Twilight Zone – A Day in Beaumont (04/11/86)

Posted on May 16, 2017 by don

Well this is a problem.

Seeing the title, I immediately recognized it as a reference to TZ master Charles Beaumont and patted myself on the back accordingly. When the car was zapped by a Bradbury Ray, I thought, clever, but they’re pushing their luck. Then they tell the sheriff they saw a meteor land near Willoughby, and I finally got it.

The segment is admirably stuffed with such references to the original Twilight Zone and 1950s sci-fi movies. There comes a tipping point — and it comes early — where the point of the episode is mainly to shoehorn in as many references as possible. This is the Mr. Creosote of TZ segments. But that’s not a bad thing.

Many of the actors were actually in those 1950s movies such as Forbidden Planet, This Island Earth, and Them. Their character’s names have at least one homage in them. The aliens, their uniforms, the spaceship design and sound effects are all based on those films. There isn’t a whole lot of room left for a story after that. But that’s not a bad thing.

It was the last episode of the season and they ended with a hoot. But it doesn’t give me much to work with. I could document every reference, but where’s the fun in that? I didn’t even catch many of them. The director’s commentary educated me on the more obscure ones.

It might have been more interesting if they had the actors — and their bloody composer — play it more straight. Filming the segment in B&W would have given it a huge boost. But why quibble.

So, I will just say it was a fun, light-hearted ending to the 1st season. And get back to bed at a reasonable hour for a change.

Other Stuff:

Classic TZ Legacy: What the — didn’t you read anything above?
Written by the writer of The Trouble with Tribbles.
Skipped Segment: The Last Defender of Camelot. Pffft.

The Price of a Dime – Norbert Davis (1934)

Posted on May 15, 2017 by don

On a personal note, I originally bought the dead-tree edition from Amazon. This 2.8 pound doorstop proved nearly impossible to read, so I had to buy it again for the Kindle just to get through it. For this amount of money, I might as well have gone to a bookstore. ^[0] Learn from my mistake — do not buy the paperback.

Private detective Shaley is idling idly at his desk when he hears screaming from the lobby. His secretary Sadie is trying to push a “fattish” ^[1] woman out the door because Shaley said he didn’t want to see anyone this morning.

She was sent here by her brother Bennie Peterson, a bellman ^[2] at the Grover Hotel. She says, “He just lost a dime, Mr. Shaley. And now Mr. Van Bilbo is going to have him arrested.” Seems Bennie had delivered a drink to a room and got a shiny new dime ^[3] as a tip. As he was flipping it in the air like George Raft ^[4], he dropped it in front of a door. Van Bilbo caught him and accused him of looking through the key hole ^[5]. Bennie instructed Sadie to have Shaley tell Van Bilbo there was no funny business. She tells him where Bennie is hiding out under the cryptic Ben Kenobiesque alias of Bennie Smith.

After she leaves, he tells Sadie he is going to get Bennie for involving him in a blackmail caper. About a week ago, a woman was killed at the Grover. Sadie says the woman’s name was “Big Cee” just like my ex-girlfriend. She had been mixed up with some gangsters. She had come out here to hide, but it didn’t work. The newspaper ^[6] said Van Bilbo, a movie director, had heard the story and paid for her funeral.

Shaley drives his “battered Chrysler ^[7] roadster” to the studio to see Van Bilbo. “There was a group of Indians ^[8] standing in a silent motionless circle in front of the big iron gate.” Through the gate, he sees his friend Mandy working and says “I need you today, oh Mandy.” ^[9] He let’s Shaley in and after the chauffeur with the “swarthily dark face” ^[11] beats it, they are alone.

Shaley asks, “Why all the war-whoops ^[8] outside?” Mandy explains they are extras. He tried to tell them there was no work today and to go to Wigwam Depot, “but they just grunt at you.” He then suddenly asks Mandy who “Big Cee” was. Mandy says, “Her name was Rosa Lee once. She worked with the old man on some serials back in ’09 or TO”. ^[12] That seems to satisfy Shaley who turns to leave. Mandy is less satisfied and tells him not to target Van Bilbo or “I’ll kill you deader than hell!”

Shaley finds a phone-booth ^[13] and checks in with Sadie. She says the no–~~neck~~ no-name woman from that morning called to thank Shaley for getting Bennie that job in Phoenix. She told a caller where he could find Bennie for the interview as bellhops are so uniquely skilled that they sometimes must be recruited out of state.

Shaley high-tails it to Bennie’s hide-out. A “fat ^[1] man in a pink shirt” tells him which room. He uses a skeleton key ^[14] to quietly enter his room. Seeing Bennie has been stabbed several times, he backs out and heads over to see the no–~~waist~~ no-name woman at her job at Zeke’s Tamales.

He sneaks in the back door. The Chef, “a short, fat ^[1] man with a round face” knows him. Laughably, Shaley says ~~no-ankles~~ no-name’s “brother has been murdered . . . and you’ll have to tell her.” Shaley heads back to the studio to see Van Bilbo.

He confronts Van Bilbo with a story that he admittedly half makes up on the fly. Big Cee ran a joint (i.e. brothel) in Cleveland. Some local “politicos” closed her down because f*ing the citizens is their job. She came to California with “some affidavits” and planned to shake them down. “But they didn’t want to play that way. They sent a guy after her, and he biffed her.” And afterward, I guess, he killed her. Big Cee had given the affidavits to Van Bilbo, and Bennie knew it. There is some Hollywood gun play. Yada, yada . . . the swarthy guy did it.

After the last story, this one was short, breezy fun.

Post-Post:

[0] Old brick buildings where they used to sell books and over-priced coffee.
[1] Gravitationally-challenged.
[2] Luggage-management person.
[3] Still only $1.83 in 2017, cheapskate!
[4] Gangster archetype from 1930s movies.
[5] Old-fashioned security device used to secure a door before hackers could open every door in the hotel at once.
[6] Archaic delivery system for 24-hour old news.
[7] I flagged this, but imagine my surprise to learn that they are still in business.
[8] Native Americans
[9] 1970’s song by Barry Manilow ^[10]
[10] 1970’s singer
[11] A person of indeterminate color, although I think we can rule one out.
[12] I don’t know what TO means and can’t even guess at a reasonable typo.
[13] Literally a booth with a phone inside. Crazy, man.
[14] A key capable of opening many locks.
First published in the April 1934 edition of Black Mask.
Also that month: Jane Goodall born.

Science Fiction Theatre – The World Below (08/27/55)

Posted on May 14, 2017 by don

Once again Truman Bradley opens up with more dubious facts than a month of Ancient Aliens. He says there are two great undiscovered areas — “outer space and the 4/5^ths of our own planet lying under the earth’s great oceans. Beneath the sea is a hidden region more than twice the size of all the nations of the earth put together.” Well, wouldn’t it be five times the size of all the nations then? I guess he has a partial out with Antarctica not being a nation, but I’m no cartographer.

Bradley also demonstrates how fake boobs are made.

Using a mammalian balloon, he then shows us how a man would explode in the vacuum of space due to the air in his body. Well, probably not unless he took a big breath and held it. Conversely, he says deep sea creatures explode when brought to the surface. I’m doubtful of that too. Maybe if they have sealed air sacs, but that seems unlikely or they’d be launching out of the water like Polaris Missiles.

To explore the ocean at record depths, the Turner Institute of Oceanography converted a “surface combat submarine” to withstand the pressure 1,000 fathoms down. The 4-man crew is on a “photographic mission” apparently thinking deep-dive submarines have big ol’ windows. And BTW, how is a submarine a surface combatant? Maybe that’s how Indy survived.

Truman Bradley tells us, “On April 2nd, Captain John Forester began his first vacation in 5 years. He disconnected the doorbell to make sure he wouldn’t be disturbed.” He has a fiendishly clever visitor at the front door who outfoxes him by knocking. Turns out it is his old pal Buck ~~Naked~~ Weaver. He has come to recruit Forester to captain an experimental sub named The Loon. Wait, what? That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Sailors are a superstitious lot. There’s a reason there was never a ship named after Louis Leakey; although it was probably because he was a paleontologist.

This is Jean’s factory setting. BTW, pictures 1 and 3 are different shots.

Twenty-6 days later The Loon is cruising at 1,000 fathoms. When they go down to 1,200 fathoms, they lose radio contact. On a sonar scope, we see 3 blips — escape pods — rising to the surface. Later on the news, Forester’s wife Jean is relieved to see her husband survived. Weaver tells a reporter that at 1,800 fathoms, they found a city and Forester backs him up. So, they are famous and in the newspaper.

Forester and his wife turn on the TV to see the film they took of the city beneath the sea. The film shows a rippling skyline. However, when the Navy goes down to salvage The Loon, they see no city. Forester and Weaver will be charged with perpetrating a hoax that got a man killed.

Forester is called into a Board of Inquiry where they grill him about a possible hoax. It isn’t The Caine Mutiny but it is pretty good for SFT. The next day Weaver shows up with an explanation of what happened. They did not see a city, but it was an honest mistake. Shockingly, the explanation does not strike me as complete baloney.

One of the more tolerable episodes, but that ain’t saying much.

Etc:

Time to rewatch The Abyss.

Outer Limits – Feasibility Study (07/11/97)

Posted on May 13, 2017 by don

Sometimes I will accuse an episode of setting up a story that is never told. Usually, my complaint is because the other story would have been an improvement over the bile left on the screen. Tonight, however, I am happy to see the alt-plot take off on a motorcycle not to be seen again for 40 minutes.

Sarah Hayward brings her boyfriend Nicky home to meet her father. Pop is not crazy about the motorcycle-riding hooligan. The good news for him and the viewers is that they will never see each other again. What could have been another angsty teen drama with a sprinkling of sci-fi is pared down to its SF essence. Mr. Hayward convinces Nicky to slow down their relationship and sends him away. While calling Sarah from a phone booth, Nicky sees Sarah’s neighborhood scooped up from the earth like Jouret IV ^[1] and get transported away.

Hayward is returning from a run when he is caught by his neighbor Pat Dooley. Despite being neighbors for three years, they’ve never spoken. Within seconds, Dooley is blabbing his life story about his wife’s death from cervical cancer, and asking for a ride to work, thus illustrating why people don’t talk to their neighbors. Hayward gets the last laugh by transporting Dooley to work after not taking a shower because the utilities are off.

Another set of ~~strangers~~ neighbors is having breakfast. Dickish attorney Daniel Tenzer is established as a tool early on. He pictures himself a tough-guy because of his prowess in the court-room. Their phones are out and his too-good-for-him wife suggests he ask to use a neighbor’s. He says then they will think he owes them a favor.

Dooley and Hayward begun their drive to the city. They soon encounter a shimmering barrier across the road which blocks their passage, however, they are thrilled to now be living in a gated community. The camera pulls back to show the neighborhood now sits atop a spire on an alien world. Tenzer pulls up in his Mercedes and is literally about as useful as a lawyer in an apocalypse. I’ll say this for him, though, he is smarter than Dooley who gets handsy with the barrier and is sucked into it.

Sarah sneaks out of the house in a fabulous ensemble topped off by a beret. In the woods, she is grabbed by a blue alien with barnacles on his head. She screams and he says, “I know I look horrible. It is the disease.” He is an alien, so what is the symptom that he thinks scared her? The blue skin, the webbed fingers, the cthulhu tentacles, the barnacles? He is an alien, for crying out loud — how does he think she knows what his “normal” is? To his credit, though, he did not scream at the sight of her nose-ring.

He says most of his people are dead, that it is something in the air. He explains that they are both are in the same predicament. They have been brought to this moon by the Triunes. He says “you have machines that protect you” as he fondles her headphones. He asks for her help. Boy, is he in the wrong neighborhood.

Like Maple Street when the titular monsters were due, the neighbors meet in the street. Hayward suggests pooling their resources, but they aren’t crazy about that idea. When the neighborhood security guard shows him Sarah’s backpack, he asks for help finding her. Again, no takers. Tenzer says they have their own families to worry about.

Blue-Boy leads Sarah through a breach in the barrier. Although an earlier shot suggested they should be falling to their death, they arrive in a rocky desert wasteland. Scattered around are his dead, fully barnacled “people”, all in red garments. Strangely, there are 5-foot towers of rocks with red material tied around them. At first I thought his people had turned into these stones, but no. It took me a minute to figure out that they must be elaborately stacked cairns with a ribbon of the deceased’s clothing. It amazes me that most TV is such crap that a little thing like this is awesome. Kudos on leaving this for the viewer to figure out!

But then the tone-deafness returns. Blue-Boy again refers to Sarah’s Walkman as a “medical device” that will protect her. That’s a fun idea, although, why the hell would he jump to that conclusion? But the boneheadedness is in the branding. The unit clearly says WALKMAN ^[2], which was a product made by Sony. OK, TV likes to hide brand names unless they are getting paid for it, so Sony is replaced by fake company MD. Blue-Boy calls it a medical device — MD. Hunh? Is that a coincidence? Did he call it a medical device because it said MD? How did this gargoyle who never saw a human before learn to read English? Plus, when he referenced it earlier, he motioned toward her headset — the unit with the MD logo was hidden on her belt. I am utterly baffled by this.

While Hayward and the security guard are looking for Sarah, they find Dooley is back from the other side. He says the aliens examined him, but he seems to have not gotten the standard anal probe. He tells Hayward that they are no longer on earth and seems oddly chipper about it. Hayward hears Sarah’s voice and goes through the barrier to find her. Unfortunately, he is diverted to the examination room where he gets the full Dooley.

The aliens tell him the neighborhood was brought to their world to test human’s feasibility as slaves. The aliens assure him humans “will enjoy the usual perquisites of slavery” which I guess are room and board; although interstellar slaves miss out on the fabulous sea cruise. If humans are the first species to survive their atmosphere, the aliens will come pick up a few million more. This group is the Swedish Meatballs at the end of the CostCo aisle.

Hayward proposes to his neighbors that they all infect themselves so the aliens believe humans can’t survive their atmosphere, thus saving the earth. He takes his daughter’s hand to infect himself. The preacher takes Hayward’s other hand. Another man takes his free hand and Mrs. Tenzen joins in probably just to get away from her husband. It’s a nice kumbaya visual, but unless this disease conducts like lightning, and about that fast, I don’t think this daisy-chain approach would work.

Meanwhile back on earth, Nicky returns to look at the big hole in the ground. I wonder if he is silently thanking Hayward for saving him, you know, from marriage.

Another fine episode.

Other:

^[1] Although The Best of Both Worlds is two of the best hours in TV history, I was always disappointed we never got to see the Borg city-scooping in that episode or any other. And what was the point of it, anyway? The Borg wanted bodies and technology. How did scooping up a city fulfill those needs? Maybe they will show us on Star Trek: Discovery, but I won’t see it — I will NEVER pay for TV other than VHS, DVDs, Blu-Rays, cable, NetFlix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. NEVER, I tells ya!
^[2] Does anyone under 25 even know what these were? They were like early iPods . . . does anyone under 30 even know what they were? They played cassettes . . . does anyone even know what they were? They were like tiny reel-to-reels . . . does anyone even know . . . feeling old now. BTW, this is the 2nd 1997 Outer Limits episode where a cute blonde girl listening to rock & roll was expected to save the world. Is there anything they can’t do?
There is a preacher in the episode played by an actor named French Tickner. I wonder if he ever had a nickname.

The Hitchhiker – Cabin Fever (05/12/87)

Posted on May 12, 2017 by don

In a purely perfunctory opening, a man comes out of his beach-front home and goes running with his dog. Scoundrel Rick Hinton enters the unlocked house and goes through his desk. He finds an envelope full of cash, but only takes some of it. He goes into the bathroom where the man’s wife was clearly expecting him. They have the sex. Elapsed time: 2 minutes (including the sex).

I understand they used this opening to establish Hinton as a playa on the playa. It is just so disconnected and laughably condensed that it leaves you thinking it should have more meaning. Strangely, though, it takes the extra time to establish him as a thief, which plays absolutely no part in the rest of the episode. He’s not even a very good thief — he takes enough money that its absence will be noticed, but he doesn’t take it all so it might be thought misplaced.

Next, at a marina, he spots a woman struggling with the sails on her boat. Again, the narrative is so compressed it is just crazy. From stranger on the dock, through flirtation, to him being hired takes literally 35 seconds. Her husband Cameron pops up through a hatch. She says she hired the stranger to help on the island. Her husband refers to him as a “cabin boy” and says, “Welcome aboard, young man” to the 30 year old.

On the island, Hinton sees Cameron chopping up some mushrooms. Cameron spears a mushroom and holds it up, proclaiming it morcellus esculente, but I think he means morchella esculente. He also calls it “the ambrosia of mushrooms”, but I’m not sure there really would be a fungus of the gods — wouldn’t they kinda be above that? In any case, people who make such a fuss over mushrooms are even more insufferable than wine snobs. And WTF uses that Olive Bar at Fresh Market? But I digress . . . Miranda pops in to assure Hinton that the mushrooms are safe; Cameron grows them in the basement. He says, “Mushrooms are admirable creatures. So much more reliable than people.”

Hinton learns that Cameron is a movie director. He asks if Cameron has directed any thing he’s seen and Cameron zings both Hinton and himself pretty good, “Unfortunately, just the sort of thing you would see.” Miranda reels off his oeuvre, Sister of Dracula, House of Cadavers, Beach Blanket Bloodbath. Hinton has seen that last epic, but says, “It was a little opaque.” As usual, The Hitchhiker doesn’t know a funny line when they have one. However, it does give Cameron another opportunity to demean Hinton as a “house-boy.”

He grabs a bottle of tequila and takes a swig before unsanitarily offering it to Hinton. Cameron proclaims — again with the proclaiming! — it, “The only proper drink, really. You know, the Mexicans sometimes put a little worm in the bottom of the bottle. That’s how you can tell the best tequila.” Actually, you find a worm at the bottom of a bottle of mescal, not tequila. Except that you don’t usually find one there, either. And it isn’t a sign of quality. And it’s a moth larvae, not a worm. Other than that, he is spot-on.

Hinton deftly accuses Cameron of emulating the worm — soaked to the gills, seeing life through the bottom of a booze bottle. The drifter working as a cabin boy then tells the guy who owns the yacht and island getaway, “I know a has-been when I see one.” Cameron harrumphs and goes out to “check the traps.”

After Hinton gives Miranda a few smooches down below — in the basement, I mean — she is ready to dump Cameron. The scene also informs us that Hinton is claustrophobic and that the basement door will slam shut by itself and lock you in. Fortunately Miranda keeps a spare key in a jar. She later shows Hinton a pistol and tells him Cameron sometimes hits her.

They start kissing, but Cameron gets back from his trap-checking. She runs out to meet him and Hinton goes to the basement. For no reason that I can figure, he takes the basement key out of the jar where it is usually kept and transfers it to a bottle of tequila. He is planning to lock Cameron down there? That’s a pretty lousy hiding place. Why leave it there at all? Is it some kind of metaphor for the tequila worm? I don’t get it.

That night, Cameron orders Hinton around as “house-boy” to fetch some booze. Hinton suggests champagne and invites him downstairs to pick out a good vintage (ahhhh). Cameron instead sends Miranda downstairs to get the champagne saying, “Nothing but the best for our servant.” After she leaves, Cameron calls an audible ^[1] and decides on martinis. Cameron again demonstrates his knowledge of mixology by making martinis with no vermouth, no olives and no onions, which sounds a lot like straight gin. Miranda couldn’t find the champagne, so returns with tequila. Cameron says they are celebrating his new production.

He rambles on about a prince and a princess and a troll as a metaphor for their triangle. Cameron pulls a knife, but Hinton pulls a gun. Hinton accidentally shoots him. Miranda brains Hinton with a tequila bottle. I must say she does it with such force that it is my favorite shot of the episode.

Blah, blah . . . the shooting was staged. Miranda and Cameron drag Hinton to the basement. When he wakes up, through the door, they tell him it was all in good fun and that he can catch the ferry at 9 am. It seems like a prank they have played before. He scrambles to get the key, but it was in the bottle of tequila Miranda took upstairs the previous night. Hmmm . . . there are two possible scenarios:

Miranda showed Hinton where the key was kept, so she believes he will get out safely. In that case, while she and Cameron are yukking it up over their little charade, isn’t she worried he will unlock the door and kick their asses?
Miranda is aware that Hinton moved the key and purposely chose that bottle to take upstairs. Unfortunately, there is zero suggestion off that. Why would she leave the bottle with the key in it in plain sight upstairs? She and Cameron seem to honestly be in love and think this was all a hoot.

And once again, what kind of place is a liquor bottle to hide a key? Everyone knows, the have to finish a bottle of booze after you open it or it will go bad. Did Lucille Bluth teach us nothing?

While the pacing was choppy in the beginning, I do appreciate that they didn’t pad out the episode . . . boy, do I appreciate it! At its most basic level, I did like the story and the twist — just the details were a little loopy. Thank God they had Jerry Orbach as Cameron to carry the episode. His energy helped distract from Michael Wood’s dreadful performance as Hinton. He has had a long career, so maybe this was just an early misstep. Season Hubley was entirely adequate as Miranda.