Tag Archives: Ray Bradbury Theater

Ray Bradbury Theater – And the Moon Be Still as Bright (S4E7)

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bradbury02In a story from The Martian Chronicles, the fourth expedition has landed on Mars to discover that all the Martians are dead. Their bodies have been desiccated and crumbled down to ash-like leaves.

This is due to chicken pox brought by the Earthmen.  Hey, just like the evil Europeans brought disease to the Indians — get it?  Actually, PC horseshit aside, it is a great basis for a story, even if it was used earlier in War of the Worlds.  In a nice callback, the disease was possibly brought by Captain Black’s crew from Mars is Heaven.

rbtandthemoon04Spender (David Carradine) is the only one of the crew that takes the time to reflect on the devastation they have caused, the destruction of an entire civilization.

The yahoos immediately begin giving the Martian landscape earth names.  Crewman Biggs proclaims this to be Biggstown and immediately throws a can on the ground as the first litter.  All that’s missing is an Italian Martian shedding a single tear.  Spender punches Biggs, devolving to the violence inevitable to progressive, utopian types; although it usually takes more than 3 seconds.  He really had it coming, though.

rbtandthemoon05They discover a structure with hieroglyphics, which turns out to be a library.  Captain Wilder points out the lack of books.  Spender holds up one glass volume and says they’re all in here — a Martian Kindle.  Naturally Biggs tosses it to the ground, smashing it.

Spender disappears for 3 days, and who wouldn’t want to get away from these idiots? Much like the crew of Prometheus, these guys seemed to have been loaded onto the back of a pick-up in front of Astronaut Depot rather than being recruited from the scientific community.

Our favorite imbecile Biggs is having a good ol’ time shooting cans.  Aside from littering the area, it seems irresponsible to start blowing holes in water bottles when you’re in a desert, and don’t know if or when another ship will ever come.  For God’s sake, will someone just shoot this guy?  Happily, Spender does just that.

rbtandthemoon06Back at the camp, he shoots 2 more members of the crew.  He spares the one man who has Cherokee ancestry — and Bradbury makes sure we get this by naming him Cheroke.

Because of his Indian heritage,    Spender expects him to understand his vengeance on the Earthmen for destroying the Martians.  Cheroke, not being the caricature he is set up to be, can’t go along with Spender; so he is also shot.  Luckily his family — Commanch, Apach and Pawn — were not there to see it.

The rest of the crew hunts down Spender.  He plans to meet every expedition that lands and kill them.  He figures he can keep Mars pristine for about 80 years.  That will require some vigilance, one dude protecting an entire planet.

Spender points a gun at the Captain forcing Wilder to shoot him — suicide-by-astronaut.  It then falls to the Captain, somewhat sympathetic to Spender’s theories, to protect the new world.

A pretty good story.  Carradine is good in his usual role of self-righteous outsider. Even the minimalist , budget-driven sets work.

The episode sticks pretty close to the short story.  However, the story is really in Bradbury’s wheelhouse and he knocks it out of the park (to mix metaphors).

Post-Post:

  • First published in Thrilling Wonders Stores, June 1948.
  •  It also includes elements from another story in The Martian Chronicles — The Settlers.
  • Title Analysis: I don’t get it at all, but then I’m not much into poetry — based on a poem by Lord Byron.

Ray Bradbury Theater – Touch of Petulance (S4E6)

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rbttouchofpetulance06We hear gunshots and an extremely old Eddie Albert stumbles out of his house.

The next scene is a bright morning at the same house.  Birds are chirping, the paperboy is delivering the 24-hour old news, and Johnathan & Alice Hughes are getting ready for work.

Alice drives Jonathan to his train, and the happy couple kiss goodbye.  On the train, he sees Eddie Albert reading a newspaper from 2025.  This would be 35 years in the future, but Eddie is 55 years older than Jonathan (going by their real birth dates), so the math does not even come close to working out.  No one would ever notice this, except Eddie Albert is looking old.  Real old.

Looking closer, Jonathan sees an article on the front page that is about Jonathan Hughes shooting his wife.  He accuses Albert of some sick joke and runs away, but Albert implores him to listen.  He begins reeling off facts and dates about their lives.  Staying out of New York on 09/11/01 might have been a good tip.

Some of the future stuff is not so great.  His business will go downhill, he will have a child die, he will take a mistress — woohoo! — and lose her — doh!  He will grow to hate his wife.  Jonathan thinks this is impossible, and Albert understands.

rbttouchofpetulance12Albert admits that he killed their wife in 2025.  He wants Jonathan to avoid the same mistakes.  He says that he “somehow” got here in order to save their soul.  That “somehow” is the standard pass that only Bradbury gets among Sci-Fi writers.

Jonathan’s wife comes to the train to pick him up.  She invites Albert home to dinner. The episode really gets deadly at this point.  Maybe it is Albert’s age — he is kind of like Spencer Tracy in Mad, Mad World — I’m no age-ist, but at some point, you have to let go.

Or maybe it is the god-awful synth music.  Of course, that is in every episode, but it seems to be even more trying here.

The concept of time-travel to reshape your former self is so intriguing that it is hard to screw it up.  This is just so melodramatic and miscast — especially Albert and Alice, but Jonathan is no prize either — that it is hard to care about anything.

After dinner, Albert has a very intriguing thought.  Rather than futilely trying to save the marriage, maybe he should just shoot Alice now rather than in the future.  Ancient Albert can take the rap, die soon in prison, and his younger self can begin a life that will not end in tragedy.  Now that is a twist!  Jonathan is understandably not crazy about that idea.  Neither was Bradbury, I guess.

rbttouchofpetulance05

How to drive a mailman crazy.

Albert leaves the house, and assures Jonathan that he will get back to his time “somehow”.  Sadly, Jonathan’s response is not, “Next time bring some lottery numbers, Future Me.”

Jonathan goes back in and his wife immediately starts nagging him to close the door. Albert has given him a pistol. This is not enough to make him start shooting, but you see the first tiny crack in the young marriage.

I was hopeful there for a few brief seconds, but this was really a chore to sit through.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  I must admit, petulance doesn’t mean precisely what I thought it meant.  Showing sudden, impatient irritation, especially over some trifling annoyance.  I am at a complete loss to connect that definition to the episode.
  • So they lived in the same house for 35 years?  Maybe for an older couple, but I’m not sure newlyweds stay in their first house that long.  Especially painted that sickly green.  For 35 years.
  • John Laing also directed Mars is Heaven.
  • Can a city do product placement?  Plandome NY certainly got a lot of plugs in. Road signs, train station signs, they even lived on Plandome Drive.

Ray Bradbury Theater – Usher II (S4E5)

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Almost a triple-spin.  I tried to re-read the original The Fall of the House of Usher, but just couldn’t get through it.  I did give it a skim while waiting in line at Comcast, though. Sadly, I did not have War and Peace or Moby Dick handy.

rbtusherii04The episode starts off with a nice self-referential joke.  Two men — in Bradbury’s universe, presumably firemen  — shovel books into an incinerator.  It is then set to Fahrenheit 451.  Sadly it is all downhill from there.

Stendahl (Patrick Macnee) is reading aloud from Poe’s short story.  I would guess much to his architect’s relief, he stops after the first interminable sentence and shuts the book. The architect, Bigelow, has just built “the 2nd House of Usher” for Stendahl.  By his design it is desolate and terrible and bleak.

bradbury02The names Usher and Poe mean nothing to Bigelow as all Poe’s books were banned and burned 20 years earlier.  Hawthorne, Steinbeck, Vonnegut are all cited as being burned, but one of those things is not like the others.  Tales of fantasy and horror were forbidden — not sure that applies to Steinbeck; unless you are a rabbit.  Or an Okie.

Macnee has filled Usher II with forbidden films and forbidden books.  This draws a visit from Inspector Garrett of the Division of Moral Climates.  They can’t allow Stendahl’s “haunted house” to stand — any sort of horror or fantasy or departure from realism has been outlawed.  Garrett says the house will have to be torn down.  Macnee kills the inspector and replaces him with a robot.

Inspector Gadget — er Garrett — goes back to his office and invites the rest of the Division of Moral Climates to enjoy a fantastical going-away party at Usher II before they tear it down.  Even in the future year of 2005, rules are for little people.  Turns out the Inspector had sent an android to Usher II — so the human Inspector is still alive.  At the party, he witnesses, what I assume is a Masque of the Red Death costume ball.  Also a Pit.  Also a Pendulum.  Also a Premature Burial.  Also etc.  All based on Poe works burned by the Mortal Climates people.

rbtusherii11Stendahl leads Garrett to the basement. Unfortunately for the Inspector, Stendahl is carrying an Amontillado, and he is walled-in just as in Poe’s story.  Macnee jabs him for not having read the story and thus knowing that this was coming, telling him “goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.”  OK, that was Indiana Jones’ father, but the sentiment is the same.

Outside, Stendahl reads aloud the last sentence of Poe’s story and a carriage carries him away from Usher II.

The episode is pretty faithful to the short story except, oh yeah, it takes place on MARS!  It is included in The Martian Chronicles.  The short story is set in 2005 whereas the episode is set in 2125.  I understand it had to be post-dated since the “future” date of 2005 was getting pretty close, but why was it pushed back so far?  Living to see speech codes and political correctness, surely Bradbury didn’t see things getting better.

Strangely, in 2005 on Mars, the story ends with Stendahl leaving Usher II in a helicopter. In 2125 on Earth, he leaves in a horse-drawn carriage.  Maybe the Moral Climate Change people showed up too.

Post-Post:

  • First published in the April 1950 issue of Thrilling Wonder stories as Carmnival of Madness.  I suspect it did not originally take place on Mars, and Bradbury added a few words to shoe-horn it into da Chronicles.
  • It seems pretty obvious that the main character was named after Stendhal, a founder of the realism movement in literature.  But why change the spelling? That’s not very realistic.

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Black Ferris (S4E4)

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As in Wheel.  Ferris Wheel.  I have no explanation for the truncated title.

Ten year old Hank watches Mr. Cooger from the carnival get on the black Ferris Wheel.  As it spins backwards, Cooger’s laugh goes higher in pitch and we see a young boy get off of the ride wearing an identical suit in a petite size.

Hank follows the boy back to Mrs. Foley’s house where he has been taken in much like Willie in Hail and Farewell.  Apparently when Bradbury was young, you could adopt any kid who came to your door.

Hank recruits his friend Pete to come see this miracle.  Sure enough, they get to the closed carnival just in time to see Cooger again board the ride as a man and get off as a boy.  Fortuitously, Cooger’s clothes shrink down along with his body.

He once again runs to Mrs. Foley’s house where the boys think he is planning something against the old lady.  They tell her their concerns, including the miraculous Ferris Wheel, but she runs them off and threatens to tell their parents.

rbtblackferris05Hank goes home and is grounded.  He calls Pete and they agree to spy on the boy at Mrs. Foley’s house.  To be sure he doesn’t sneak out, his father bizarrely orders him to strip.

Pete shows up in the pouring rain at the Foley house.  Hank shows up a few minutes later.  He has outsmarted his father by sneaking out of the house and running across the neighborhood completely naked. This is really creepy and Pete is not nearly as mortified as he should be at his naked friend.

Turns out the boys were right.  Cooger Jr. steals Foley’s jewelry and high-tails it back to the carnival.  The boys — Hank now wearing Pete’s raincoat — pursue him back to the carnival.

Cooger Jr. is able to make it back to the Ferris Wheel where Igor begins the spin cycle to age him back to adulthood.  And not only does he turn back into a man, he also somehow acquires a fabulous hat and carnation in the transformation.

rbtblackferris13Hank is quite the kid and jumps Igor causing the wheel to spin out of control.  Cooger rapidly ages like Walter Donovan, or Walter Jameson. Or Barbara Walters, for that matter. When the Ferris Wheel comes to a stop, the bag of jewelry falls from his cold dead hand.

So Hank is quite the hero for figuring out this ruse.  I just hope he can live with the fact that he really executed Cooger for the robbery when he interfered with his attempt to age back to adulthood.  I have no problem with it, I just hope he is OK with it.

Post-Post:

  • Something Naked This Way Comes.
  • A three-peat for Roger Tompkins who has directed the last 3 episodes.

Ray Bradbury Theater – Touched with Fire (S4E3)

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bradbury02Like And So Died Riabouchinska, this is a story that appeared first on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (under the title Shopping for Death), and has been recycled 30 years later for RBT.

During a heatwave, a couple of retired insurance salesman are observing the adverse reaction, carelessness or violence, that people have to the heat.

The AHP version gives a few illustrations of their theory — a traffic accident where the driver was reckless, a surprising graphic suicide (we clearly see the body fall 12 stories), and a raging warehouse fire.

In both versions, the men have selected a particular woman that they have calculated is about to crack.  Or more specifically, this being an Alfred Hitchcock joint, she is portrayed as such a shrew that she will bring the violence upon herself.  So it’s really her fault if, for example, her husband guts her with a longshoreman’s hook.

Considering themselves to be good Samaritans they want to protect her from harm. Waiting outside her apartment, they follow her to the local butcher shop.  Jo Van Fleet (AHP) is just a lunatic — shrill, sneering, yelling at everyone, shoving them, littering. Eileen Brennan (RBT) is less of a caricature.  We will still get the sneering, but at least she isn’t yelling at everyone.  Although maybe she did chew out the producers for misspelling her name in the credits.  And for both women — the hair! My God, the hair!

IImage 003n both versions, the aptly-named Mrs. Shrike is rude and abusive to the butcher. She criticizes his meat — ouch! — and accuses him of putting his thumb on the scale. The AHP version is more true to the concept, having the butcher glance at large knife probably thinking of adding a new cut to his inventory.

Her next stop in both versions is a fresh-produce store, with similar results.  Her behavior further convinces the men she is a ticking time bomb of insanity, just begging to be murdered.  Or rather, creating a situation where the man has no free will and must kill her and end up in jail, ruining his life.

They go upstairs to her apartment.  Even before entering they can hear her yelling and music blasting.  They try to explain that she is putting herself in danger, but her natural reaction is to yell at them.  She is abusive to the point where one of them actually fulfills their own prediction and whacks her with his cane.  Well, technically, he merely brandishes it on AHP, but he does swat her on RBT — but it’s still all her fault,mind you.

Leaving, they pass her husband on the stairs.  He is racing up, carrying a longshoreman’s hook.  Damn her for driving him to this!

Post-Post:

  • Sadly, this blog picked up AHP Season 1 after this episode, so I have to slog through it now.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.  Michael Ansara, last seen in The Baby Sitter, gave it a good try, making it to age 91 last year.
  • The RBT episode was directed by Roger Tompkins who also directed the previous episode.
  • I like that, even though it is a heatwave and even though they are retired, the two men are still wearing suits. Different time.
  • The AHP butcher was at least wearing a a full t-shirt whereas the RBT butcher was wearing a wife-beater.  But I’m sure Sir Alfred would have approved.