Author Archives: don

Outer Limits – The Message (S1E17)

Posted on by
2

olmessage01Marlee Matlin, stretching her acting chops by playing a deaf woman, is “hearing” things despite the failure of her implants . . . no, hearing implants.

The next day, teaching her class of deaf kids, she begins hearing things again.  She frantically begins filling the chalkboard zeroes and ones and X’s.

She is taken to the hospital where she meets Larry Drake.  After playing a retarded mentally-challenged man on LA Law for years, here he is a NASA engineer who fortuitously happens to be working as a janitor in the hospital.  Now that’s stretching your chops.

He identifies her writings as binary code despite the inclusion of lots of X’s.  He runs the code through his computer, and tells her it is a message.  Just as in Contact, it is a Primer for the rest of the message.

After Marlee inputs more code into a handheld device he gives her, he prints out pages that cover an entire wall.  Tracing through the X’s produces the space-porn from the Pioneer 10 spacecraft.  Alongside a picture of the alien.  The big, big alien.

Marlee’s husband gets home from a trip and is not thrilled to see his wife working with Larry on this project.  He also isn’t thrilled that they have put $900 on his credit card for capacitors and other electronic equipment that aliens have asked for.  I don’t know why capacitors were singled out unless the charge was from  Capacitors R Us; or that’s the only electrical component the writer had heard of thanks to Dr. Emmet Brown’s ground-breaking work on the flux capacitor.

She is upset that her husband doesn’t believe her, so goes to Larry’s place where they set up the equipment on his roof as per the alien’s instructions.  While getting an aspirin, she notices that he takes the same anti-psychotic drug they tried to give her.

olmessage06Marlee’s husband finally tracks them down and tries to stop them.  However, they are able to answer the alien’s plea by firing a blast from the space laser into the alien’s solar sail, enabling them to divert the craft from crashing into the sun.

So-so story, but well performed.

Post-Post:

  • This is the 4th episode written by Brad Wright this season.
  • Larry Drake says the message is a palimpsest, but I don’t think he (or Brad Wright) knows what that means.
  • The husband was just kind of annoying here, but was great as Pusher in a couple of X-Files episodes.
  • Larry Drake was last seen in And All Through the House.
  • They seem a lot happier in the original Pioneer rendition:

“You idiot, I told you no one else would be naked.”

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Pedestrian (S3E5)

Posted on by
1

bradbury02In complete contrast to The Wind, this short story is really just a sketch, a thumbnail, and not even the thumbnail.  It is the RBT episode that fleshes out the character and concept.  I’m not sure who to credit for the improvement.  This is the only directing credit for Alun Bollinger, so probably not much attributable to him.  Certainly Bradbury expanded the story for his screenplay.  I think, though, it is David Ogden Stiers who really sells it.  I normally don’t care for him without the Boston accent (like in that really mediocre Star Trek TNG episode), but he is great here.

bbtpedestrian01He has walked to the house of his friend Stockwell.  This is risky and unusual because in the year 2053, street-walking is against the law — I mean literally walking down the streets, not the kind of street-walking that is still prosecuted by fascists in 2014 .

He is dressed all in black and has brought similar clothing to Stockwell.  Stiers reels off Bradbury’s flowery dialogue, and it is the rare occasion that it actually works.  They are giddy as they set out.  Stockwell has never seen dew on the grass, or the over-grown sidewalks.  This despite the fact that the houses do have windows.  Bradbury even gets a laugh out of Stockwell taking a header over a root.

bbtpedestrian03They are soon spotted by a drone Helicopter.  The rest of the episode is basically an interrogation by the drone.  This tracks with the short story except that it is a drone Police Car.

Stiers is grilled on why he is outside.  The drone can’t understand the concept of going for a walk, seeing the sites, or getting some fresh air.  The drone orders Stiers to get in, finally showing that it is not a small drone but was supposed to be a full size helicopter.

The helicopter lifts off and shines a spotlight on Stockwell telling him to  disperse, which unless he is dismembered, I’m not sure is strictly possible.  I think he probably takes the long way home.

bbtpedestrian02Post-Post:

  • I really did think it was a mini-copter drone.  Just turned out to be a sketchy special effect.
  • Hmmm, didn’t realize Michelle Forbes was in that ST:TNG episode in a pre-Ro role.  The presence of Lwaxana Troi is enough to stop me from revisiting it, though.
  • NZ-LOTR Connection: Director was 2nd Unit DP on all 3 movies.
  • Next week: A Sound of Thunder.  If they manage to screw that up . . .

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Vicious Circle (S2E29)

Posted on by
3

Dick York plays young tough Manny Coe . . . well, we can stop right there.  Dick York’s appearance in this role belongs in the Miscasting Hall of Fame.  When he walks in to the gangsta’s apartment and pulls a gun on him, the incongruity between that act and his gaunt boyish mug, pencil-neck, reedy voice, and loosely-hanging leather jacket is absurd.  There is a reason Dick York was cast as the panicky husband in Bewitched — he is not a bundle of confidence and gravitas.  This is like the time George-Michael bought the leather jacket on Arrested Development.

He calmly shoots the gangsta, Boss William’s former deputy who has botched a heist.  His girlfriend sees the murder in the paper and asks him about it.  He says he hasn’t killed anybody.  He lays her down and starts kissing her, no more convincing in this scene than the last.  Of course, how he bagged Samantha on Bewitched was also a great TV mystery of LOSTian proportions.  She wants him to get out of “da life” and get a real job, away from Mr. Williams.

ahpviscious03York storms out of the apartment and sees Russell Johnson on the stoop playing a harmonica — another huge casting blunder.  Like York, he would later go on to a role that he portrayed to perfection, the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.  But here playing a hipster named Turk, saying “man”, it just doesn’t work.

York goes to Boss William’s penthouse and is offered the job as the boss’s new deputy.  Strangely, during the interview, York pours some liquid into a tiny glass too small for a demitasse, or a shot, or even a demi-shot.  He hands it to Williams who uses it as an eyewash.  Hunh?  Maybe whatever he was doing was commonplace in the 50’s.  And, oh by the way, he tells York that his girlfriend must be killed.

Seems Williams fears Betty is a rat, and all rats have to suck the pipe (in the words of Dennis Miller).  Sadly, Williams is being 100% figurative.  A mere 50% figurative would have been a treat for York.  He gets as far as pulling a gun on her, but can’t pull the trigger.  She swats the gun away and runs away.  Unfortunately, she is hit by a car and killed.  Williams compliments York on making the death look like an accident.

1950's booty call.

1950’s booty call.

Unfortunately, York is not so lucky on his next assignment and botches the job.  Soon he has a visitor at his apartment — a short, even younger kid with ambition and an ill-fitting leather jacket.  At least this kid seems to have a short-man’s complex chip on his shoulder, so he is slightly more menacing.  You know, in that silly short-man way.

Hence the titular Vicious Circle.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Only Kathleen Hughes and Mickey Kuhn are still with us.
  • Based on the eyewashes and dark glasses, I diagnose Boss Williams as having conjunctivitis aka pink eye.  I appreciate that it was part pf the scene, but was never commented on.  This is not Chekhov’s Eyewash.

Night Gallery – They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar (S1E6)

Posted on by
2

nightgallery01This was considered by most to be the high point for Night Gallery.

It is after 3 pm and Sales Director Randy Lane is not back from lunch.  His ambitious worm of an assistant Harvey Doane suggests that he might be out drinking.  When the owner Mr. Pritkin needs some info, Doane jumps in and throws Lane under the bus.

Lane’s secretary Lynn tries to cover for him.  She mentions today is Lane’s 25th anniversary with the firm, so he might be at lunch celebrating.  At 3:05, he finally rolls in, drunk and disheveled.  He spent the last hour standing on the sidewalk looking at the shuttered Tim Riley’s Bar.  How he got drunk standing on the sidewalk is not mentioned.

He gets very nostalgic about the bar which will soon be gone with no one to remember it with flowery speeches about the war and rumple seats.  After work, he goes back to the closed bar and reminisces with a beat cop about the old days after the war when they were young.  After the cop leaves, Lane has his first hallucination, of a celebration in the bar when he returned from the war.

ngriley01The speechifying goes on a little long as Serling has always done, but the performances make the show.  There is really no horror or shock to be found in the episode.  I’d have to call it good for what it is.  It just isn’t what I’m looking for in Night Gallery.

William Windom is great as Randy Lane.  Diane Baker was also great as Lane’s secretary.  She was completely convincing in her support for Lane; also pretty hot, reminding me of a young sexier Kate Mulgrew.

Post-Post:

  • This episode also contained a short called The Last Laurel starring Jack Cassidy.
  • This episode was nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Single Program of the Year.  It was beaten by The Andersonville Trial, also starring Jack Cassidy.
  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  William Windom and Henry Beckman were each in two episodes.
  • Mr. Pritkin played George Costanza’s father in one episode of Seinfeld before being replaced by Jerry Stiller.
  • Don Taylor also directed Escape From the Planet of the Apes, and The Final Countdown.

Nothing going on here. I just liked the shot.