“Hey, it’s April 1st. I saw this cartoon about a cow who rang the farmer’s doorbell then ran away. You should totally try that, Frank!” **
The episode begins with a nice switcheroo. We see a farm with cows wandering around, mooing about their day. The camera then pans down through through untold yards of earth, the first couple feet of which are probably cow-shit. We arrive in a underground hallway immediately identifiable as a secret government installation by the stark design and florescent lighting. [1] Mr. Brown tells the visiting brass that his test subjects are “just like you and me, except that they have this special skill — this ability to move things with their minds.” Yeah, except for that. And also except that they look like Harry Hamlin and Nicole de Boer.
Mr. Brown takes them to lab 507. Four people are sitting at a round electronic console which helps channel their telekinetic abilities. Brown orders them to crush a cement block sitting on the console. They make the block explode, which is amazing because: 1) they used only the power of their minds, 2) they created a fiery explosion from a dry cement block, and 3) the blast two feet from their faces did not land a speck of dust on them. Based on their success, the military gives them the job to assassinate some blockhead in Serbia.
Well, wait a darn minute — when I dropped out of modelling school to take a job with a secret military outfit working in a cold-war bunker funded by the Pentagon covertly located 200 feet underground to move stuff with my mind, I didn’t expect this. Mr. Brown tries to convince Harry and Nicole that this Serbian is a really bad guy. The other two subjects, Roger and Louise, clearly did not get by on their looks. No disrespect, I just mean they were smart enough to see where this experiment was heading.
Nicole wants to go home, but Mr. Brown will not allow her to leave. He suggests she and Harry just take the elevator up for a walk “to get some fresh air.” Although that seems unlikely, as they are still situated under that cow farm. Actually, Harry is more pragmatic than Nicole. Not only does he accept that this assassination could prevent thousands of deaths, he also didn’t wear his good shoes for their walk.
Nicole reveals that she only got into this because of her brother Dougie is a druggie (did they do that on purpose?). He was in jail and Mr. Brown said if Nicole joined the project, he could get Dougie released at the public’s risk, and a bottomless pension also at the public’s expense. Harry had some shady business dealings that forced him the join the project.
Well, well, well, the idealistic Nicole decides keeping her brother out of jail is worth the cold-blooded murder of a foreigner (and an American to be named later who Dougie will probably kill). The group assembles, and by executive order takes aim at some commie. They warm up by creating a breeze where he is dining al fresco, then shattering his tea-cup. Then they give him a heart-attack. And it must be a bad one because the actor hams it up like Fred Sanford or Ralph Kramden.
Nicole begins having side effects. She gets nosebleeds, emits static electricity, and seems to involuntarily mind-throw a pot of hot coffee at Roger. When Louise is found dead, Brown suspects Nicole. Just then some roaring beast begins pounding on the vault-like door. It is so ferocious that when it claws at the 6-inch thick steel door, we see the scratch-outlines on the inside — C’mon! When it tries to pound its way in, the group runs out the other exit — like all super-secret, secure areas, it has a back door. When they are safe, Brown tells them all to calm down. As they do so, the sounds from the titular monster subside. Temporarily.
The group hides in the generator room hoping the electrical field will protect them from the monster created by their thoughts. Not so much, as the monster finally appears as a large angry cloud. It scoops up Roger and kills him. Nicole has sudden new-found respect for the 2nd Amendment and screams for Mr. Brown to shoot it . . . shoot the cloud, I say. She wants him to kill the gaseous energy field . . . by shooting it. Meh, worth a try. He shoots at it, and the army also shows up to shoot at it, but they are all killed. Harry and Nicole try to escape, but are cornered.
And then Outer Limits fools me. Nicole begs Harry to kill her. It is apparently her mind creating the entity and she doesn’t know how to stop it. Even Mr. Brown had said she had to be killed. As she begs Harry to turn the gun on her, the typical OL response would be for him to tell Nicole he loves her and let love vanquish the monster just as mere calmness had subdued it earlier.
But, naw, he shoots her. Just f***ing blows her away. But the monster does not disappear. Harry delivers a line that I always love hearing in any horror / sc-fi situation like this, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Just a hoot — why don’t we hear that more?
Much as I love to be surprised, I’m not sure the ending they went with makes sense. He sadly admits to the shockingly not-dead Mr. Brown, “I’m the one who made it happen, and I let her think that she was the problem. But I hated this more than she did. I hated myself for being a part of it. I hated all the killing I had done in the past . . . I am the monster, goo-goo-ga-joob.”
Soooooo . . . Harry 1) knew he was the monster, and 2) hated the killing. Ergo, he 1) shot someone he knew was not the monster, and 2) killed her. And the “You’ve got to be kidding me!” line becomes nonsensical since he said it only to himself.
He ultimately does the right thing, but I think he could have done it before the death of a really cute girl . . . and, I guess, the other four people in the project and countless soldiers. Or, at least, after the other four people in the project and countless soldiers, but before the cutie.
Still, another fine episode. The special effects are pretty bad, but I never deduct points for that. Harry Hamlin was as good as I’ve ever seen him. Everyone else also performed well. Except the commie having the heart-attack . . . Lizbeth! [2]
April Fools! Will try to start again in May.
Other Stuff:
- [1] To be fair, it appears to be the base of a civilian contractor.
- [2] Apologies to the estate of Redd Foxx. His portrayal of cardiac arrest was much more accurate than the one here.