Phobos and Deimos — so far so good.  Bradbury might give Mars earth-like gravity, blue skies, and breathable air, but he did at least keep the 2nd moon.  I suspect they would never be in that configuration in the sky, but why quibble.

Down on the Martian surface, LaFarge and his wife Anna are having a restless night, both dreaming about their dead son.

Anna says, “We should have brought him with us.”  Her husband quite reasonably says, “Anna, he’s been dead 5 years.  What would be the use?”  Hers sounds like a crazy comment, but she misses driving to his grave on Sunday and talking to him.  Although I think he is just as likely to hear her on Mars as on Earth no matter what your belief system.

A strange ball of light appears the next night and a disembodied voices says, “Let me go. You caught me.  Let me go.”  LaFarge opens the door and it is his dead son Tom.  He beelines for his mother’s bedroom quicker than Buster Bluth.

The next morning, LaFarge awakes to hear his wife and dead son having breakfast.  Anna is treating Tom as her real son, but LaFarge is suspicious.  He has heard that the few remaining indigenous Martians can read minds and imitate relatives, which is why we killed the Indians.

The three of them go to an outdoor bazaar that night.  Tom gets separated from his parents.  When LaFarge looks for him, he sees a girl reuniting with her parents — clearly Tom has taken a new form.  All over the Martian town, people are seeing their dead relatives.

LaFarge finds the girl and convinces her to turn back into Tom.  There are so many people around with so many memories of dead friends that he can’t maintain his form as Tom. He turns into several different people, and is finally seen in the act of changing.  Finally he is overwhelmed by the crowds and vanishes completely.

Not a great ending to the season.  Although it is great that the season had only 8 episodes.

Post-Post:

• John Vernon (LaFarge) was just seen on TFTC in Seance.
• Anna (Sheila Moore) was also in RBT’s The Day It Rained Forever.