Dr. Burroughs, his son Roy, and Roy’s fiancee Laura and are heaving over the side of a boat.  No wait, they are searching the sea with flashlights.

Burroughs hauls up a specimen of what appears to be seaweed. Burroughs and Laura go down to the lab to analyze this great find. Burroughs calls his son “junior” and tells him to stay on deck where he will not get in the way.

Burroughs dictates his findings as Laura writes them down.  He reveals the date to be in the exotic distant future of May 1952.  What the hell?  There really is no reason for this to be set in the future at all.  But why would you set it just 6 months in the future?  Well, the doctor has said that this deep sea vessel has collected this sample from a whopping 32 feet down.  So these aren’t exactly envelope-pushing visionaries we’re dealing with.

Laura tells Burroughs that he should be nicer to his son.  He is sensitive and wants to be a writer, she tells him.  The doc sneers and says, “A poet, no doubt.”  He says that Roy has never proven to him that he is a man.  I wonder if Laura has the same complaint.

Hearing a commotion on deck, they rush up.  They believe they see a meteor, but it starts zig-zagging before it crashes into the sea. Burroughs orders the ship’s diver to go down and take a look, but he refuses because he is chicken of the sea.  Roy sees his chance to look like a man in front of Laura and his father, so he puts on the skin-tight rubber suit and mask.

This episode is again sponsored by Kreisler watchbands.  I’ve said about all I can about about these commercials, but I did notice something new on this one.  As the watchband is shown on a rotating display, there are little hairs caught in the metal band. Nothing says comfort like having hairs pinched out of your arm by a watchband, fellows!

After the commercial, Roy surfaces and reboards the ship. He tells his father that it really was a meteor.  The zig-zagging must have been an atmospheric condition or an optical illusion.  The old man admits he thought it was a spaceship.

Down below, Laura discovers that Roy has murdered a crewman.  He also says, “Roy is dead, too.”

Shockingly, this is not the invader.

He is an alien who has assumed Roy’s form and left in dead in his spaceship below.  He then kills Laura.  When confronted by Burroughs, he admits that he plans to destroy the human race.  “You Earth people are no use to us.  You’ll be as primitive as animals.  We are a superior race.”  Burroughs dowses him with acid and opens the nozzle on some poison gas.

That’s it.

Just an utter nothing.

Post-Post:

• Not worthy of any further effort.
• I could pad it out to 500 words, but to what end?  491.