C’mon, who doesn’t love Joe Pantoliano? Cypher! Ralphie Cifaretto! Guido the Killer Pimp! Cosmo! Who doesn’t love Cynthia Nixon? Oh, everybody.
However your mileage varies, ya better really like both of them because this is a close-up-palooza.
Stan Harbinger is the latest in a long line of radio people on TV that no one would ever listen to. He is the anti-Art Bell in that he does not believe in conspiracies and UFOs; also, he is breathing. There is a certain entertainment value in a maniac who buys into all that baloney (I’m lookin’ at you, Alex Jones; but not on You-Tube). However, a skeptic as abusive and abrasive as Stan just comes off as a bully.
Stan wraps up tonight’s show by talking to a regular caller who is having a breakdown. The man is distraught over his body being occupied by a parasitic alien. Stan advises the caller to put himself out of his misery. The man misunderstands and temporarily puts himself in more misery as he pulls out a lighter and goes up like a Vietnamese monk in the radio station parking lot. As he dies, Stan witnesses a glowing alien emerge from the body and zoom off.
Fans of Stan’s show complain that he should have intervened. He seeks a little self-medication in a bar and a woman buys him a drink. He ends up having sex with Teri Bauer, which can have disastrous consequences.
When Stan invites a couple of “believers” onto his show to pacify the haters, it turns out that Teri is one of them (the other is a dude with an almost alien look). They accuse Stan of knowing the truth — having witnessed it first-hand — yet refusing to warn the listeners of his show. BTW, Stan describes Teri as the other guest’s cohort. Cohort doesn’t mean an individual. C’mon dude, you’re a professional — you use words for a living! Your words go out to millions of people! [1]
Sloppy camerawork actually got some shoulder in this one.
Stan begins civilly, but quickly devolves to his nasty, abusive self. His producer Trudy does her part by adding a laugh-track to his guests’ warning of a literal alien colonization; I mean, literally in the colon.
The man warns that humans could be acting as hosts for the aliens without even knowing it or preparing amuse-bouches. The man who torched himself became aware of the parasite and freaked out. Stan gets fed up with their insistence that he stop spreading fake news. He physically attacks them and is fired — or de-platformed as the kids fascists say today.
Stan sees so much more evidence of the aliens that he eventually becomes a believer and wants to warn others. He recruits Trudy to produce a new show that would be the worthy successor that Art Bell never had. He even wants Teri Bauer and her “cohort” to be on the new show. Unfortunately, they now think he’s a pariah and Trudy thinks he’s nuts. And then some other stuff happens.
Not a lot going on here. OK, some humans are possessed by aliens. Where’s the suspense like in The Thing? Where is the mystery like Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Where is the futile chase like The Invaders? It just feels like they kept add scenes until they had enough to syndicate the episode.
Stan discovers the truth before the titles. He sleeps with a woman in the bar. Why — what plot or character point does that advance? Then she is one of his guests the next day. Again, what does this revelation do for either character?
Luckily, Joe Pantoliano is such a great presence, he can make anything interesting. And, to be fair, I unfairly pre-judged Cynthia Nixon. She wasn’t given much to do, but she was competent and charming. Just, for the love of God, stay out of politics.
Other Stuff:
- [1] Talking to the writer of the episode there, not Stan.
- But seriously, what was with all the close-ups?