only field operative at The Agency with her own office.
She's also on a personal mission to destroy Chrysalis, the arch-rival organization of The Agency. Alex used artificial insemination to conceive a son, but the fertility clinic that performed the procedure was owned by Chrysalis, which implanted her with a genetically engineered fetus. They abducted her son shortly after birth. Now, Alex will stop at nothing to find her son, rescue him from Chrysalis, and destroy that organization once and for all.
The Keeper
Like the other experiments the Agency has, Darien has a keeper. The Keeper's job is to make sure Darien stays sane and able to work for the Agency. She's the next person besides Hobbes that Darien considers a friend and he will usually ask her for help when it comes to trying to remove the quicksilver gland, usually forcing her to decide between her job and helping Darien. Despite being a female scientist, she's badass and can take care of herself. That doesn't stop Darien and Hobbes from worrying about her when something happens. It also doesn't stop Hobbes from flirting with her either.
The Official
He's a typical example of his bureaucratic species: a rumpled, government official who's got more skeletons in his closet than the Museum of Natural History. Although he wields red tape and paperwork to bend others to his will the way a samurai flourishes a sword, he's no mere paper-pusher.
As the top guy for top secrets, The Official manages unofficial experiments, like the one that warped Darien into the incredible, shrinking id. One can probably assume that The Official has ethics, but they're as obscure as the agents, missions and operations that form the web of intelligence in which he works.
Eberts
Eberts is the subservient, bookish right-hand man of The Official. He's often on the receiving end of abuse from Hobbes and Fawkes, who treat him like an annoying kid brother. But the phrase Eberts hears most often, day in and day out, is The Official barking "Shut up, Eberts!" And like it or not, shut up he does.
Don't mistake Eberts for a mere bean-counter, though; as a computer genius and a master of the double ledger, his task is to keep The Agency's vast mountain of paperwork organized and secure, and to occasionally chastise field agents (such as, oh, for example, Fawkes and Hobbes) who waste The Agency's already meager budget by needlessly destroying property and vehicles.
Kevin Fawkes
Darien's older brother and the top scientist on the Invisible Man project. He got Darien out of prison by getting him to be the test subject for the project. He helps Darien learn to control the quicksilver and use it effectively. When the terrorists attack the base, Kevin destroys the files on the quicksilver project and saves Darien's life at the cost of his own. In one episode, Kevin is able to come back to life in a way.
Arnaud de Fohn
The main bad guy of the series. Arnaud infiltrated the project team and created quicksilver madness to control the person with the gland. That doesn't work quite the way he wanted it to, since when his men attack the base where the Invisible Man project was located, Kevin Fawkes was killed and Darien blamed Arnaud for it. For a few episodes, he tries getting the gland out of Darien's head and fails in each attempt. He eventually gets his own gland, but he's permanently invisible.
Darien Fawkes is a criminal. After a job gone horribly wrong, he is sentenced to life in prison due to California's three-strike system. His older brother Kevin visits him in prison and gives him an alternative: If he becomes a test subject for the project Kevin's working on, he won't have to go to prison. He takes the deal and eventually ends up with a gland in his head that makes him invisible. Not long after learning how to use the gland, terrorists strike the complex and kill almost everybody except for Darien and Arnaud de Thiel, who is actually the terrorist Arnaud de Fohn and led the attack on the complex. After escaping, Darien ends up in the hands of the Agency, the government organization who was behind the project. With him being dependent on a counteragent to keep the gland from making him go insane, Darien is stuck working for the Agency until he can get the gland removed or get rid of his dependency on the counteragent. While with the Agency, Darien works with few interesting people and has to complete a number of odd cases.
Darien Fawkes
Our hero and the titular invisible man. At the beginning of the series, he was arrested for molesting an old man. (In fact, he was trying to break into the old man's safe, but the man caught him and the explosives on the safe went off, giving the man a heart attack. Darien stayed behind and gave him CPR. Naturally, the cops who showed up at the scene saw him on top of the man and automatically assumed the worst.) He agrees to getting the quicksilver gland implanted into him in return for his freedom. Of course, he loses his freedom because of the gland and the Agency. He's stuck working with Bobby Hobbes, a paranoid agent who soon becomes Darien's best friend, and forced to deal with the Keeper, a woman who gives him his shot of counteragent when she needs to and shoots him with a tranq gun when he needs to be.
Bobby Hobbes
Okay, I'm terrible at describing Hobbes, so I'll just let Nin do it.
(11:17:44 PM) ninael: A manic-depressive, paranoid former FBI agent who hates doctors and wants a raise?
(11:18:05 PM) Hawkstarinabox: ...you make him sound horrible.
(11:18:15 PM) ninael: XD
(11:18:36 PM) Hawkstarinabox: Honestly, in words he sounds like the worst character ever.
(11:18:44 PM) ninael: He does.
(11:18:45 PM) Hawkstarinabox: BUT HE IS SOMEHOW AWESOME
(11:18:50 PM) ninael: It's hard to make him so awesome
(11:19:09 PM) Hawkstarinabox: This is because he's Bobby Hobbes and you do not mess with Bobby Hobbes.
(11:19:18 PM) ninael: Despite being paranoid and wanting a raise he's badass and loyal to people he considers friends
(11:19:29 PM) ninael: And protective as hell.
Alex Monroe
Alex Monroe defines the word "superagent." She has a five-star-A rating, which means she holds the highest rankings in all skills, from weapons to surveillance, sabotage, seduction and infiltration. She has a natural beauty, is in peak physical condition, and is the only field operative at The Agency with her own office.
She's also on a personal mission to destroy Chrysalis, the arch-rival organization of The Agency. Alex used artificial insemination to conceive a son, but the fertility clinic that performed the procedure was owned by Chrysalis, which implanted her with a genetically engineered fetus. They abducted her son shortly after birth. Now, Alex will stop at nothing to find her son, rescue him from Chrysalis, and destroy that organization once and for all.
The Keeper
Like the other experiments the Agency has, Darien has a keeper. The Keeper's job is to make sure Darien stays sane and able to work for the Agency. She's the next person besides Hobbes that Darien considers a friend and he will usually ask her for help when it comes to trying to remove the quicksilver gland, usually forcing her to decide between her job and helping Darien. Despite being a female scientist, she's badass and can take care of herself. That doesn't stop Darien and Hobbes from worrying about her when something happens. It also doesn't stop Hobbes from flirting with her either.
The Official
He's a typical example of his bureaucratic species: a rumpled, government official who's got more skeletons in his closet than the Museum of Natural History. Although he wields red tape and paperwork to bend others to his will the way a samurai flourishes a sword, he's no mere paper-pusher.
As the top guy for top secrets, The Official manages unofficial experiments, like the one that warped Darien into the incredible, shrinking id. One can probably assume that The Official has ethics, but they're as obscure as the agents, missions and operations that form the web of intelligence in which he works.
Eberts
Eberts is the subservient, bookish right-hand man of The Official. He's often on the receiving end of abuse from Hobbes and Fawkes, who treat him like an annoying kid brother. But the phrase Eberts hears most often, day in and day out, is The Official barking "Shut up, Eberts!" And like it or not, shut up he does.
Don't mistake Eberts for a mere bean-counter, though; as a computer genius and a master of the double ledger, his task is to keep The Agency's vast mountain of paperwork organized and secure, and to occasionally chastise field agents (such as, oh, for example, Fawkes and Hobbes) who waste The Agency's already meager budget by needlessly destroying property and vehicles.
Kevin Fawkes
Darien's older brother and the top scientist on the Invisible Man project. He got Darien out of prison by getting him to be the test subject for the project. He helps Darien learn to control the quicksilver and use it effectively. When the terrorists attack the base, Kevin destroys the files on the quicksilver project and saves Darien's life at the cost of his own. In one episode, Kevin is able to come back to life in a way.
Arnaud de Fohn
The main bad guy of the series. Arnaud infiltrated the project team and created quicksilver madness to control the person with the gland. That doesn't work quite the way he wanted it to, since when his men attack the base where the Invisible Man project was located, Kevin Fawkes was killed and Darien blamed Arnaud for it. For a few episodes, he tries getting the gland out of Darien's head and fails in each attempt. He eventually gets his own gland, but he's permanently invisible.