I was not looking forward to watching this one.  The short story was only 7 pages and kind of a one-joke piece.  Bulking it up to fill a one hour slot seemed a little 4th-Season Twilight Zoney to me.

Luckily, it was fleshed out with additional characters and featured some interesting performers.  I’m sure a lot of care was taken in the adaptation as it was co-written by Richard Matheson’s daughter.

Dorky accountant Matt Frewer is visited by a hot blonde client who is shown to his office.  Before he gets there, she notices his dead wife’s picture on the desk and morphs into a brunette (Michelle Johnson) more his type.  Although, her original incarnation seemed to be the universal every-guy’s type.  It clearly works, because about 100 frames later, they are a married couple.

They are having dinner with another couple to celebrate the first anniversary of both marriages and it is immediately evident that something is amiss.  The other man is Clint Howard — it is not going too far out on a limb to say these two guys are . . . er, that is to say . . . uh, their faces have a lot of character.  It is clear that the couples were cast so that the women would appear to be out of the guys’ league.

That night at 3:04, Frewer awakens to find his wife typing away downstairs.  He sneaks up behind her and kisses her neck, but recoils saying she tastes like something dead.   She runs to the shower and begins roughly scrubbing down.  Frewer enters the bathroom and we sadly get just a backal view of Michelle.  When he looks at her reflection in the mirror, however, he sees a monster.

Frewer goes to a doctor to check his sense of taste.  Now he can’t taste his wife at all. He swings by Howard’s house and learns that he has left his wife Barbara.  As Frewer drives off, Michelle strangely appears.  They are realizing that their marriages can only last about a year.

Howard calls Frewer and they meet in the park.  A disheveled Howard says that he began seeing and smelling strange things about Barbara.  Having morphed into a different body (for no good reason), Barbara confronts him, but he runs away and is hit by a car.

Soon, Johnson can’t keep up the illusion any more and Frewer begins to see her for the disgusting alien that she is.  Maintaining the illusion for more than one year is just not possible.  She confesses that she and Barbara crashed on earth.

Sure, now we get the frontal shot.

Post-Post:

• The mystery here is why Michelle Johnson didn’t have a bigger career.  At least the Matheson family liked her — she is also in an upcoming Tales From the Crypt episode written by Richard Christian Matheson.
• Cost of Canadian-release DVD: $20.  Not having to deal with Hulu: Priceless!
• But Hulu, as I recall, still sucks.