I only have a vague idea how TV works. Actually, I have no idea how TV works. I have a vague idea how TV production works, just based on assumptions and logic. Surely, in the list of producers there is someone who does more than collect a check, someone who oversees the entire series — which seems critical for an anthology series. That’s why it baffles me how TFTC can have such wild swings in tone.
The episode (after the odious Cryptkeeper) has a deadly somber opening, fittingly in a morgue. No score or ambient sounds at all, just footsteps, a drawer being opened and a couple of guys talking. The detective tells Clancy Brown that Dan King, the founder of his company, took 40 CCs of Exthion-B in the neck. Exthion-B is a new preservative that big pharma is working on. The detective says the stiff’s head won’t rot for 100 years. In his pocket is a note, not in his handwriting, saying “I have not forgotten or forgiven.”
When asked if he has any enemies, Brown flashes back to six years earlier in the Amazon. Things get a little livelier as we at least get some jungle sounds. There is also a drum-beat in the background, though sadly not synced with the guys seen playing drums on-screen. Brown pours their new experimental drug down the gullet of
an old savage man and seals him up in a crate. He should be grateful, in a few years, people will be paying $
750 a day to get that drug.
Back in the present, Brown arrives home to find the same “I have not forgotten or forgiven” spray-painted on his wall. There is also a voodoo doll which has a red-devilish left side and a republican right side (well, blue suit and red tie, anyway). So, really 100% evil in Hollywood terms.
The same detective comes over and again asks Brown if he has any enemies. More reliable than LSD, this again induces a flashback. While down in the Amazon, in order to secure the secret Exthion-B herb, he had to offer his employee Alex as a sacrifice to the natives. Brown pours the drug down Alex’s gullet and buries him in a crate also.
Back in civilization, Clancy is being interviewed by original MTV VJ, the amazingly 80’s-coiffed Mark Goodman. Clancy shows him some apples that were treated with Exthion-B 2 years ago and are still fresh and crispy. Wood used in your home will never rot, your clothes will never fade.
Unfortunately, his assistant Colin tells him the FDA is holding up their approval of Exthion-B. He also suggests that Brown check on his associate Kevin because if another employee ends up dead, it could hurt the business. Brown goes to Kevin’s apartment and finds him dead with a syringe of Exthion-B still plunged in his neck. And the same note pinned to his shirt.
Sadly, not even Exthion-B can preserve the style of the Members Only jacket Brown is wearing in this scene.
Brown goes back to the office and kills Colin. Alex gives him a slow-clap. Brown is stunned as Alex has been dead for 6 years. He shows Brown that the hand-writing on the notes is the same as his own; but Brown doesn’t seem to remember writing the notes. He decapitates zombie Alex.
So let me get this straight . . . Brown has been killing his co-workers and leaving a note that says “I have not forgotten or forgiven”? OK, Brown is the one who murdered the old native and Alex, so what does that even mean? Wait, you say, this is his evil side talking. No, his evil side would be OK with the murders to make a profitable drug — this would have to be his good half talking. But why would the good half commit murder?
The next day, Brown’s doctor recognizes the doll as a voodoo god that maintains the balance between mans good and evil halves. Desperate, Brown offers the doctor the profits from Exthion-B to remove his evil half.
The next day, we see Brown only in profile as he orders a syringe of Exthion-B to be brought to him. When he gets the syringe, he tells his secretary that he has beat the curse that Alex put on him. The doctor destroyed his evil half, the half the curse feeds on, so it became null and void. His secretary turns on the light revealing Brown to be half-normal and half dead. Brown lifts the syringe to his neck.
Really, I could not be less interested. The flatness of the episode is mind-numbing. No score except some occasional drums, obnoxiously 1980’s “style”, Clancy Brown in a suit, just nothing seems to work.
Post-Post:
- Title Analysis: Nah, too easy. At least the “half” makes sense, but they botched the pun as usual. Maybe something like “Not Half-Horrible” would have worked better as it plays off the established phrase “not half-bad.” Except that he was half-way horrible.
- Another first time and only time director.
- Kudos on the art direction in the episode. Whether they were authentic or not, the objets d’art were fabulous. Also the curare d’art
Inside the generically-named Consolidated Enterprises, president Henry Judson is fanning himself with a newspaper which states NEW H-BOMB TEST TODAY. It is a hot town, 
She points out to him how quiet it has become. He looks out the window and the world has stopped. This is how she will enable him to pull the heists. She has a device which creates a 5 foot range where time is greatly speeded up. The world outside the perimeter appears to be frozen.
They go back to Judson’s office. He asks if he can keep the device, and the woman agrees. She is from 1,000 years in the future and has come to save the art from the impending H-Bomb test which will destroy the world. She says the bomb will go off in 1 minute.
Michael Doyle (Randy Quaid) is lying in a casket with his eyes wide open. He can’t be 
His daughter is thrilled to see him and gives him a big hug. His wife Natalie just seems stunned, or maybe she had already used his insurance for a deposit on a Beemer [1]. BTW, kudos for him getting out to reveal a backless suit jacket. Is that how corpses are buried? What would be the reason? Doesn’t the family supply the suit? By that logic, why would he have pants at all? But it just feels right. 
Doyle just asks to left alone and goes out on the balcony to stare out at the city. After the gals go to sleep, he cuts up pictures, magazines, and wallpaper to make a collage of himself standing in a psychedelic landscape. When his daughter wakes up, he finally gets animated, telling her that is where he went when he died. Much like Season Six Buffy, he doesn’t understand why he was brought back from this paradise.
They tried something strange with his fall. It is one of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen, but I’m not sure if it might not have been intentional. It begins with him looking 2-dimensional like the picture in his collage, but it is a different pose (more of the series’ lack of focus — why use that effect and a different pose?). Then it becomes a really unnatural green-screen. They could have done more to tie this to the collage, but really it seemed pointless as it was.
Vicki, Sara, Tim and other guy are trucking along for a camping weekend. Inexplicably, Sara pulls over to offer a ride to a hitchhiker. She thinks Andy the hitchhiker is cute, so maybe other guy is her brother. Or maybe Tim is her brother and other guy is just some other guy. I’m really not interested enough to diagram this out.
Harry and Mrs. Adams are cruising down the highway when they close in a police car creeping along at 48. Hey, that doesn’t mean a MAXIMUM of 50, you idiots! Oh, wait. Rather than move at this glacial pace for 10 miles, Harry rockets past them at 57 MPH.
Adams mouths off and Matthau orders him to follow the police car back to town. Unfortunately, the Adams car is stuck on the rocks. What luck, a tow truck shows up almost like this was planned.
At first I thought the beginning had been a cheat, but in reviewing it they were pretty slick on the dialogue. Kudos for not blatantly trying to trick the audience in the pre-VOD days. Also, at 39 episodes a year, how were there ever any reruns?