Kudos for setting this fictional Mercury spaceflight after the last actual launch rather than trying to shoehorn a fictional event into the timeline.  September 16, 1963 was 4 months after “Gordo Cooper went higher and farther and faster than any other American . . . and for a brief moment, became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen.”  They even correctly name the capsule with a 7 at the end. ^[1]  No surprise that the whole space program is shown respect — this was not filmed in America, after all.

Unfortunately, Captain Harris’ flight is not as uneventful as Gordo’s.  He sees some purple pyrotechnics which approach, then engulf his craft.  He is forced to abort the mission.  Cut to 38 years later when he is in Washington still being questioned about the event.  He insists that it was not a blackout or space dementia.  He believes it was an alien intelligence trying to communicate.  His goal is to convince the panel that he is sane enough to go on a shuttle flight.

The panel is not likely to let a 74 year old civilian on an expensive flight where space and weight are critical factors.  Of course, if you are a 77 year old senator, your useless ass is welcome for a billion dollar joyride.  Luckily Carlton Powers comes to the rescue.  He is an Elon Musk type except he actually completes projects, and also doesn’t expect me to chip in at gunpoint on his products via my taxes.  Powers just happens to have a privately funded shuttle that is ready to fly.

Before the launch, Powers introduces the passengers and says they will be doing 31 orbits.  On board, we have Powers, Harris, newlyweds looking to join the 136 mile high club, a tabloid reporter, and Andrea Martin.  Wait, what?

When no one is looking, Harris sneaks a new disk into the ship’s computer.  This causes the ship to move to a 166 mile orbit — the same orbit where he saw the purple lights.  Even worse, when the pilot and Powers go to the cabin to check on a sick passenger, Harris locks himself in the cockpit.  Apparently being SPAM in a can 38 years ago is all the training you need to pilot a modern space shuttle.

Powers and the pilot retake the cockpit and subdue Harris.  He gets loose, though, puts on a spacesuit and blows himself . . . out the airlock.  Of course, the purple blob appears again.  There is a switcheroo, but it doesn’t feel like it really addresses Harris’ issues.

Still, I’m a sucker for space episodes.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one that was even partially set in the Mercury era.  At the time, TV seemed scared to portray reality (i.e. Viet Nam was never mentioned on Gomer Pyle, Twilight Zone never mentioned NASA, and I Dream of Jeannie couldn’t show her belly button or luscious breasts).  Later, I guess it just seemed too ancient to be exciting.  The Mercury Program I mean, not Jeannie’s rack.

So while it could have been tightened up, it was a fun ride.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Technically, this should have meant all the Mercury capsules had an 8 after their name, ruining the timeline.  But that was really a Catch-22 in using an actual historical timeline.  No big deal.
• They even refer to the Aspire 7 as a spacecraft rather than a capsule.  These guys clearly saw The Right Stuff, as all Americans should.  Even those in Vancouver.

Adam is having flashbacks of a surviving a horrific car crash.  Suddenly, he sits upright in a hospital bed.  He pulls out his tubes and walks into the hallway.  The hellish lighting and rippling walls suggest he is still dreaming although the absence of topless nurses with white stilettos suggests otherwise.

He walks into a hallway where the floor is rather wetter than one would like to encounter in a hospital.  Then it gives way completely and he sinks as if in quicksand.  Suddenly the scene shifts to an operating room where two doctors are trying to revive him from a coma.  He is showing spikes in brain activity, like you might see from a dude in quicksand or a topless hospital, but is otherwise unresponsive.

But enough science fiction.  Let’s get to the melodrama.  Dr. Carter tells Dr. Neal Eberhardt that this research is going nowhere and he is going to take a teaching gig.  Turns out that Eberhardt’s benefactor at the hospital, Marty Kilgore, confesses that he suggested that that move to Carter, but is recruiting a new assistant for Eberhardt.  Coincidentally after their racquetball game, Everhardt sees his old girlfriend Janice in the park and hires her as his new assistant.  Say, that guy Kilgore really is a benefactor.

They waste no time and are in another patient’s room with her parents.  Eberhardt says, “We want to hook your daughter up.”  The girl’s mother is aghast and reminds him the girl is in a coma.   No, he says they want to hook Lisa up to his invention, the Neural Inter-Cortex Stimulation Array (NISA) to try to rewire the brain damage caused by an aneurysm.  He is honest in saying that there will probably be no improvement.  Kilgore jumps in and assures them her parents that the research will help others.

Eberhardt tells them when he was 8, his mother was in a coma like this.  Medical science gave up on her, but Eberhardt read her the funny papers, “strips like Dagwood and Blondie”.  When she had no reaction, he knew she could hear him.  It was then that he decided to devote his life to the advancement of coma treatment rather than, sadly, the advancement of cartooning.

Lisa’s parents are convinced.  Eberhardt and Janice hook her up to the NISA.  Then they hook Adam up again, and their brainwaves synch up.  They meet each other on this other plane.  He is out of the quicksand, but is still covered by it.  Soon, however, they discover a nice house and have a picnic.  They seem to be having such fun in there, that Eberhardt drugs himself into a coma and tries to join them.  He does go briefly to the titular Other Side, where he sees them smooching.  He is yanked back to This Side when Janice returns to the lab to ruin his fun.  No wonder he dumped her.

Kilgore angily demands that Eberhardt not use himself as a subject again, but easily rounds up more brain-dead saps from ____________________ campaign headquarters. ^[1]  Eberhardt’s plan is to channel other comatose patients to the Other Side.  The first result is horrific as another dude enters the Other Place with Adam and Lisa . . . well, horrific for Adam; the last thing the only guy on earth wants is another guy. ^[2]  The new guy is in a wheelchair, but finds here he can walk again.  Then another guy named Roger shows up.  WTF?

Eberhardt decides that since the people still have functioning brains and personalities, it might be possible for him to go the Other Place and bring them back.  Janice dopes him up and he is transported to the Other Place.  He tests his theory by dragging Roger through the portal.  Sure enough Roger wakes up.  Then has a heart attack and croaks.

Things go bad for Eberhardt.  Kilgore fires him, Janice breaks up with him, and he forgets to cancel his free XM Radio before the trial period ends.  When he gets in his car, I was sure he was going to be in a wreck and end up in the Other Place anyway (which would have been cheesy).  But no, he snuck back into the lab and doped himself up again.

The ending is not totally unexpected, but is a little unexpected.  Maybe just the right amount of unexpected.  Sick as I am of the happy endings on The Twilight Zone, a little sunshine here was welcome.  Part of the credit must go to Ralph Macchio as Neal Eberhardt.  Hey Hollywood, pull your head out of your ass for a change and give this guy more work!

A fine episode.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Fill in as desired. Really, any answer will be correct.
• Especially AOC.
• [2] Your mileage may vary.
• Around the 37:30 mark, Eberhardt wears a jacket that is way too big for him.  This seems to happen a lot in this series.

High Secretary Paul Kohler and his staff have just been in a plane crash.  And by staff, I mean alien slaves wearing electronic collars.  Humans in the future apparently decided to return to a slave economy having seen how peacefully it worked out for all parties in the past.

It’s OK, the Grell are from a far away land accessible only by ships, less technically advanced, and do not look like their masters, so it is completely different this time.

Ep suggests this might be the perfect opportunity to escape.  Jesha still feels loyalty to his master, though, and wants to rescue Kohler and his kids.  After Jesha frees them, Ep starts to run.  Kohler kills him with a prolonged electric charge to his security collar.  Kohler won’t even permit Jesha to bury his friend before they move on.

While trekking through the woods looking for a Marriott, the Kohler family and Jesha stumble across a Grell camp.  When the kids say they are hungry,  Ma Kohler instructs Jesha to mash up some apples, then puke on them.  This serves the dual purposes of 1) his alien saliva cleansing the radiation from the apples, and 2) stopping the kids from ever bitching about being hungry again.  Before Jesha can shit on a cracker and call it dessert, young Sara quite reasonably runs off.

She comes across a Grell who is not as enamored of the whole slave-chic thing as Jesha.  He yells to Kohler that he has his daughter.  Jesha comes between them and Sara runs off.  I appreciate that, even with the alien make-up, this new Grell looks more fierce than the subservient Jesha.  The other Grell offers to cut his collar off if he will join their clan.

When Jesha hears Sara screaming, he runs to help her.  He finds that Kohler has been shot.  The first aid is not enough, so Jesha pukes on the wound to seal it.  Man, is there anything Grell vomit can’t do?  Ma Kohler still is not satisfied and yaps at Jesha; he calmly reminds her of her promise to free him when they get back to the city.

When Kohler wakes up, he is furious to see that he has been saved by Grell puke.  Not only is his best tunic ruined, his chest has begun to look like Grell skin.  He says soon it will be in his DNA and he won’t even be able to play tennis at the club.  It quickly spreads and begins to transform his face.

When Jesha asks Kohler to honor the agreement to let him go free, Kohler refuses.  Jesha chases him through the woods.  Yada yada, Kohler is nearly killed by humans who think he is a Grell.  However, he has had a change of heart.  He convinces the humans he is the High freakin’ Secretary and things are going to change.

I’ve never thought of Ted Shackleford as a great actor or, frankly, at all.  But he was great here as the cruel master who became the thing he hated.  Marina Sirtis was supposed to also be a cruel hater, but she was only given a couple of scenes to create her character.  Of course, she was in 176 episodes of ST:TNG and didn’t develop her character much more there.

Special praise is due for the actors playing the Grell.  All were excellent in making me see different personalities within their species, and not making me just think I was watching barista with latex on his or her face.  Which is also more than I got from TNG a lot of the time.

Other Stuff:

• I guess I had thought of Ted Shackleford before as he was in TZ’s The Crossing.
• Maybe I’m unloading on Star Trek because I just tried to rewatch Voyager.  Even skipping ahead to the 7 of 9 years, it is unwatchable.  And I went in really wanting to like it.

OK, Gene Morton is in a maximum security prison.  But instead of working in the laundry for $.15/hour, he seems to work in the clean room of an electronics lab in the prison.  And one of his neighbors has a saxophone in his cell.  Toto, I don’t think we’re in Oz anymore.

When Gene gets back to his cell, it is lights-out.  He pulls a match-box from under his pillow and several small balls of light swarm out.  He is able direct them with a small remote.  In seconds, the balls shape a piece of metal into a lovely 6-inch model of a Disneyesque castle, although a shank would have been more practical.

Gene seems uninterested in his parole hearing the next day.  He doodles while his lawyer talks about his career as a pioneering micro-engineer.  Unfortunately, when someone tried to take credit for his inventions, he killed him.  And he won’t swear it couldn’t happen again.

Lawrence, who I thought could not be more obnoxious than when he played the sax in the cell-block, is a motormouth punk.  During a basketball game, he accidentally breaks the Discman of a brute named Marlon.  Rather than letting the Lawrence problem solve itself, Gene intervenes and says he can fix the device.  That night he sends the swarm to repair the Discman.  Unfortunately, Lawrence witnesses them.

Of course, Lawrence then threatens him.  He bullies Gene into taking him to the clean room that night.  Gene foolishly shows him the MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) and the remote that controls them.  That night, Marlon fire-bombs his cell, and Gene uses the MEMS to melt the cell door lock.  So now Marlon knows too.  A few minutes earlier, he had told Lawrence he chose to remain in jail because it was the only place he could keep the MEMS secret.  It made no sense then, and less now.

The rest is fine without me rehashing it.  It is worth mentioning that Roddy Piper is excellent here.  How is it possible he was in only one movie anyone has ever seen, and one other they might have heard of on Up All Night?  Lawrence is unspeakably grating, and no one else really registers.

Special commendation is also deserved for the MEMS.  This was almost 20 years ago, and they look great both as the glowing orbs and in the close-up shots.  Under the microscope, the tiny propellers, arms and clamps were absolutely convincing as being tiny units that could do almost anything.

Other Stuff:

• Ralph Waite (Gene) was Pa Walton.  But I never saw The Waltons, so it doesn’t exist.

Renee Stuyvescent is womansplaining to the hospital board that we have come far in just a few decades of transplanting hearts.  Now we are ready for the first FBT– Full Body Transplant — “in which we replace an entire disease-riddled body . . . joining the body, from the neck up to the limbs and torso, of a brain-dead donor.”

Joining the body from the neck up?  Ahem, let a man jump in here, sweetheart.  Isn’t this really a head transplant?  I know it sounds less scientific than Full Body Transplant, and frankly a little comical, but let’s be accurate here.   What’s that?  FBT could mean millions in grants, but the government would expect the Discovery Channel to fund Operation Noggin-Swap?  Carry on. ^[1]

Renee proposes the first person to be FBT’d should be the doctor who invented the procedure, cancer patient Dr. Peter Halstead.  She later tells Peter of her proposal.  He is dubious that there would ever be a body donor having his rare blood-type of AB-Negative with a splash of Worcestershire.  Renee goes in to action, though, she finds the perfect candidate and puts a bullet in his melon.

The next morning, Renee gives Peter the good news about the man’s murder.  She tells him she convinced the Board to allow the operation on him.  Peter tells her she “could sell snowshoes in Australia” which is kinda dumb since it does snow in Australia.  Did we learn nothing from The Man from Snowy River?

He feels guilty taking all the organs that could have helped many different people, but what the hey.  Renee says “it is the best gift anyone could ever get” but what the lovesick Renee really means is that it is the best gift anyone could ever give. Well-played.

The operation is at once, credible and silly.  It would have been a better fit for a good episode of TFTC.  On the other hand, it was graphic and bloody enough make it intriguing.  It is a success, and 32 days later, Peter is in physical therapy pumping iron.  Although since he just got a completely new healthy body, I’m not sure why it is necessary. But then I thought that about my body once upon a time and look what happened.

At 45 days, Renee moves him into her fabulous condo to recover.  Again I’m confused.  He was a doctor, not homeless.  Why can’t he just go home?  He asks, “What do you give someone who saved your life?”  His answer of a kiss on the cheek is clearly disappointing to her.  However, that night Renee in her nightgown, goes to Peter’s room.  This time he tests out his new equipment as they have the sex.

Unfortunately, Peter has begun having flashes of another life.  Anyone who has ever seen an organ transplant on TV knows what this is and knew it was coming.  I really don’t mind some tropes being used over and over; there are only so many stories.  But, please, put some kind of spin on it.  Peter tracks down the wife of the man whose body he received and they fall in love.  Seen it.  In fact, just seen it on The Twilight Zone.

Yes, there is a twist at the end, and it is a good one.  But it only occupies a few seconds.  Surely there was some other direction this could have gone to make a more interesting story.  Was there something unusual about the body that no one but the donor knew?  An alien or espionage implant?  An X-Men-esque superpower?  Had the donor previously had a heart transplant which introduces a third soul into the equation?  Had the donor killed his wife, and now a confused Peter goes after Renee?  Maybe not great, but that’s after 10 seconds of thinking about it by a guy who is, clearly, not a writer.

I’d be satisfied with time travel and body swaps every week.  Just add a little seasoning.  Maybe some Worcestershire.

Other Stuff:

• [1] This assumes no Senators have a relative on the Hospital Board.
• Renee was the low-talker who made Jerry Seinfeld wear the Puffy Shirt even though he didn’t want to be a pirate.
• This is the first time I’ve ever noticed TV surgeons wearing the Victoria’s Secret brand masks — they are shear enough to see the mouth and teeth.  Maybe I’m behind the times on that.  I have never seen House, ER, Chicago Hope, Chicago Med, Grey’s Anatomy or Girls.  I know Girls isn’t a doctor show; I just want to be clear that I’ve never seen it.