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Night Visions – Dead Air (07/12/01)

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nvdeadairWe’re immediately on thin ice:  strike one, Henry Rollins.  Strike two, a story about a disc jockey.  DJ stories just never work for me because they always feature programs no sane person would ever listen to the in the free market — like NPR [1].

At least the episode is not pretending this guy is a saint.  Within a minute he has cut off a caller and insulted the station janitor’s wife.  Not that the truth would have been much of a defense, but she actually is kind of cute in a nerd-girl way.  Nadine doesn’t need this crap and she does a quick pivot back out into the rain.

Tom Fallor is working the graveyard shift at KLED.  His gig is to listen to callers’ scary stories and offer his evaluation.  Like anyone cares what this dope thinks of other people’s creative endeavors . . . two . . .three . . . four . . .

His next call is from Laura who is telling her story, but stops to take delivery of a pizza. Coincidentally, a pizza man shows up at the station with a pre-paid-pie from Tasty Mon Pizza. If they offer ganj as a topping, this could be an even better weed/munchies time-management combo than pot brownies.

nvdeadair03He slips his hand in the box and pulls out a slice.  Laura calls back and tells him there is a huge dead rat on the pizza she just received.  He mocks her, but is appalled to find his own pizza also contains a huge dead rat; and anchovies.

Laura continues her call and really creeps Fallor out.  He puts on a little 5th Dimension and grabs his coffee. Unfortunately, he takes his coffee like he takes his plague — black.  OK, that doesn’t quite make sense — I mean he finds another dead rat in his conveniently rat-sized travel cup.  But really, he had it coming — who drinks coffee with pizza?

Fallor decides the rats are the work of the janitor whose gal he insulted.  The janitor proves him wrong by being found hanging by his neck.  He also finds the janitor’s girlfriend with a plastic bag over her head.  He finds that the exterior door is blocked by a car.  I might find this a little more menacing if he had tried calling the police.  Or if he wasn’t working in a place that could broadcast a 50,000 watt 9-1-1 call to thousands of people.

I’m no Don Draper, but wouldn’t it be a better sign for the business if it faced out instead of in?

The killer shows up, and I’m not sure it makes much sense.  It is hard to fairly judge this one because the YouTube video is of such low quality.  Much like Curtains, I don’t know how much better this would have been with a decent print.  My gut feeling is that with a clear picture, this would have been pretty good.  The plot doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny, but as an exercise in suspense it works fine.  Even though DJs are notoriously bad characters, Lou Diamond Philips makes the most of what he is given to work with.

It is only a slight act of faith to say this is the best of the series so far.

Post-Post:

  • [1] I last listened to NPR in 2012.  Just twice, and both times within minutes, they implied Mitt Romney was racist.  It really is a shame — much like the New York Times, NPR is excellent in many ways but so full of intolerance and bias that they are repulsive.  I’ll say this for the New York Times, though — they don’t take my money at the point of a gun.
  • I assume the station call letters KLED were mean to suggest KILLED.  There actually is a KLED in Gillette Wyoming, but it began 11 years after this episode.
  • Henry Rollins closing statement:  “For all you pains in the asses out there. Remember you can only irritate so many people before you piss off the wrong one.” Ooooh, TV-cursing makes you seem so edgy!

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Impromptu Murder (06/22/58)

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Sometimes I kind of feel that way about Alfred Hitchcock Presents — a guy commits a murder and accidentally incriminates himself.  The end.  Episode S3E38, for example.

ahpimpromptu02It is set in 1916, but could be anytime; it is set in England, but could be anywhere; the lead actor is an American, but could have been any nationality; the thief / killer was a lawyer . . . actually, that seems about right.

Solicitor Henry Daw (Hume Cronyn) who is also the Mayor-elect, gets a visit from Miss Wilkinson whom he has not seen in 9 years.  Miss Wilkinson tells Daw’s sister that she must be proud that he was just elected Mayor.  She says she is a little worried about taking on the role of Mayoress.  That’s another trend in AHP — men who are freakishly close to their sister.

Miss W tells Daw that she wishes to withdraw her investments from his management. She has an opportunity to double her money in 6 months due to a business proposition from a Nigerien Prince.  No wait, it’s her brother — it’s AHP, of course his sister is going to be his partner.  Business partner.

Sadly, Daw has spent Miss W’sahpimpromptu03 investment on 18 year old hookers, 20 year old scotch, and wasted the rest (coincidentally, that joke is also from 1916).

The next time we see Daw, he is digging one of those perfect graves that any slob seems to be able to dig on TV.  To AHP’s credit, at least he does break a sweat.  That might be because he dug it while wearing a vest and necktie.  Also the back-breaking digging.

That night, he strangles Miss W, which we witness as shadows on the wall.  He throws her over his shoulder like Jessica Tandy and takes her to the waiting grave.  Daw’s sister is awakened by him going down the stairs, but there is no indication that she witnesses any shenanigans.  Maybe she was just jealous.

ahpimpromptu04After he places Miss W in the grave (off-camera), we see that he has covered her with an exposed cement slab that doesn’t look at all out-of-place is this marshy area alongside the river.  As he is walking away, he seems to realize that he has forgotten something.  He puts a few shovel-fulls of dirt in a bucket, walks to the river, and dumps the dirt in the water.  To be honest, it took me a while to realize we just saw the first iteration of him getting rid of the dirt that Miss W’s body displaced.

To create the illusion that Miss W left on her own, Daw dresses up like a widowed Mulsim Invisible Woman going to work as a beekeeper near a Haz-Mat Facility in the Antarctic with fabric covering every inch of his body, including a scarf around his face. He then takes a carriage to the train station and heads toward Miss W’s home.

ahpimpromptu08During the dedication of a war memorial, a body is spotted floating down the river.  The police believe it could be Miss W and call Daw to identify the body.  Through a merry mix-up, Daw believes he has been caught in a lie and confesses to the murder — only to find that if he had kept his yap shut for 2 more minutes he would have gotten away with it.

Despite feeling a little familiar, another fine outing.  Hume Cronyn, especially, was very good, but then he was a highly regarded actor until he was 112 [1].  I also enjoyed the locations used.  When AHP starts with a title card establishing a non-US location, I always start out with a little dread, but this worked out nicely with great interiors and exteriors.

Post-Post:

  • [1] I see upon further research, he was only 91 when he died.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  David Frankham (“Holsom”) is still alive.  I’m not sure who his character was, and I’m not going back.
  • Title Analysis: Not exactly impromptu.  The murder was planned at least  several hours in advance.  Daw did the all-important prep-work of site-location, digging the hole, creating an intricate alibi, and procuring boots, a shovel and a bucket.
  • Words ending in U — more than you would think.

Twilight Zone S4 – Death Ship (02/07/63)

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tzdeathship4In the year 1997 . . .

We open with a shot of the least inspirationally named spacecraft in history.  Liberty . . . Intrepid . . . Eagle . . . Challenger . . . Enterprise . . . Discovery . . . I give you E-89. However, cruising above “the 13th planet of star system 51,” it seems appropriate.

They are seeking a planet suitable for colonization.  Lt. Mason sees a signal and is excited that they might finally be meeting another race, although another species seems more likely.  Capt. Ross reluctantly agrees to land the ship and check it out.  When they land, they are shocked to look out of the porthole and see a crashed E-89.

They do not need helmets to go investigate, although they do all put on the snazzy astronaut suits.  This is preferable to the aliens landing on earth who always seem to be naked.  They identify it as an Earth ship.

tzdeathship2The interior of the ship is identical to theirs.  So is the crew — 3 dead bodies who look exactly like Ross, Mason and Other Guy.  Mason reaches into the pocket of Dead-Mason and pulls out his ID — were these guys expecting to get carded in space?

They attempt to radio back to Earth Station 1217, and get nothing but static.  Ross proposes that the wrecked E-89 is from a probable future.  A good captain would have said it was a possible future.  He says if they never take off, it is impossible for them to crash.  Of course, the captain has no one waiting for him back on Earth (or Planet 3 as it is probably known then).

Other Guy is mulling their situation when he suddenly finds himself back on Earth.  At his house, he sees his wife’s black hat and black gloves laid out on the bed for her to wear to his funeral; or a bank heist.  He picks up a telegram which announced his death.  Zap — back to the ship.

tzdeathship5Ross and Other Guy then notice that Mason is missing.  As it is 13 below zero outside, he probably didn’t go for a walk.  We see Mason waking up on Earth.  He actually sees his daughter, and later his wife. Somehow Ross intrudes on Mason’s hallucination and orders him back to the ship; then we cut to them struggling on the ship.  If Mason physically disappeared, how did Ross yank him back to the ship?

Ross still denies the obvious.  His new theory is that aliens are controlling their minds. Scaring the crew into not taking off, they prevent Earth from knowing of their existence. Ross says they will go back to Earth.  They take off, making their best G-force faces. Once they are safe from the planet, Ross decides to go back and complete their mission.  Having beaten the aliens at their own game, he expects the wrecked ship to be gone.

In a struggle over the controls, the ship goes out of control.  Mason manages to stabilize it, and they are able to land safely.  Initially, they do not see the wrecked ship.  I was completely suckered in and thought this might be an interesting ending.  However, they look out the back window and see the other E-89.

tzdeathship3Mason tries to convince Ross they are dead, but the Captain just won’t accept their fates.  They are doomed to rinse and repeat this cycle forever.

Another good episode in the often maligned 4th season.  It really succeeds in spite of itself in some ways.  Once they see the wrecked E-89, it is pretty obvious what is going to happen.  The story unfolds along beats familiar to TZ viewers. The ending could have gone a couple of different ways, but I’m a sucker for trapped-in-purgatory stories where people suffer through the same bleak, hellish existence day after day. There is a certain familiarity to them.

While it might have been better at 30 minutes, it did not feel padded out.  The extra time allowed for more character development, and Ross Martin and Jack Klugman made the most of it.  Nice music and camerawork contribute to making this a pretty good episode.

Post-Post:

  • Jack Klugman (Captain Ross) was in 4 Twilight Zones and later in the 2nd greatest sit-com ever.
  • Mary Webster, who played Mason’s wife, disappeared from TV for 30 years, then resurfaced on Senior Jeopardy.  I wonder if she mentioned TZ in the interview segment.

Tales From the Crypt – Well Cooked Hams (11/03/93)

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tftchams1Billy Zane is a magician doing something and his hat catches fire.

If I seem less than thrilled, you are indeed perceptive — maybe it is external influences. There actually are several things to like here. Maybe I’ll just dwell on these rather than unfairly criticizing the episode.

Billy Zane is actually pretty good as the incompetent magician Miles Federman.

His assistant Maryam d’Abo is absolutely beautiful although given too little to do and saddled with a terrible accent — oops sorry, trying to stay positive here.  Her twin blonde replacements are pretty snappy numbers also.

tftchams2The real episode-maker, though, is Martin Sheen playing a role unlike any I’ve ever seen him portray (i.e. not indistinguishable from actor Martin Sheen).  Sheen is unrecognizable as Kraygen — literally, as I did not recognize him (although I finally placed the voice).

The sets are interesting, and the score is fine.  I really don’t know why I was so uninvolved in the episode.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis: Not quite as pathetic as People Who Live in Brass Hearses.  At least half of this one makes sense.
  • Andrew Kevin Walker went on to write Se7en.  So, I’m not about to fault him for my ennui.