The second half of the debut episode benefits from a Thora Birch Bounce ^[1]   Also, despite not really being one of the Twilight Zone’s dreaded “humorous ” episodes, it has some good laughs in it.  Some are intentional, some are not, but all are good fun.

The problem with episodes that feature despicable characters or skin-crawling scenarios is that you are stuck with them.  Maybe the situations evolve; or, better yet, the characters experience agonizing deaths, but you still have to suffer through 30 minutes of them.  The chaos and shouting and shrill noises here could have been as unbearable as a Hillary Clinton stump speech.^[2]  Luckily the goodwill of the humor and the lovely Melinda Dillon (Penny) save the episode from being the excruciating nightmare that it could have been.

The episode opens with everyone’s nemesis, the alarm clock blasting at the oddly specific time of 6:31.  One of their kids has turned it up to concert hall pitch.  Breakfast isn’t much better.  Although the bacon frying and coffee percolating aren’t too irritating, the blaring radio, phone, stove timer, an imbalanced washing machine, four kids, a husband and a dog ratchet up the anxiety.

It is funny enough when her young son brings a snake into the kitchen.  It is awesome when his sisters react with a yawn — a major 180 from what you expect.  To top it off, he sneaks the snake onto the grill to fry with the bacon.  Just great stuff.  Bacon, I mean; but the snake bit was great too.

While doing a little gardening (to the tune of her neighbor’s chainsaw), Penny digs up a necklace with a watch on it.  That afternoon after a hectic trip to the grocery store, spilled milk, and an idiot husband, she clasps the watch and screams, “SHUT UP!”  To her shock and awe, there is immediate silence as everyone freezes.

This scene, which could have been a big nothing, manages to be charming and efficient.  Unlike The New Exhibit where still photos were used for some static shots, here the performers were just told to stay still — or in the dog’s case, just stay.  And yes, they actually used a live shot of the dog.  He moves slightly, but pulls it off better than the kids.  Their slight movements can’t help but make you smile, though.  They must have had a ball doing this.

The efficiency comes in the editing of several quick bits by Penny to determine what caused this miracle, how to turn the world back on, the location of the necklace, etc.  The episode surprised me by having her husband actually notice that she changed positions as she switched them on and off.

The next morning, Penny uses the miraculous device to save lives and rob big evil banks to help the homeless.  No, wait, she uses it to have a quiet breakfast and bogart the last box of Choco-Poppers at the grocery store.  To be fair, as she is leaving the store, she puts a few filthy bills in the manager’s mouth.

In the parking lot, she sees a man who looks like he just came from the tennis court; or douche convention.  Penny hems and haws before girlishly touching his butt (which would be sexual assault if a guy did it).  But the real thing that caught my eye was this twerp as a one-man band of 1980’s horrors:  the men’s shorty-tennis-shorts, the sweater draped over the shoulders, the sunglasses on a rope around his neck.  If they had panned down, I predict a 50% chance of leg-warmers.

That afternoon, she is visited by two attractive, earnest young people wishing to impart the wisdom of their 2 years since high school to her. They invite her to a debate about ridding the world of nuclear weapons.  All three agree that nukes are icky, but that isn’t enough for the two kids.  If Penny doesn’t go their debate, well she’s just a poopy-head. She kindly and non-violently gets rid of them in a scene well-performed by her (the guy is awful, though).

That night as Penny is luxuriating in a bubble bath, she hears a new annoying sound — an air raid siren.  Her husband calls her in to hear the news that Soviet missiles have just entered US air space.  She stops time and for some reason decides to take a stroll downtown in her robe.  It is an eerie site as she weaves her way around frozen people and stopped vehicles.  She sees several people who are looking at the sky.  Looking up, she sees a nuclear missile just a few hundred feet from vaporizing her town.

That is the last shot of the episode, but it is a great ending as it leaves you wondering what happens next.  What could happen next?

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Any movie or TV episode with Thora Birch starts out a winner with me.  Thora is not in this episode, but the same principle applies to Melinda Dillon.  Thora got there first so the phenomenon is named after her.
• ^[2] For equal time, the next time I need a comparison for something childish or dumb as a post, I’ll reference Donald Trump.
• Classic TZ Homage: A Kind of Stopwatch also had the ability to freeze the universe.  I knew this tag was going to get a workout.
• At age 10, Judith Barsi (Bertie) and her mother were murdered by her father.  The previous year in Fatal Vision she had portrayed Kimberly MacDonald who was murdered along with her mother and sister by her father Jeffrey MacDonald.  Maybe.
• The missile is framed over a theater showing the underrated Fail Safe and the overrated Dr. Strangelove — both based on the same book. [UPDATE] Correction in Comments.
• Of course, the science is ludicrous.  The entire universe can’t just stop, the sun burns, atoms bounce around.  That’s fine — Stephen Hawking didn’t write the script.  He could have acted in half of it, though.
• Melinda Dillon was born in Hope, Arkansas 7 years before Bill Clinton.
• So, probably not.

Not worth the bandwidth

I am at a complete loss to explain why the otherwise excellent Twilight Zone Companion has such high regard for this episode.  I thought I had met the most obnoxious citizen of The Twilight Zone in Of Late I Think of Cliffordville.  Jack Weston matches the grating personality of William Featherstone in his portrayal of Julius Moomer.

The 5 minute prologue seemed so long, I actually did a time-check because I thought I had skipped Serling’s intro.  It, and several other scenes, are so overloaded with musical stings that they seem like parody.  At times, literally every line is followed by a quick musical cue or sound effect.

This would be insufferable enough, but the antics of Moomer are like fingernails on a blackboard.  The man-boy Moomer . . . well, it doesn’t even matter what he is doing.

The episode is a satire of television.  I have no doubt that Serling had a ball writing it, but his job is to put on a play for us, not play with himself.

Yeah, John Williams was great as Shakespeare, and it was fun to see a young Burt Reynolds doing his Brando spoof.  Beyond that lies pain.

Maybe the time is better spent wrapping up the fourth season.  I have owned the box set for years, but always skipped the hour long episodes of the fourth season.  The purpose of this blog was to force me to watch things like this and Ray Bradbury Theater which I bought but never watched.

Unlike Ray Bradbury Theater, TZ4 was actually a pleasurable viewing experience.  At least until the end of the season — Passage on the Lady Anne and The Bard were brutal. For the most part, the other episodes were solid, and a few ranked among the best of the series.  They might not have all had the traditional TZ stinger at the end, but this was a different show.  Charles Beaumont especially adapted well to the new format.

They were probably wise to return to the 30-minute format the next season.  This experiment can’t be considered a failure, though.

Next week, I’ll begin considering whether the 1980’s TZ reboot was a failure.

Gee, my refusal to admit I wasted a few bucks buying DVDs I never watched has turned into a years-long waste of time.  Sorry to have cluttered Google search results with stream of consciousness musings on these shows.  I feel like I’ve devalued the whole internet.

Post-Post:

• It’s hard to imagine John McGiver was in an episode where he was not the most irritating character.  He was bad in his couple of TZs, but saved his most insufferable performances for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
• Howard McNear (Bramhoff) went on to play Floyd the Barber on The Andy Griffith Show.
• Even more impressive, Judy Strangis (Cora) would grow up to be ridiculously cute on Room 222 and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.
• 10/28/16 update: Just noticed that the guys are watching this in one of the last episodes of The Sopranos.  That’s an ouroboros of TV episodes right there.

William Benteen is in charge of 187 people on a distant rock.  They left the earth 30 years ago, according to Serling, “In search of a new millennium.”  The year is 1991, so the joke’s on them — they could have stuck around and it would have soon come to them.  After three decades, the earth has become a distant memory for many and a legend for the young.  Now they have finally received a signal that a rescue ship will arrive in one month.

As the ship gets closer, like the men of the Indianapolis, the colonists just get more tense.  A woman commits suicide — the ninth in the last six months.  At the funeral, Benteen leads them in a chant of “There’s a ship coming” over and over as sort of a hypnotic Kool-Aid.  Despite his autocratic ways, four out of five colonists recommend Benteen.^[1]

A meteor shower breaks up the festivities and forces the colonists into a cave.  The meteors might be the flashiest special effects ever seen on TZ.  Through a combination of flash-bombs, camera tricks, and the crew throwing rocks at the actors, this really comes off as a great, chaotic event.  In the cave, Benteen displays his additional role as the camp doctor.  Later he is the camp counselor as he comforts kids from 6 to a creepy 30 with his stories of earth, and how they fled wars and came to this arid rock. They hear a ship landing and suddenly the soil isn’t so arid any more — they are very excited.  Hey, it’s the spacecraft from Death Ship ^[2] — maybe we’ll meet TV’s Oscar Madisoy!

Like the meteor shower, the close-up of the ship is like nothing seen before in TZ.  In fact, many of the sets for this episode are the best in the show’s run.  The cavernous . . er, cavern, the shanty town, the bleak landscape, the number of extras — all are on a scale never seen before.

Commander Sloan comes down the ramp of the ship and tells the group they are taking them back to earth. The group erupts in celebration.  Even Benteen is elated.  He does seem a little irritated that Sloan calls him Mr. instead of Captain Benteen.  He didn’t rule this group for 30 years to be called “Mr.”  He is further threatened when Sloan offers more advance medical care to the group, and is seen as the group’s “messiah.”

At a gathering in the cave, Benteen instructs the colonists on the dates and weights of the flight out.  Sloan takes over the gathering and takes questions from the crowd. Benteen is irritated at his loss of control.  As their caps have almost the same logo as the Miami Heat, Sloan suggests a game of baseball to get in the earth-spirit, Benteen tells the crowd it is dangerously hot and tries to engage them in a singalong instead, but is less successful than Carter Burke.  He tells Sloan that while they are still on the planet, he is in charge.

Later on the ship Benteen tells Sloan that he expects his group to stay together after the return to earth — under his watchful eye.  He has not asked their opinion on this.  He regards them as children — he must decide what is best for them. Fearing he is losing his grip on his flock, he gets the group together in the cave. As they ask about different parts of the US, he tells them they will all stay together and he magnanimously agrees to continue as their leader.

When they protest, he desperately begins to tell them how awful earth is, and how they must stay together.  They take a vote and Benteen is humiliated.  Throughout the episode, the 110 degree heat has covered Benteen in a sheen of sweat. Now it serves as further illustration of his desperation.  He attacks the ship in a futile gesture.

He watches as his people board the ship.  He just can’t leave this place that he has ruled for 30 years.  Even after they have evacuated, Benteen goes back to the cave and preaches to his imaginary flock.  Eventually, he realizes that he has been left alone on the planet and runs outside, pleading to the skies, “Don’t leave me here!”

It really is an effective, heartbreaking ending.  Unlike other TZ episodes, his desolation is not a hallucination (Where is Everybody?), there is no hint of irony or humor (Time Enough at Last), and he doesn’t even have a sexy robot for company (The Lonely).  He is alone on this planet, a man whose entire being was invested in his community.  It is surely his own fault, but this is a man who took control of a stranded bunch of colonists and kept them alive for 30 years.  The burden of that responsibility, then the sudden loss of that status would mess anyone up.  He is, at once, a victim of himself and of circumstances.  The key to the episode is that Serling keeps Benteen human.  He was controlling, but maybe necessarily so.  He didn’t deserve to live the next 40 years alone.

Serling:  “William Benteen — once a god, now a population of one.”

There are several reviews that cite this episode as being the best of the 4th season, and one of the best of the series.  Let’s not get crazy.  I would slice & dice it a little more — it is probably Serling’s best script of the 4th season.  In some ways it is not even a Twilight Zone script. There is no twist, no great irony; the ending is more horrific than usual.  It is, however, a great piece of drama that seems like it could have played on any of the dramatic anthology series in the “Golden Age.”

I set the alarm for 9 on this episode.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Sadly, I misremembered this slogan as being for Dentyne when it was actually Trident.  Maybe I should have gone for Bactine.
• ^[2] And Forbidden Planet and six other TZ episodes.
• It is an interesting choice that the group does not seem to have buttons on their clothes, but have ties and lashes.  Our Amish are better than their Amish.
• Early in the episode there is the most lengthy, blatant microphone shot I have ever seen in a TV show.  The mic in Kentucky Fried Movie was less obtrusive.
• As usual on TZ, there was not a 3rd grader on the set to correct their scientific inaccuracies.  This planet is described as being a billion miles away — not even out of our solar system.
• There was, however, a 2nd grader on set — director Buzz Kulik cast his son Daniel.  To cover up this blatant act of nepotism, Daniel’s last name is spelled Kulick in the credits, completely fooling everyone.
• James Whitmore looks amazingly like Alan Tudyk.