Army engineers are using a chainsaw to cut something from the ice in the Arctic, and that always turns out well. They teletype their findings to the Institute of Scientific Research in DC, apparently a competitor to the United States Scientific Research Commission in DC mentioned in an earlier episode. The narrator tells us they found something frozen in the ice, “a weird, frightening relic belonging to the very dawn of time,” just like this series.
Dr. Robinson tears the report from the teletype. He is adamant that the object be preserved. Dr. Avery says, “All those specimens found in Siberia were completely ruined in the excavating.” This is as close as they get to divulging that it is a mammoth that has been found. Whether this is an effort to build suspense or a flaw in the script, I do not know; but I have a hunch. Because the object has been exposed to the sun, Robinson wires them back to pack it in ice and fly it back to DC. Strangely, he adds, “And club the sh*t out of some seals and toss them in the plane, too. Mama needs a new pair of boots!” Boy those were different times.
“Log entry #17 . . . hour 3: Still melting.”
Zoologist Dr. Myrna Griffen joins the team when the mammoth lands in DC. Over her objections, reporter Warren Keath also joins the group. They observe the block of ice through a window. Steam is piped in to melt the ice, and it is about as exciting as watching ice melt. Keath asks what Robinson expects to find. He says, “even though he has been dead for half a million years, his organs might still contain living material such as bacteria.” Dr. Griffen suggests that if the specimen was flash-frozen, they might even be able to briefly revive it.
Finally, by 5 am, all the ice has melted. The group goes to see the specimen which is — surprise! — a mammoth. We are 10 minutes into the episode, and just learning this. There is no big reveal — and God knows SFT loves them some crazy orchestral stingers — so, I think they really did just forget to script that fact earlier.
Despite the all-doctor cast (even the reporter has a PhD), this is not a bright bunch. It is described as “larger than any animal we know now” totally dissing the blue whale. The mammoth, maybe 5 feet tall, is described as being just a year old. [1] OK, but one of the doctors says it will grow to 10 times its current size. Really, like the size of the Cloverfield monster? They actually seemed to top out around 12 feet.
And I assume this brain-trust also designed the equipment. While I appreciate that it is not just a bank of blinking lights, why would the gauges be 7 feet off the ground so you needed a step-ladder or, fortuitously, a mammoth to read them?
They apply a “galvanic shock” to revive the beast. Dr. Griffen has said it could only revive it for a few heartbeats so I don’t know what the point is. After the shock, Dr. Robinson says, “Apply the oxygen”. This is to be done with a standard human-sized face-mask. Which 10% of the beast’s mouth will it cover? Or was it used on the end of its trunk? Sadly, the picture is too dark to tell, because that would have been a hoot. It’s all good, though, as the mammoth leaps to its feet.
30 minutes later, the group is observing the mammoth through a window. Keath and Griffen want to go into the steam-room to take pictures and maybe have a schvitz. Robinson reluctantly agrees. They find the mammoth to be agitated. Aside from being revived from the dead, being yanked from Mammoth-heaven, awakening 400,000 years later to the crushing loneliness of being the only mammoth on earth, and being enclosed in a strange wood-paneled room under florescent lights rarely, if ever, found in nature during the Pliocene epoch, they can find no reason.
Dr. Griffen suggests maybe it misses its mammy. It could be Griffen’s own maternal instinct kicking in. She reveals to Keath that her husband and son were killed in an accident five years earlier, although that might just have been her way of saying she is available. Just to make the beast’s misery complete, they name him Toby.
Toby begins to eat and grow, however. This, despite that fact that the doctors calling him a mammoth is really just fat-shaming. The doctors agree Toby can be released to an open area to live in open air. They hire a driver to take him to a compound where he can live to a ripe old age as long as it is not the Kennedy compound. Dr. Griffen is quite the good sport. Seeing Toby is scared of the trailer he is being hauled in, she rides with him in the tiny trailer. Unfortunately, the truck jack-knifes on the way. Dr. Griffen is found unconscious, but Toby has honorably stayed by her side, not galumphing his fat ass off to lawyer-up and fabricate a laughably transparent lie about the accident to preserve his political viability. [2]
The accident puts Myrna in the hospital, and Tobey is moping around too. Keath visits her in the hospital and sees a newspaper headline TOBY NEAR DEATH. Against doctor’s orders, Myrna leaves the hospital with Keath to see if Tobey is OK. Sadly, Tobey dies seconds after they arrive. Keath suggests Tobey died because he was unloved by another mammoth and uses the opportunity to ask Myrna to dinner.
Meh, more of the same.
Other Stuff:
- [1] Nice oxymoron there: the opposite of a jumbo shrimp = a tiny mammoth.
- [2] When is that freakin’ Chappaquiddick movie coming out? I’ve been hearing about it for months. IMDb says it is a 2017 movie, but it now has a 2018 release date. I smell a conspiracy. Roswell! Roswell! If this is my last post . . .
In which Alfred Hitchcock Presents proves once again that it is just about incapable of turning out a bad episode. Ya got an motor-mouth kid, ya got an extended flashback, ya got a straight drama, ya don’t even get a murder. This feels like a very different type of episode, but they pull it off bigly.
His father comes walking by after his softball game at the park. It is clear that Mr. Kovacs is a hero to his son and respected by Clete. We also learn that Clete will be moving into the city the next day, The boys decide to go to the golf course to make some money by fishing golf balls out of the water hazards.
Iggy wants to tell the cops about Mr. Rose, but Clete is hesitant. He figures the man can go to the police himself, but Iggy knows the man would be too scared. Clete finally agrees — he’s moving tomorrow; what does he care? They go to the police station. When the cops hear Mr. Rose is involved, they are not interested. Iggy says he will tell everyone, including his father. Finally the desk sergeant tells another cop to bring in Mr. Rose for question, and Iggy’s father too. Iggy says to Clete, “Just wait til my pop gets here. He’ll show that cop, and Mr. Rose, too.”
As they are walking home, Iggy shows Clete that Mr. Rose gave him a $10 bill. Clete says that’s a lot of money and “you better give that to your old man or he’ll really jump on you.” Iggy, crushed by his father’s failure says, “You know what I’ll do if my father tries anything? I’ll tell Mr. Rose on him, that’s what! You’ll see!” Iggy repeats “You’ll see!” as he runs down the block past several brownstones while the camera rises high above the street — one of AHP’s best shots (picture at bottom).
A dude is lighting another dude’s cigarette in a bar, and his name is Timothy Bottoms. Thank God I’m woke enough not to make anything of that.
Murrich explains that just like 
Well, they tried something different. I’ll give them credit for that.
He comically hides as if he expects her to shoot him. His goofy character and his serious wife are played so broadly, that this becomes a silent movie. After much pantomiming, she communicates that she wants him to take the rifle and hunt something for dinner.
When it came to pass that the men of the Earth could not make peace among themselves, and so took up arms against one another, the fires of hatred rained down upon the land, laying waste to all that was good and gentle. Those who survived saw death and destruction all around . . . it was called The Great War. And in the days that followed there was more death as a miasma called fallout bore down on the survivors. But even then, the men who had made the Earth a fiery hell saw not the error of their ways. So the Goddess raised her mighty hand, and wrecked vengeance upon them and the men who remained fell victim one by one . . . to the Scourge. The Scourge cleansed the Earth of evil, singling out the men and leaving the women unscathed. And the Goddess saw that the evil was gone and the men were no more, and she unfurled the fingers of her hands and she made a sign of blessing among the females who now inherited the sea and the sky, the land and all its bounty. And when the males of the Earth had vanished, so too did wickedness and war and hatred and the peace and the glory of her kingdom was restored. Let us say “Praise Goddess”.
Maybe some grizzled old veteran could have taught her that The Great War was already used by WWI. Maybe some nerdy, bow-tied English teacher could have told her that she meant wreaked or wrought and not wrecked. Maybe Christopher Hitchens could have suggested that while the invisible man in the sky might be unlikely, arbitrarily changing him to a woman is just Ludcris. But no, those three male-genitalled bastards were just evil, so let’s teach the little girls to laugh at their extinction. Now the virtuous, peaceful women are free to live in a pastoral community, haul carts around like horses, live without electricity, clean clothes on a rock, and shit in a hole.