After enduring two episodes this week of men beating up their wives, finally something to celebrate:  The last episode of Tales of Tomorrow. ^[1]  

Peter has brought his work home with him.  Sadly, he does not work in a bakery or modeling agency, but in a lab that produces toxic chemicals.  He tells Anne he has created “the perfect serum”.  Wow, does it cure cancer?   Maybe reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s?  Spit it out, man!  He tells her, “I gave a shot of this stuff to the monkeys at the lab to see how they reacted.  Instantly, they lost all their behavior control and their inhibitions.”  Yeah, that behavior-control that inhibited monkeys are so famous for.

Unfortunately, the refrigerator at the lab broke down and the serum must be kept cold, so he brought it home.  Pffft, some “perfect” serum.  After putting it next to last night’s meatloaf, he tells Anne that it works on humans too.  “It goes straight to the glands, then they overpower the mind.  That unleashes the evil within the human being!”  Well thank God science cracked this problem; finally we can get some evil peeps ’round here.  I wouldn’t wait for Jonas Salk to share his Nobel Prize. ^[2]

Anne wants to go out to a movie, but in addition to bringing his work home with him, Peter has brought his work home with him.  He pulls papers from his briefcase.  He plans to begin work immediately on an antidote which will bring out the good intentions in people.  Well that’s not really an antidote unless the people are only a**holes because they took the first drug.  What about those who are just naturally a**holes like Robert DeNiro and Peter Fonda? ^[3]

After a solid 15 seconds of working, he packs his bag and announces he is going for a walk, then returning to the lab to check on the monkeys.  Anne consoles herself by having a piece of the pie that was on the rack below the leaky test-tubes.  Just like the monkeys, Anne loses her inhibitions immediately and begins writhing seductively in her chair.  She dances around the apartment.  Then she gleefully pours the test tubes in the sink.  My God, if that gets in the water supply, New Yorkers could turn into angry, loud, obnoxious jerks!  Then she sets fire to Peter’s notes.

The next morning, Peter sees that the test-tubes are empty.  Anne tells him it was an accident and he isn’t too upset.  Unlike every scientist in sci-fi history, he is able to reproduce his discovery.  Well . . . he isn’t so sure when he gets to the lab and realizes he has lost his notes and has no backup.  Now that’s a Hollywood sci-fi scientist!

He returns home and confronts Anne about a call she received from his lab assistant the previous night.  She lies about it.  Then she giddily tells him she poured the serum down the drain and “burned your precious formula!”  She is happily in his face as she proudly confesses, even trilling the R’s in precious — a great choice by the actress.  “She taunts him that she “destroyed everything you care about.”

Peter figures out that Anne ate the infected pie.  Again, he tells her it will be OK because he can analyze the pie and reverse-engineer the formula.  She still says she wants to destroy him.  She pulls out a kitchen knife, and says she wants to “destroy you the way you destroyed me.”  She plans to kill herself so she will be on his conscience.  He promises to give up his career if she will put down the knife.

Peter’s lab assistant calls to tell him the serum has worn off, the monkeys are acting like little angels, although them feces-hurling angels like in the Old Testament.  He asks Anne to not do anything crazy for 15 minutes.  The serum wears off and she starts crying.

Meh, not the worst episode of the series.  In a three-person cast which included Rod Steiger and James Dean, only Margaret Phillips’ name was announced at the top of the show — and she deserved it.  Rod Steiger is the same mumbling, erratic, inexplicably praised lump he would evolve into.  As the lab assistant, James Dean — also inexplicably revered — wasn’t given much to do, but at least he didn’t cry this time.  Mags came off great though!  She was attractive as Before, but as After she was an untamed, grinning seductress / killer pie-eater.

Thus endeth Tales of Tomorrow.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] Last of the three DVD sets released, anyway.
• ^[2] I am shocked to learn Salk did not get a Nobel Prize.  Barack Obama got one for reasons that still no one can figure out.  But saving millions of kids world-wide from a devastating disease only gets you into the Polio Hall of Fame (no, really).
• ^[3] This doesn’t need to break down by party.  Forget politics — really, not one person in that auditorium thought DeNiro was just coarse and trashy?  And Jesus Christ, WTF did Henry Fonda do to his kids?