Tales from the Crypt – Whirlpool (10/31/94)

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They are going for a meta motif tale about a sub-par story being handed in just before deadline at the office of the Tales from the Crypt comic book.  The episode seems even more meta than they realized.

In a dark seedy hotel room, Jerry calls floozy Velma to get in the tub with him.  Surprisingly, he is wearing a t-shirt and an open dress-shirt in the filled tub.  More surprising to him, I suspect, is the belt that Mr. Velma loops around his neck to kill him.  He strangles Jerry as he thrashes about in the water.  Thankfully, he not Porky-Pigging it but does have on some fabulous blue plaid boxers.  In the tub.  In the water.

The topless Velma cheers her husband Roger on as Jerry croaks; then dies.  The couple had used Jerry in a con, and were just getting rid of him.  Roger criticizes her for enjoying her work too much.  She admits she had some good memories.  Suddenly Jerry rises up and breaks her husband’s neck.  He says, “I’m glad you feel that way.  I’m all choked up!” as he reaches for her throat.  She screams, and that frozen shot dissolves into the last panel of the TFTC comic book submission from Rolanda.  Good stuff.

But what do I know?  Her editor Vern says he doesn’t understand.  Is Vern dead?  Is Roger dead?  Is one or both of them a ghoul?  “What kind of ending is that?”  Vern declares it “a piece of shit.”  Even with 2 hours to deadline, the story is deemed not good enough. [1]  He fires her and has security throw her off the elevator in a nice little uncushioned fall by Rita Rudner.  She comes back that night and blows him.  Away.  For some reason, 6 cops are waiting in the lobby and blow her away.

She wakes up the next morning to a sunny day, birds chirping, and complete lack of being dead.  The vignette with Roger, Jerry & Velma plays again, although notably beginning this time after Velma put on a bra.  Rolanda is stunned as the day replays just as it did before with Vern hating her submission and him having to use the story about the head.

Again, Vern calls her into his office.  This time she stops his hand from buzzing security; although it was later in the day when security killed her the first time.  I guess this, at least, saved her from being thrown to the floor again.

That night she goes back to see Vern.  To be safe, she leaves the gun at home.  Vern pulls his own gun on her, though.  In a scuffle, she ends up killing Vern in this iteration also.  She gets on the elevator and pushes floor 13 rather than 1 as she did before.  Wait a minute, I understand her not wanting to go to 1, fearing she would be shot.  But why go UP to 13?  Then what?  What’s the plan?  Why not just go down to the 2nd floor and take the backstairs?  No good, the cops are miraculously waiting for her on 13 and mow her down.

She wakes up the next morning to a sunny day, birds chirping, and complete lack of being dead.  Both Velma and her boobs are MIA this time.  Rolanda tears up her story and calls in sick.  While she’s on the phone, Vern rings her doorbell.  He came to tell her she’s fired, then pulls a gun on her.  Wait, what?  What is the motivation for that?  Sure, he is under pressure with the deadline, but he was under pressure in the other iterations also.

But he turns the gun on himself and fires.  Again, why?

Like all innocent people on TV, she picks up the weapon just as the cops arrive.  Surprisingly, they do not riddle her with bullets this time.  I assume she got a fair, though incorrectly decided, trial because she is facing a firing squad.  They fill her full of lead and that scene dissolves into the last panel in a new comic strip.

The scene reboots again.  The roles are reversed and she begins speaking Vern’s dialogue from earlier in the show.  There is a new bit about him using her likeness in the comic which does not belong because it introduces a new element.  When she calls Vern into her office to fire him, he says “Oh shit.”  But why?  This is his first iteration.  He doesn’t know what’s coming.

There really is a lot to like in a short episode here, but the story ain’t part of it.  And a tip to aspiring screenwriters, story is kinda important.

First of all, whose story is it?  OK, Rolanda does a bad thing when she kills Vern the first time around.  It’s not like she gets away with it; she is executed.  Is the 2nd go-around a Groundhog Day-esque shot at redemption or her own personal Hell?  In either scenario, why would the roles reverse at the end?  Ya might think, well, karma is going to force her to experience Vern’s death as well as her own — double the torture!  Interesting, but Vern’s “Oh shit” tells us he is now the one aware of the inevitable future.  How did this become his story?

Ya say, he committed suicide, ergo he is going to Hell.  Not so fast, then where is the resolution to Rolanda’s fate?  Did this get her off the hook somehow?  And don’t forget, this episode began in reality, then went into cosmic iterations with magic police and body-switching.  That dimension is where Vern killed himself, not in the real world.

One more puzzler from the reversal scene.  Vern is Rolanda and Rolanda is Vern.  OK, it makes no sense, but here we are.  Then why are the two other prominently featured characters, other TFTC writers, played by different actors, and one is now a woman?  Maybe it is the actress who payed Velma, but that would make no sense because she was a dramatization in the first iteration.  She is blonde, but has glasses, different eyebrows, and a different hairstyle.  If TFTC was trying to be clever by making that Velma, it would take CSI to prove it.  This possibility is also made unlikely by the fact that I have no idea who the new dude is.  He bears no resemblance to Jerry or Roger.

And what is the point?  I’m sure getting killed is no day at the park, but is it really cosmic-level Hell?  Vern takes it in the melon.  Rolanda gets hit by a fusillade of bullets.  Both had to be pretty quick and painless.

The episode is only 20 minutes including credits and the odious Crypt-Keeper.  Maybe they could have ironed these issues out; they had a couple minutes to spare if a scene needed to be expanded or added.  For example, why are the cops magically waiting for Rolanda on the 13th floor?  Ya might say they are the cosmic enforcers; they will appear wherever Rolanda is to mete out her punishment.  True, but they could have made it credible.   For example, what if Rolanda had used my 2nd floor strategy, and the cops were waiting for her?  I would think “good strategy”, they split their team up, expecting such a ruse.  However, I don’t think they had 13 teams in position.

And yet, I liked it.  I stand by my theory that the writers giddily pitched a meta story about deadline pressure because they had to come up with a story quickly after they spent all their time smoking pot and campaigning for Bill Clinton.  But then it came to life when the other creators performed magnificently.

Richard Lewis and Rita Rudner were more known as stand-ups.  In fact, this was Rita’s first TV role.  They both totally nailed it, seeming to understand the show better than most of the producers.  The whole production was beautiful.  The office and workers had a 1950’s vibe, but was populated by dandies and hipster doofuses that I could imagine in the comic book biz.  The suits, suspenders, and fat colorful ties created the perfect atmosphere.  The pacing was brisk and there were a number of wonderfully composed shots.

If the screenplay had made a lick of sense, this could have been a model for what TFTC was supposed to be.  As it is:  Slightly guilty pleasure.  But a pleasure.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] The replacement story is about “a guy who wants to be head of the company, so they cut his head off.”  That’s how bad Rolanda’s story must have been.
  • From the writer of Outer Limits’ Alien Radio a couple days ago.

 

Outer Limits – Donor (01/29/99)

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Renee Stuyvescent is womansplaining to the hospital board that we have come far in just a few decades of transplanting hearts.  Now we are ready for the first FBT– Full Body Transplant — “in which we replace an entire disease-riddled body . . . joining the body, from the neck up to the limbs and torso, of a brain-dead donor.”

Joining the body from the neck up?  Ahem, let a man jump in here, sweetheart.  Isn’t this really a head transplant?  I know it sounds less scientific than Full Body Transplant, and frankly a little comical, but let’s be accurate here.   What’s that?  FBT could mean millions in grants, but the government would expect the Discovery Channel to fund Operation Noggin-Swap?  Carry on. [1]

Renee proposes the first person to be FBT’d should be the doctor who invented the procedure, cancer patient Dr. Peter Halstead.  She later tells Peter of her proposal.  He is dubious that there would ever be a body donor having his rare blood-type of AB-Negative with a splash of Worcestershire.  Renee goes in to action, though, she finds the perfect candidate and puts a bullet in his melon.

The next morning, Renee gives Peter the good news about the man’s murder.  She tells him she convinced the Board to allow the operation on him.  Peter tells her she “could sell snowshoes in Australia” which is kinda dumb since it does snow in Australia.  Did we learn nothing from The Man from Snowy River?

He feels guilty taking all the organs that could have helped many different people, but what the hey.  Renee says “it is the best gift anyone could ever get” but what the lovesick Renee really means is that it is the best gift anyone could ever give. Well-played.

The operation is at once, credible and silly.  It would have been a better fit for a good episode of TFTC.  On the other hand, it was graphic and bloody enough make it intriguing.  It is a success, and 32 days later, Peter is in physical therapy pumping iron.  Although since he just got a completely new healthy body, I’m not sure why it is necessary. But then I thought that about my body once upon a time and look what happened.

At 45 days, Renee moves him into her fabulous condo to recover.  Again I’m confused.  He was a doctor, not homeless.  Why can’t he just go home?  He asks, “What do you give someone who saved your life?”  His answer of a kiss on the cheek is clearly disappointing to her.  However, that night Renee in her nightgown, goes to Peter’s room.  This time he tests out his new equipment as they have the sex.

Unfortunately, Peter has begun having flashes of another life.  Anyone who has ever seen an organ transplant on TV knows what this is and knew it was coming.  I really don’t mind some tropes being used over and over; there are only so many stories.  But, please, put some kind of spin on it.  Peter tracks down the wife of the man whose body he received and they fall in love.  Seen it.  In fact, just seen it on The Twilight Zone.

Yes, there is a twist at the end, and it is a good one.  But it only occupies a few seconds.  Surely there was some other direction this could have gone to make a more interesting story.  Was there something unusual about the body that no one but the donor knew?  An alien or espionage implant?  An X-Men-esque superpower?  Had the donor previously had a heart transplant which introduces a third soul into the equation?  Had the donor killed his wife, and now a confused Peter goes after Renee?  Maybe not great, but that’s after 10 seconds of thinking about it by a guy who is, clearly, not a writer.

I’d be satisfied with time travel and body swaps every week.  Just add a little seasoning.  Maybe some Worcestershire.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] This assumes no Senators have a relative on the Hospital Board.
  • Renee was the low-talker who made Jerry Seinfeld wear the Puffy Shirt even though he didn’t want to be a pirate.
  • This is the first time I’ve ever noticed TV surgeons wearing the Victoria’s Secret brand masks — they are shear enough to see the mouth and teeth.  Maybe I’m behind the times on that.  I have never seen House, ER, Chicago Hope, Chicago Med, Grey’s Anatomy or Girls.  I know Girls isn’t a doctor show; I just want to be clear that I’ve never seen it.

Science Fiction Theatre – The Long Day (12/17/55)

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At the Pecos Proving Grounds, physicist Robert Barton and Carl Eberhardt are working on Operation Torch.  The goal is to light up the night sky, enabling glaciers to melt and fertile fields to wither even faster they do now.  Dr. Smiley has been dispatched from Washington to observe the test and determine if there is a way to tax the new illumination.

Carl shows Dr. Smiley the rocket which contains a “beautifully simple” method of producing light.  It is actually quite complex, at least in the number of words, but sounds good to someone who knows nothing about science, like me or the SFT producers.

Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Springdale, real estate developer Sam Gilmore is very upset about the latest person to buy in his new development.  He proudly proclaims, “I restricted against everything I could think of!”  Somehow, though, he neglected to restrict against “a convicted criminal — a jailbird!”  I’ll bet he thought the ** ahem** other restrictions would keep out the criminal element.

The resident who sold Matt Brander his house had to know he was a criminal.  His trial was in all the papers back when people read them.  The Trumpian Gilmore wanted this to be “the finest development anywhere, with the finest people.”

Afraid that property values will plummet, he plans to run Brander out of town.  His partners point out that this is illegal.  Mr. Law N. Order now says, “The law has nothing to do with this!  We’ll use my truck and we’ll dump his stuff right out in the desert!”  Self-awareness is not among Laurel Manors’ amenities.

Gilmore picks up a baseball bat and asks his partners how they can care so little about a scumbag living in their community. Then he pulls a nylon stocking over his head and insists they join him in the attack that night when no one can see their identities.  Self-awareness is not among Laurel Manors’ amenities.

His partners agree to help him terrorize Brander into leaving.  Gilmore isn’t sure of their loyalty, though, so demands that they take an oath.  They repeat after Gilmore, swearing their loyalty like a couple of kids, or Masons (Free, not Brick).

The next morning we see Brander — hey, it’s Star Trek’s Dr. McCoy! — and his wife standing amidst the horrific mess, the debris, oh the humanity!  Wait, the Gilmore gang has not attacked yet; it is just moving day mess.  Brander vows to his wife they will not be run out of their new home!

Back at the Pecos Proving Ground, the boys launch their rocket successfully,  However, it doesn’t fall to earth as scheduled.  That night, Springdale is illuminated by a “substitute sun”.  Washington instructs them not to self-destruct the rocket.  It goes on lighting up the sky all night.

Well, old man Gilmore sees this localized phenomenon as a sign.  He tells his posse, “Last night we were going to pull a dirty trick.  But it didn’t get dark, you see!  It didn’t get dark!”  He sees this as an opportunity to do the right thing.  He calls off the attack.  Maybe he’ll also get out of the real estate developer business and shave off that pencil-thin mustache.  He leads his bois in a new more inclusive oath.  Coincidentally, the rocket burns out at just that moment, plunging Springdale into normal nighttime darkness.

The episode was nothing special, although I did like how they tied the stories together.  But it was worth it just to hear Pencil Thin Mustache again.

Other Stuff:

  • Yesterday’s AHP about a guy who couldn’t go to sleep starred the same guy who was in a TZ episode about a guy afraid to go to sleep.  Today’s SFT is about an unnaturally lengthy day; there was a TZ about an unnaturally lengthy night.  I got nothing for this.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Insomnia (05/08/60)

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Cheers to Dennis Weaver!  He is like the TV Gene Hackman — if he is in a show, you can trust it will probably be pretty good.  He was in a couple of a long-running series [1] and a ton of other stuff.  Somehow he managed to do it without overdosing, beating up his wife, or condescendingly mouthing off about issues he didn’t understand.  Best of all, at some point, he just went away.  Whatever happened to actors like that?  Oh yeah, they went away. [2]

Tonight at 3:50 am, Weaver is having trouble sleeping.  Sitting here typing at 12:50 am, I can tell him what has worked for me the past three years as long as you don’t mind being called a moron occasionally.  He is suffering from acute insomnia.  He turns on the light and reaches for a cigarette, neither of which seems like it would help.

Maybe his room is too cold.  He sits up, puts on his slippers for a 2-step journey, slips into his robe and sashes it, then walks to an old heater a few feet away.  Frankly, bundling up like the dude in To Build a Fire took more time than just going to the heater.  Unfortunately, when he lights the heater, it belches a yuge flame at him.  Frustrated and exhausted, he flops on the bed.  On the plus side, he is not on fire.

Weaver finally decides to see a psychiatrist.  He reveals that his wife died in a fire a year ago.  He tells the doctor of a recurring dream — wait, I thought he never slept.  He dreams of his wife Linda in their old house.

She is standing by the stairs, seemingly unaware of the fire approaching her rear from the rear.  Weaver screams to warn her, but he doesn’t actually, you know, make any effort to rescue her.  The flames engulf her.

Weaver is quick to point out this is not what happened.  They were in bed when the real fire reached their bedroom.  Blinded by the smoke, he screamed for Linda but she did not answer — in the bed might have been a good place to start feeling around (as it usually is).  He was able to get to the bathroom and jump out the window.  The doctor suggests guilt is keeping him awake, but Weaver disagrees.

He does admit to being bothered by the accusations of Linda’s brother Jack Fletcher that he did nothing to save her.  Oh, I guess Mr. Tough Guy would have run right into the fire to save her!  Easy to say, safely after-the-fact from some comfy . . . “military hospital in Maryland”.  Oh.

Weaver realizes that his insomnia did not begin until Fletcher was released from the military hospital in Maryland (oh why the hell can’t they just say Walter Reed?).  Despite making 20 years of progress in their first session, Weaver is not cured.  That night he is tossing and turning in bed again.  He picks up a paperback but the phone interrupts him.  It is Fletcher, saying he is in town.  He menacingly says, “You know why I’m here, don’t you Charlie?”

That night in his pajamas, Weaver calls the military hospital [3] to get Fletcher’s new address.  What the hospital lacks in HIPAA privacy rules, it makes up in 24-hour service.  They happily give him Fletcher’s new address in Manhattan.  Weaver goes to visit Fletcher.  BTW, Weaver pays Fletcher the respect of dressing up, but this is the 3rd day he has worn that same necktie.  Oh well, maybe his others were lost in the fire; and it is a snappy number.

When Fletcher opens the door, Weaver sees that he is in a wheelchair.  He begins threatening Weaver about letting his sister die.  They begin fighting — yeah, Weaver vs a guy in a wheelchair.  It’s a closer match than you would expect unless you’ve ever seen Weaver.  Fletcher pulls out a gun, evening the odds quite a bit.  Fletcher is no rocket scientist despite the resemblance to Stephen Hawking.  Weaver gets his hands on the gun and they struggle over it.  Weaver manages to point the barrel toward Fletcher’s noggin and shoots him in the face.

Weaver goes home, has a beer, kicks off his shoes, lights the heater and falls into the deepest sleep he has had in a year.  He even sleeps right through the sirens and roar of the fire engines.  Although, he was probably long dead by that time from the smoke the heater put out.

Despite the great performance by Weaver, I’m a little ambivalent on this one.  Despite him being so twitchy, I still didn’t think of him as a coward who abandoned his wife.  The first fire just seemed like a tough circumstance that he was lucky to live through himself. It even works out that his guilt and self-loathing were tied more to a fear of Fletcher than to his inability to save Linda.

Shooting his brother-in-law might have been extreme, and illegal in most states, but Fletcher really was a threatening dick.  Sure he was in a wheelchair, but he had pointed a pistol at Weaver and literally said, “Here’s my legs!”  It’s hard for me to get too upset about his murder.

Ultimately, it was a nice set-up and spike of brutal cosmic justice.  Ya hear that, yesterday’s Twilight Zone!

Other Stuff:

  • [1] For example, he was in 290 episodes of Gunsmoke.  What amuses me is that isn’t even half the run of the series.  Maybe that was an early example of him knowing when to get out.
  • [2] Actually, I see one reason he slowed down is that he died in 2006.  He still seems like a reg’lar guy, though.
  • [3] Now referred to as Dover Veteran’s Hospital, but they’re not fooling anyone.
  • Weaver was also in a sleep-centric episode of the original Twilight Zone one year and 3 days after this aired.  In that story, he was trying not to go to sleep.  It was remade into a 1986 TZ episode where I was trying not to go to sleep. [4]
  • [4] To be fair, I think it was actually one of their better episodes.
  • For more info on the episode head over to Bare*Bones Ezine.

Twilight Zone – Stranger in Possum Meadows (01/14/89)

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Did I forget what the original Twilight Zone was like?  Are my memories of loneliness, terror, cruel irony and remorseless cosmic comeuppance just romanticizing an old TV show?  Because this series is becoming more predictably lame than the dark days of Ray Bradbury Theater.  I thought it was impossible for the narrator to be more miscast than Charles Aidman.  This new guy, though, has the edgy menace of an NPR host.

I like them french fried potaters.

The insufferably twee narrator introduces us to young Danny who lives in a trailer with his mother.  There is a glimmer of hope as Danny puts a toy boat in a stream “and follows a trail just to see where it goes.  But today that trail will lead Danny through a private reserve which lies just inside the borders of the twilight zone.”

Unfortunately, the narrator foreshadows the utter banality to come by speaking in the chirpy tones usually reserved for giddily introducing yet another goddamn segment on cowboy poets.

They even jerk us off — sorry, this has taken an ugly turn — by having the toy boat go through a strange white mist.  Is anything done with this?  Of course not.

Danny encounters a man walking though the woods dressed like Sling Blade.  The immaculate long pants and fully buttoned shirt should be a little disconcerting.  However, the man’s gentleness and the insipid score ensure no suspense is created.

After a sad conversation about Danny and his mother, Danny invites the man to dinner.  We get an idea what the man — named Scout — is up to when he mesmerizes a deer and makes it disappear.  They have a nice dinner where the scariest thing is a spilled glass of water.  Danny has a new friend, Mom is starting to take a liking to this new fella, and all is right with the world.

I’m not sure if this happiness was to set up the next scene, or if I’m just getting tired.  It is pretty creepy, though.  The next day, Scout meets Danny at the trailer.  Scout invites Danny to go exploring.  Danny says his mother told him to stay there until she got home.  Scout says, “I talked to your mother” and Danny skeptically says “You did?”  Scout says they’re all going to have dinner at his house, and they walk off onto the woods.  In fact, it is so chillingly creepy that I’m not sure that was their intention.

Dull story short, Scout is an alien (and based on that last scene, should be on To Catch a Predator) collecting specimens of earth life.  He is going to take Danny, but the thought of his own family makes him change his mind.

After a brief detour last week where TZ knocked off a teenage girl, it is back to the sappy vibe that sank this run of the series.  It’s like if Henry Bemis remembered the spare glasses in his coat pocket.

Despite the episode being a stain on the TZ franchise, I must say the performances were all very good.  There was nothing wrong with the script that a different script couldn’t fix.[1]  Just the tone was entirely wrong.

Pfft:

[1] The script was fine for what it wanted to do; I just mean, a different story.