SFT continues championing our unsung institutes of higher education.  Today we are in “Science Hall” at “State University” home of the fighting Home.  We’re not here long though, so I don’t even know why I bought up.  Or why SFT did.  Flashback . . .

John and Nina Barlow are walking along the beach.  They find a nice spot and spread a blanket.  John, who is a doctor and probably never lets you forget it, begins mansplaining that the Moon does not shine, it merely reflects light from the sun.  Nina begins kissing him just to stop his lips from moving.

A minute later a fog begins rolling in which is just like The Fog — not scary.  John and Nina find themselves forced onto their backs, and they can’t move.  They awaken in a lab in a couple of La-Z-Boys.  They still can’t get up, but only because they are so darn comfortable.  Finally John crawls out of his chair, puzzled by how they got here, and if there might be snacks.

They discover they are locked in a windowless lab,  There are strange sounds and smells.  John really loses his shit when he repeatedly tries to break an Erlenmeyer Flask and it just won’t shatter.  When John starts fiddling with some equipment, a voice tells him to knock it off.  It asks if he is Dr. John Barlow, and if he is an instructor at the university where Dr. August Wykoff disappeared 10 years ago.  The voice tells him Wykoff is not dead. It is he who asked that John be brought here.

Wykoff courteously waits for the commercial to end before entering the room.  The Barlows quite reasonably ask where they are, why they were brought here, and if the La-Z-Boys are for sale or just display.  Wykoff turns on a screen which shows a photo in space.  He says, I doubt you’ll be able to see the university, but it is in this general direction.”  Since the photo shows both the earth and moon, John, the doctor, deduces that it was taken from space.  The next shot shows 5 moons, so John deduces they are on a moon of Jupiter.^[1]

Wykoff criticizes their human-privilege in thinking they are the only intelligent species in the universe.  John asks what the inhabitants of this moon are like.  Wykoff says, “The beings of this moon are not animals, parasites, or plants like the people of the earth.”  While I agree humans can be all of those things, I’m shocked at the boldness of SFT in saying so.  The alternative is that this line was written by a moron, and I just can’t accept that. ^[2]

The inhabitants of this moon brought Wykoff here because because their natural resources of methane were dwindling.  They thought a great human scientist could devise a means to harvest more methane from underground or at least do PSAs on J-TV to convince their population to eat more beans.

In exchange for Wykoff’s help, now 10 years later, the moonies (would it have killed them to name the moon?) have a gift for humanity.  They are giving us the titular Jupitron.  John believes the biggest problem facing humanity is food supply.  Jupitron accelerates the maturation process from 30 days to 30 seconds, a 60,000X improvement.^[3]  This could solve the world’s problems when used in produce, cattle, fish, millennials, and antifa members.

Oddy, he does a demonstration using a sweet potato.  Is anyone really in a hurry for sweet potatoes?  Ya kinda have 12 months warning when you’re going to need the next one.  But your family’s mileage may vary, I guess.

John wants to ask more questions about Jupitron, but makes the mistake of sitting back in the La-Z-Boy.  Before he can finish his sentence, the darn thing puts him to sleep.  He wakes up on the beach with Carol.  They both think it is a dream, but one of those dreams that 2 people can both have, I guess.

So, all of this was a flashback and now we see that John has used Jupitron to save the world!  Yea!  No, not really.  We just see the college dean suggesting that maybe electrons floating between their heads as they slept account for the shared dream.  No wonder they don’t want to name this college.  John discovers he has argon in his blood, so deduces it was not just a dream.  So he gets to work on Jupitron.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Jupiter has 79 moons, but only 12 had been discovered as of this airing.  I’m not saying this is an error, I just thought it was interesting.
• [2] The writer was actually very successful, so this is really baffling.
• [3] I can’t make out exactly what he says, but he does say 60,000.  However, this increase would be 2 x 60 x 24 x 30 = 86,400 times.
• Filmed in 10 hours according to the book.  What did they do the other 9.5 hours?