I haven't seen that one; but, that sounds like the basic details of the first strip, as I recall it (and I haven't read it in about 20 years).

Caniff hated it, feeling they had changed most elements of the strip and only saw the first chapter, according to his memoir.


Here is a site devoted to serials, with reviews.  According to it, it had a pretty big budget, for the genre and a decent cast, though some seemed a bit miscast for specific roles or played them in strange fashion.  Mostly, it points to director, James W Horne, for putting in more slapstick than adventure, a fault in many of his serials (Green Archer, Captain Midnight).  It does praise it for some great action sequences and some inventive cliffhangers.  Also noted that William Tracy was a comedic actor from features, who is supposed to be playing a straight role, yet ends up being a lot of the comedic parts.  The comedy characters, like Connie and Big Stoop, are played relatively straight, though it said Stoop gets some good deadpan humor (and can talk, despite having his tongue cut out, in the strip).  The site summed it up as an odd one, for the serial world.

I have seen Captain Midnight, which is just "okay," and Green Archer, which I grew bored with and never finished.  Watching serials in small doses works a lot better than watching several episodes in a row, I find, except for a very few ones at the top, like Flash Gordon or the Adv of Captain Marvel.  There is a lot of repetition that you pick up on more when you watch multiple chapters, much like binge watching a sit-com and seeing the episode formula again and again.

William Tracy also appeared in the tv series (18 episodes, 1953), which is set post-War, with the older Terry flying for a cargo airline, which was the premise of Steve Canyon, though I never looked at the George Wunder TATP strips to see what happened to Terry, post-war.  I had always heard they were pretty forgettable and never bothered.